In the "Sailors confess" series, we confess our stupidest sailing mistakes. But we are also looking forward to your confession. Send us your text, if possible with pictures, to mail@yacht.dekeyword "sailor's confession". If desired, publication will be anonymised.
In the summer semester of 1978, I had the opportunity to work as a skipper for a charter company in Greece for six weeks. My second trip was to sail a 15 metre staysail schooner with a berth charter crew to Skiathos in the northern Sporades, where another group was to take over.
As the main mating season is over in mid-September, I didn't expect to have to be bumping along all the time. I knew all the pros and cons of the boat, as it used to belong to my father and we used to go on long trips during the summer holidays. As was usual in the days before GPS and chart plotters, navigation consisted mainly of a paper chart, compass and log. There was also supposed to be a daily weather report in English, but I was never able to find out the broadcast time and frequency.
Of the charter guests, I only knew that three Dutch women had signed up. Among them was an employee of a travel agency that organised berth charters and was there to test the offer. There was also a couple and two individual bookers. It was not known who had sailing experience. Experience also had to show whether the fellow sailors would harmonise with each other.
After a first overnight stay in Hydra, we set off for Korissa on Kea in a backstay breeze under genoa, gollywobbler and mainsail at eight to nine knots. Although they were not yet a well-rehearsed crew, all the sailing, mooring and casting off manoeuvres had worked perfectly. There were also no tensions between them.
A chain of events is set in motion
The next port of call was Gavrion on Andros, which is only about 25 nautical miles away. The southerly wind had shifted to the south-east overnight and with a north-easterly course, we could expect half or even a little stern wind. However, the wind was gustier than on the previous day and the sky looked set to deteriorate. Therefore, only the jib, mainsail and mainsail were set. The jib and the fischermann staysail remained down.
As the main staysail had not been set on the first two days, I only now realised that a seam on the leech had torn. This had happened several times before and the tear hadn't got any bigger, even though the leech was no longer full, but was killing slightly. Once we had left the shore protection, the three sails we had set proved to be sufficient, especially as a dark wall of cloud was building up to windward, promising rain and stronger winds. The wind soon picked up and we reached speeds of eight to nine knots in places. Whenever the boat slipped into a wave trough, the water shot through the gap between the deck and the bulwark. Due to the high speed, it was pushed aft on deck and rose almost to the level of the cockpit coaming.
A lot comes together
A board that served as a gangway was stowed on the port bulwark and lashed to the railing supports. Every time the boat entered a wave trough, this board floated up and threatened to be torn away and therefore had to be additionally lashed down. When crew member Hans-Jürgen secured it with a line, he had to work on his knees on the deck between the bulwark and the superstructure. Whenever the water shot out from under the bulwark onto the deck, he was half covered in white water.
In the meantime, a torrential downpour had set in, which reduced visibility to what felt like a hundred metres. In addition, it continued to bristle up so that we had too much sail area and had to reef the mainsail, which had a patent furling system.
As the main boom protruded over the stern, the mainsheet was not attached to the nock but to a sheet trolley. This was secured to the nock with a safety line so that it could not slide forwards on the boom. This safety line was routed incorrectly and was wound around the main boom when the sail was furled. As a result, reefing was no longer possible after one and a half turns.
In order to clear the caution line, the boom almost had to be taken amidships and one or perhaps two people would have had to climb onto the stern davit. However, this was too risky given the wind forces and the violent movements of the ship, so the mainsail had to be recovered. In the strong wind and especially in the gusts, the leech of the main staysail was so badly damaged at the faulty seam that it tore further. To prevent further damage to the sail, the mainsail also had to be recovered.
Weighing up the options
We were now only sailing under jib. However, it was now blowing so strongly that the boat kept accelerating to hull speed. The sail area was still too large, especially in the gusts, and it would actually have been necessary to recover the jib and set the smaller jib. But in these weather conditions I couldn't expect any of my fellow sailors to climb onto the bowsprit; I would have had to do it myself. In this case, however, someone else would have had to take the helm and I didn't know who I could trust to do this.
Recovering the jib, tying up the sail and setting the jib would certainly have taken ten minutes. During this time, it would have been unclear whether it would have been possible to just run off the top and rigging or whether the boat would have lost speed and no longer obeyed the rudder and would have been lying across the sea. In both cases, the rolling motion would have been extreme without the supporting sails. If the boat had been leaning across the wind, there would have been a risk that one or two seas would have entered the water before the drift was great enough to form a bubble track to windward. Therefore, for better or worse, the jib had to remain set, although I was worried that something, even the schooner mast, could have broken. Although the trip was almost half a century ago, I can still clearly see the image of the schooner mast with the jib full to bursting point.
Where are we actually?
Despite the long keel and the forward centre of gravity, as only the jib was set, the boat yawed strongly to both sides and I wasn't sure how well I could hold my course. I had also lost all sense of time due to the various manoeuvres and answered the question of when we would arrive in Andros with: "probably another two hours". Annemieke, who was standing below deck at the chart table, only said that according to the log, which could not be read on deck, we had almost completed the distance of 25 nautical miles. Visibility was still very limited and I could hardly see anything through my salt-encrusted glasses.
Everyone was looking ahead with anticipation until Hans-Jürgen suddenly said he had seen something like land off the starboard bow. After my glasses had been cleaned in the galley with south water, I could also see a strip of coastline with two offshore islands about a nautical mile away below the cloud cover. Annemieke confirmed to me that the chart showed two islands off the entrance to Gavrion.
However, to make absolutely sure that offshore islands were not also present on other parts of the coast, I asked Annemieke to show me the map on the bridge deck at the front end of the cockpit without it getting wet or blowing away. With the help of many hands, we managed to do this: we were still on course and were just outside the harbour. If we had been too far to the east, it would have been no problem to drop off to reach the harbour. A westerly position would have made it difficult to sail higher upwind, as the sail area would have been too large for the wind. Motoring against the wind would not have been a solution either, as the boat would probably have got stuck, as I knew from experience. If we had sailed any further west, we might even have been in the strait between Andros and Euboea without realising it because of the poor visibility. In that case, we would have been in for a very uncomfortable night's sailing, as there would have been no other harbour nearby.
It was clear to see how the tension was easing. Fortunately, the downpour slowly turned into normal rain and the wind died down a little. The engine started straight away and recovering the jib was no longer a major problem.
This short stormy trip taught me, no matter how well I know a boat, to always check all sails for damage before a trip and to check the running rigging for functionality. I can't remember how strong the wind actually was, as the logbook remained on board.
