Gee's Sailing Diaries: Part 4

Feathered Friends

There's a reason we don't carry a mirror on board. And it turns out it's the same reason we don't carry a thermometer either...

The sea was a deep, royal blue that shimmered in the light. The sea state had been largely calm and kind to us since we left port and cleared customs in Mackay, leaving Australia. The sun, however, had been a different matter entirely. A parting comment I made to my friends as I prepared to leave Airlie Beach was that, as a physicist, I know that time slows near a black hole. Well, on CV21, we very quickly lost track of time. Whilst racing, there is a lot of focus on the present and, when it comes to weather (and navigation in particular), we saw no further than the next 24 to 48 hours. Being in a three-watch system, I found that I exaggerated this even further. In our watches of 5 to 6 people, we rotated through standby watch, on watch and off watch. Only half of the full watch (so 2 or 3 people) are on standby at any point, meaning that after every other watch, you get a double-off watch. This is what we referred to as our ‘long sleep’, with the sleep before a standby watch being referred to as our ‘short sleep’. The benefits of this are that it keeps people fresh by giving them an opportunity to have at least one block of 6 hours of continuous rest every 24 hours. It also means that we evenly share out the ‘challenging watch times’ and standby duties (which don't just include on-deck support but also include all communal cooking and cleaning) across all three watches more evenly. During the first week, the midday watches were unanimously agreed to be the worst, due to the blistering heat and inescapable sunshine. Along with a well-equipped kitchen, although there are two very basic toilets on board (or 'heads' as they are known to sailors), there was no shower and no opportunity for a swim. Not least because of the dangers that lurk beneath, but also because of the fact that we were, indeed, racing. So it was wet-wipe washes and, on occasion, washing underwear in the sink by hand. For a month. Across the equator.

I had the pleasure of helming (steering) at night under both a full moon and the watchful eye of a Tern (bird) that we affectionately named Claude (because what else do you discuss whilst stuck on a boat together for a month?). Claude spent maybe ten minutes practically sitting on my left shoulder, on the helming cage, catching a break and keeping a watchful eye over my steerage. I felt grateful that Claude felt safe enough to join me and, despite communication issues, I like to think that we both appreciated the moment, albeit likely for different reasons. I imagined what it must be like from Claude's point of view to observe us as an outsider. Through the eyes of Claude, one may have seen some similarities in the behaviour of the crew of CV21 to that of domestic pets and, in particular, the common house cat. We may not have been seeking out sun puddles to collectively lie in but we were collectively (and very actively) seeking out shade puddles. This was prime real estate on the boat, during the midday sun in particular, and occasionally looked like a game of sardines as crew members tested out the best spots to keep cool throughout the day. It was often quiet and peaceful when it was light. It was too hot to do anything else other than rest and keep up with necessary duties. At dawn and dusk, however, we tended to come more alive. The temperature cooled just enough, the sky burned brightly and music and chatter started to fill the air both on deck and below. We enjoyed the cooler temperatures and the night gave us a greater focus on racing. It had been nice to be able to see some of the fleet on our horizon around us and aim to either increase or decrease the distance between boats accordingly. We were very conscious that this was just the start of a long race to Vietnam and that soon the small pleasure of being able to see the few other people that are sharing this experience alongside us would be just a memory.

In those moments, my life outside the boat was, too, mostly just memories. Memories of home. Memories of a life before. All whilst days of sailing were merging into one. The small matter of tropical cyclone Kirrily, which had kept us in port longer than expected and delayed our race start by five days, seemed like a lifetime away from the gentle winds that I could feel flowing through the boat during that first week offshore. And I wondered if it's true of all communities that there are certain roles that are filled by individuals regardless of what the purpose of the group is. To name a couple of examples, Anita was our wonderful mother hen. She ensured we were all well fed as part of her victualling duties but also in the way she subtly took care of us, like encouraging us to find shade, drink plenty and make sure we had enough sun cream on. David and Steve M seemed to me like the father figures of the boat; some gentle ribbing and banter alongside a lot of kind and considered guidance to help us all grow and get to where we needed to be. For me, Richard assumed the sibling status. We were on standby watch together and therefore spent a lot of time in each other's company with little else to distract us. He was kind and very quickly felt familiar, despite having an old injury flare-up. Similarly, it was lovely to unashamedly and without judgment watch three trashy films back-to-back with Katie whilst we were holed up in Airlie Beach together, sheltering from the cyclone. My social battery was feeling pretty depleted at that point after galivanting around New Zealand and Australia already and, as a neurodivergent, I was conscious of how this might come across to the crew. But I needn’t have worried.

Thankfully, as a crew, they had developed a special culture on board. You hear stories of boats not gelling very well and of people attempting to avoid each other under such cramped and often dangerous or critical situations. I felt nothing but fortunate. My crew were extremely understanding and respectful without question. The whole boat seemed to acknowledge and intrinsically know when an individual needed space or bringing into the fold. Anne was sharing her yoga practice with us to ensure we stayed supple and loose enough to carry out the physically demanding day-to-day. As a freediver in his spare time, John had been teaching us how to breathe better. Everyone had something new to bring to the table. Not only had I learned a new vocabulary of sailing terms, new knots to tie, how to predict weather patterns based on the sky and sea, a level of offshore navigating, how to sail and to a degree, maintain a boat, but I had also suddenly gained a new bunch of friends and a whole host of other life skills to add to it. Sailing offshore, everybody has a role to play and, without them, we would struggle to function at the level needed to race. We are all learning, each and every day. And there is a level of understanding of this that I’m not entirely sure I’ve yet seen anywhere else. We made decisions together out of necessity but also because it was important to us for everyone to have a voice and to understand why so that they could carry out their job to the best of their abilities. Because context is key. CV21 inherently requires a whole crew to function properly and the crew heard that message loud and clear.

Banning mirrors and thermometers also made our lives a little easier. We chose not to place a thermometer on board so that we could never actually know quite how hot (or cold!) it would get below deck. There's a big difference mentally between 25 and 35 degrees and if we could remove that unnecessary worry - because ultimately there was nothing we could do about the temperature - then the more we could focus on racing and our own wellbeing. Similarly with a mirror. We were literally all in the same boat, hundreds of miles offshore, with no opportunity to shower or properly wash our clothes. There was no reason to care what we looked like and nothing we could do about it anyway. Plus, I'm not sure any of us really wanted to know how dishevelled we appeared when we were living life at a 40-degree angle for weeks on end!