MIKE GOLDING

RECALLING LANDFALL IN NEWFOUNDLAND USING NOTHING BUT AN RDF SIGNAL DECODED WITH THE AID OF A STICKER ON THE SIDE OF THE HANDSET

In 1988 I took part in my first solo race across the Atlantic from Plymouth to Newport, Rhode Island. The Carlsberg Single-handed Transatlantic Race (CSTAR) was, like the Vendée Globe today, the inspirational short-handed offshore event of its time.

My 28ft Stripling trimaran, Gazelle, had demonstrated a good turn of speed in the previous Round Britain and Ireland Race but until now had never crossed an ocean.

I reached the Grand Banks just 10 days after the start of the race – a pleasant surprise. But, after 10 days of tough North Atlantic upwind sailing, it was less of a surprise that Gazelle’s structure had developed some, well… symptoms.

By far the worst of these was a very large (and moving) crack right around the port beam/float connection. The float was flooding and needed continuous bailing. I soon realised that the only thing preventing the float from detaching completely was the cap shroud which, unusually on a trimaran, was attached to the float’s hull rather than the beam. So, for as long as the mast stayed up, the float would remain fundamentally connected.

It was clear my competitive race was over and I needed to find a port to repair so I could make my way to the Newport finish at a slower pace.

Gazelle was, by far, the wettest boat I have ever sailed. Every single thing on board was, by now, soaking: clothes; charts; sleeping bags; and, worst of all, every single lighter and match. In order to light the cooker I was reduced to shorting out the battery to create a spark so I could light the residual gas in the soggy lighters – and so the burner. Then, huddled over the stove, I would do a big boil up, eat huge meals and drink back-to-back coffees.

Sitting with one of those coffees and a limp, large scale Admiralty chart on my lap, I realised that it had been four days since my last (astro) position fix. I’d been running entirely on estimated position, which was fine while I was still offshore, but given I needed to make landfall it was becoming something of a priority to fix my position more certainly.

There was no prospect of using the sextant as there’d

been no sign of clear sky since I’d arrived in the freezing Labrador Current over the Grand Banks. I also knew I might well be sailing around among icebergs but, so far, I had seen nothing as fog enveloped everything.

In 1988, GPS and radar did not exist for small yachts and, as was quite normal at that time, I had no communication other than a VHF radio. My mini shortwave receiver had delivered nothing since Radio 4 had gone out of range after the Isles of Scilly.

I had a copy of Reeds North American Pilot which, I thought, would have all the radio frequencies and detailed port entry information along my route. However, looking now, I realised to my horror that the information in the book stopped at Nova Scotia, well to my west.

Necessity, as they say, is the mother of invention so, by randomly tuning through frequencies on my trusty Lokata radio direction finder, I eventually picked up a single Morse signal from roughly the direction of Newfoundland, decoding it with the sticker on the side of the handset. CR… CR… CR – surely it had to be the beacon at Cape Race on the southern headland of Newfoundland?

By dint of this single line of position, then a sequence of poorly crossing running fixes – still all in fog – I homed in on St John’s harbour over the next two days. Tentatively, I closed the coast, following lines of soundings to cross check my position against charted soundings.

My eyes ached from staring uselessly into fog and I hardly blinked over the last few miles as we closed the shore. Birds appeared nearby and wafts of heather indicated that I was close.

Then came the boom and crash of waves hitting the shore. Imperceptibly at first, the fog in front of Gazelle darkened and the shape of land loomed ahead and, worryingly, above. I was very close.

I’d not expected cliffs but that surprise turned to relief as, almost directly on my track, I could make out the

300m wide steep-sided entrance to St John’s a few hundred metres ahead. I have never felt such an overwhelming sense of navigational achievement than that arrival in St John’s harbour entrance.

While GPS and the many other aids we today just take for granted have turned real navigation into an administrative process, it’s good to know, in the back of your mind, what is possible with so much less.

‘MY EYES ACHED FROM STARING INTO FOG’