Mike Golding

HOW RAINFOREST DEBRIS MIXED IN WITH NETS AND PLASTIC WASTE ENTRAPPED A PAIR OF UNSUSPECTING DOUBLE-HANDED OCEAN RACERS

Down below, I was taking off my wet weather gear, listening to the comforting thunder of our IMOCA 60 Team Group 4 surfing at 20 knots. In an instant, I found myself crashing forward into the keel bulkhead. It seemed we’d hit a wall of custard. There was no definitive impact, just a sickening deceleration, accompanied by a horrific cracking and grating noise, and then silence.

My co-skipper, Ed Danby, and I were 700 miles from Cartagena, Colombia, and the finish of the 1999 Transat Jacques Vabre. So far the Caribbean Sea had produced some amazing sailing and this night should have been no different. It was warm, overcast and the visibility was good. With very little traffic and over 100 miles from the coast of Venezuela, we were expecting another quiet night.

Struggling back into my foulies, the first thing that stuck me on deck was the increase in wind. Minutes earlier, the apparent wind had been a gentle 10-12 knots. Now it was twice that. Team Group 4 was completely stationary, held fast in the ocean with her biggest sailplan fully flying. The apparent wind was threatening to break... well, many things.

Ed eased the mainsheet. The sail pressed hard onto the cap shrouds. The lightweight spinnaker was still full but on the ragged edge of exploding. Easing the spinnaker sheet released the pressure but now the poor sail was going to flog itself to destruction. Amazingly, given the increased wind and with both of us hanging off the down line and some grinding at the mast, we got the sail safe and, at last, were able to take stock of our bizarre predicament.

Shining the spotlight around, Team Group 4 was sitting on the top and at the centre of an island of 70m circumference filled with branches, sticks, leaves and seaweed, all interspersed with fishing gear, nets and floats, together with a whole variety of other plastic waste. Looking behind I could see three large incisions where the rudders and keel had sliced their way through.

For all of our combined sailing miles, Ed and I had never seen anything like this. Having established that the hull was not holed (or apparently even damaged) we scratched our heads and began thinking of how to free ourselves. Like so many sailing problems, a bad situation could so easily become much worse if we made just one bad choice.

With the wind dead behind us, it was the still-filled mainsail that was keeping us in place; taking the sail down would release the pressure. Tentatively, we eased the halyard a few inches but the carbon battens instantly folded alarmingly around the cap shroud. If we continued then every single batten was going to break. Tensioning the halyard again, we scratched our heads some more. We were still racing. We needed all the sails and using the sealed motor was not an option. As we pontificated, we noticed the entire island had rotated a few degrees. It seemed as if the boat’s keel and rudders were keyed into the island and the mainsail was providing the torque to spin what must have been the many tonnes of debris.

To encourage this process we began slowly sheeting the mainsail in. Sure enough we continued to rotate, and every minute or so we squeezed on a little more sheet. I don’t think we’d really thought through how this was all going to pan out but, having been stationary for more than 20 minutes, any change of circumstance seemed good.

Eventually we reached an angle where we could ease the mainsail and even begin to push the boom (like an Oppy) so the boat started to back down and out through the slots. Slowly, then quicker, Team Group 4 reversed the 15m or so needed to reach open water. Putting the helm over we executed a slick three-point turn to re-join our race.

This was not a human-made island of waste but an entirely natural occurrence. During the dry season, debris from the rainforest gathers along the shallows of the great rivers such as the Amazon and Orinoco. When the rainy season floods the river plain, clumps of debris are released en masse before heading out to sea. Along the way they collect manmade refuse, which further binds them.

I’ve seen smaller versions in the Tropics acting as micro environments for marine life. These attract a multitude of creatures which, in turn, become a source of food for larger animals such as seabirds or sharks. While the sticks and leaves are safe, entangled plastic or fishing gear will easily trap animals or be mistaken for food, to devastating effect. Eventually they do break up but if you’re sailing in the Caribbean at certain times of year, don’t be surprised if you stop unexpectedly in the night!

‘WE WERE STUCK IN AN ISLAND OF DEBRIS’