MIKE GOLDING
LOOKING BACK 25 YEARS AFTER FIRST LEADING AN AMATEUR CREW WESTABOUT THE WORLD, MIKE RECALLS ROUNDING CAPE HORN
Even a Morris Minor will do 100mph if you push it off a cliff!” joked John Chittenden, the winning skipper of Chay Blyth’s British Steel Challenge in 1992/3.
Approaching Cape Horn, there was a palpable change of mood aboard my boat, Group 4. The Challenge Race, like the Clipper Race today, was crewed by amateur sailors from all walks of life and, being the first event of its kind, there were many unknowns. We were pioneers, racing westabout across the Southern Ocean against the prevailing winds and currents.
In the building 50+ knot storm we pressed our 40 tonne Challenge 67 harder than ever, carving a deep groove through the ocean. Sailing on starboard gybe, with a poled out yankee, a staysail set across the boat and a reefed mainsail, we were on a mission to catch up with the fleet, which had sailed away from us when we fell foul of the first of several rigging failures that affected the new one-design fleet. Having stopped in Brazil to repair, we were now hundreds of miles behind the leaders. This easterly storm was a gift, enabling us to catch the pack who were now slogging upwind in another weather system to the west.
We passed a mile from Cape Horn lighthouse and on the VHF I spoke with British yachting journalist Barry Pickthall, who was stationed in the tower hoping to secure images of us as we speared westward into the Southern Ocean. As we arrived, the light was failing and the weather worsening, there was no prospect of it.
I had watched our crew become increasingly edgy as we neared Cape Horn. For the past year during training they had wound each other up with horror stories from the Southern Ocean and, specifically, rounding Cape Horn. It seemed as if those fears were about to be realised. We were on an unstoppable train, strapped in for a wild ride.
On deck it was now fully dark. The low cloud scraped the top of the mast and everything in between was filled with spume. I switched the deck lights on and came on deck. There was a massive rooster tail behind the boat. Looking forward, it was as if we were surfing through a pipe. On the surfs, our bow wave rose vertically to the height of the spreaders. It was awe-inspiring and terrifying.
The crew hunkered down to their tasks, focused on life in the moment not dwelling on where we were heading. The watches were in good rhythm and the healthy banter told me that everyone was dealing with it – a collective mission to recoup our loss kept everyone motivated.
Group 4 resonated, shaking and vibrating in a way that a steel 40 tonne yacht just shouldn’t. The barometer bottomed out; the front and therefore the expected wind shift was upon us. We needed to gybe but at that very moment the boat took off down a wave, shuddering and straining. All I could see from the hatch was the entire cockpit crew laying fore and aft on the cockpit sole. Someone was shouting: “What’s happening?”
The helmsman hunkered down in the well behind the wheel. I’m pretty sure his eyes were squeezed tight shut. We survived again and, after a complicated, scary but otherwise uneventful gybe, the watch changed over and a bedraggled group of weary people raced below to shed their foulies and vanish to the perceived safety of a bunk.
Only Donald hung back, gently sliding in alongside me at the chart table as I checked our new track. A successful Welsh businessman with a colourful past, Don was short, rotund and not in the least like a typical sailor. He had always been his own boss and was, in his own way, as tough as nails. Being led into the unknown by a 30-something was hard for him. That night, like many of us, he was just plain scared.
Ensuring that no one was in earshot, he said to me very softly: “Mike? Is this totally normal?” Don knew full well that this was also my first time at Cape Horn, my first time leading a sailing team and seeing these conditions.
“Of course Don,” I replied. “We’re just fine. This will settle down and you’ll probably even get used to it.” I said.
This was not the first, nor the last, ‘untruth’ of my Challenge races, but it was, without question, the most memorable. Among the bedlam, Donald toddled forward to the heads and, looking down the red-lit companionway, I could see the privacy curtain twitching as he struggled through his ablutions. What surprised me the most that night is that when he reappeared, heading towards his bunk, he was wearing a full set of pyjamas.
Such confidence!
‘WE WERE ON AN UNSTOPPABLE, WILD TRAIN RIDE’