FORCE 12 IN A 36-FOOTER
Mark Slats describes sailing through the most devastating Southern Ocean storm of the race on 20 September:
“First you get the north-westerly winds, and it goes up to 50 knots, 55, maybe gusting 60, but I was still sailing really fast and going good.
“Then the front comes over, and within two minutes it’s a southwesterly and it builds up to maybe 20-30% more than it was before.
“This time, I had the middle of the low pressure on top of me so my barometer went from 1010mb to 968 in five or six hours – I was looking at it thinking: is this real? I made a safety call to Don. He told me to get prepared for 70-80 knots.
“Then a big wave smashed the back of the boat, and took the sprayhood off, broke the door, the windvane, and it just filled the boat up with water to above the chart table.
“The boat went on its side, and kind of stayed there because there was so much water inside, at an angle of about 30-40°. I had no steering, but I had to prioritise, get the water out of the boat first.
“When the water was under control and I thought the electric pumps
would catch up, I went outside and began handsteering. I got very violently thrown overboard in a big knockdown, but the boat came back up and I got thrown back into the cockpit, all within 20 seconds – boom, boom!
“I said to myself this is not safe, so I threw lines out the back of the boat, so the boat would stay with the stern to the waves, still with the storm jib up, and went to fix the wind vane.
“Once I’d put the wind vane on, I immediately knew that it was doing a much better job than I had. It was dark, it was the middle of the night, you’re sitting behind the wheel and you hear one wave breaking on the starboard side and one on port, and you’re just waiting for the next one to break right on top of you.
“After that I had another four or five storms in the race, but they were all never more than 50 or 60 knots.
“You can have these storms that are just great, you know? Everything is just on the edge of control, and you’re in the middle of nowhere.
“I love that feeling, pushing everything to the maximum.”