September 1986

During the fall of 1986, Pacific Yachting published a four part series of my trip.

PACIFIC YACHTING September 1986

Once upon a time, a Victoria sailor set off on a singlehanded circumnavigation...

By Peter Freeman

The swift current carried me past black rocks piercing the night sky. By the starlight I could see the swirling eddies spinning Laivina slowly around in the whispering breezes as we shot out into the Juan de Fuca Strait. I felt divorced from the reality of the situation I was now in. Just nine hours before, I had been talking to friends before setting out on what might have been just another afternoon sail out beyond the Ogden Point breakwater. The silence of the night had dissolved the real world I had once lived in, reducing it to a 10 metre deck.

Up ahead, an eerie green light from the Sheringham Point light reflected off the self-steering vane turning slowly in the cold October air as Laivina eased her way towards the open sea. The exhaustion of the final week of preparation caused me to feel the cold air penetrating my thick clothes. I shivered and tightened the neck of my survival suit. It would be a long night and I had to keep a watch for ships and fish boats.

This was the beginning of the end of a dream now many years old. At last I was living in the world of solitary sailing I had envisioned almost every evening for the past year. Nine days after leaving Victoria, I was well down the Californian coast when my voyage almost came to an end.

The two big genoas whispered as the stiff north wind pressed them hard, straining the sheets and hurtling Laivina down the face of wave after wave. Tucked neatly up against the transom, the self-steering system clicked away as the rudders swung quickly from side to side, correcting her course. On the kerosene stove in the cozy cabin, two eggs crackled away as I prepared my eighth breakfast of the voyage. I moved the pan off the heat, sat the toaster on the flame and put on two slices of bread, their sides wet from the misting I had given them to reconstitute the bread from its previously dry state. Laivina heeled sharply and I grabbed the post beside the galley as we slew around in a broach, backing one of the big genoas with a heavy thump. The wave passed under the keel as I waited for the self-steering to take command again and bring her back on course. I waited and waited. Up on deck I leapt only to discover to my horror what had happened. The self-steering rudder had sheared off at the waterline and taken the intact trim tab with it.

After two hours of tacking back and forth while I sat atop the mast searching for the missing rudders I decided to accept the loss of this most vital part of Laivina. Without self steering I could not hope to complete the voyage as I had planned. My heart sank as I turned Laivina's bow towards Santa Barbara, 400 miles away and prepared myself for the long hours of steering by hand.

Two weeks later, my spirits were again high as I pushed Laivina hard down the Mexican coast. The red sun was setting into the sea as I sat on deck with dinner in my hand, spooning the last pieces of potato into my mouth. How good it felt to be once again at sea in pursuit of my quest. Left behind in my mind were images of the preceding days. The memory, strong in my mind of my flagging morale turned into resolution and the hard furious work as I rebuilt the self steering rudders at Santa Barbara had given me renewed confidence in myself and Laivina. In my pocket sat five dollars, the only money left from my emergency fund, just sufficient to cover the postage on my letters I would drop off at ports of call. Ahead of me lay the tropics and the steady trade winds where I hoped to recover the days I had lost.

The next day, just as I was having breakfast, the boat suddenly shook with an ear-piercing scream which lasted a fraction of a second, then vibrated from the sound of a crackling roar. I leapt to my feet and bounded on deck to see the rosy glow of a jet fighter's tail. Shaking my fist, I screamed abuse into the now vacant air still reverberating from the deep crackle of exhaust. Back in the cabin I finished my meal and eyed the blown out spinnaker I had yet to repair. With a sigh I started work on the two halves of the sail first trimming the ragged edges with a hot knife and then making the long patch to join the pieces together. Maybe I was driving Laivina too hard.

Under the keel the water slid quickly and the temperature rose steadily. Flying fish in large schools shot out of the water ahead of Laivina surging bow, curved in a sparkling silvery arc of flashing wings and then slipped into the deep blue waves abeam. The sunny skies of the trades ended abruptly the week of idyllic sailing as we entered the no man's land of the Doldrums.

Slowly the bucket filled as rainwater ran along the boom and trickled off the gooseneck. I carried it below and carefully funneled it into the waiting container. So far the Doldrums were not giving me as much water as I expected however the three hundred litres I had would keep me alive for another five months, plenty of time to collect more rainwater. I carefully lifted off the pressure cooker lid and wiped the condensed moisture off the inside. It would be only another quarter of an hour before the rich loaf of bread inside the cooker could be turned out and tasted. I adjusted the flame on the cooker a little lower, went on deck to put the bucket back under the gooseneck fitting and scanned the horizon. Behind me lay the north east trades, Canada and my friends, ahead and beyond the south east trades lurked Cape Horn, the object of my growing fears.

On December 10th, I passed Easter Island and headed into the Southern Ocean. As Laivina cut away the miles that separated me from the place which had claimed many lives and ships, my state of mind changed slowly from cheerful optimism to fearful dread. The barometer appeared to me as a vulture forecasting my possible demise. If it dropped, the intense fear cut into me, if it rose, I relaxed a little and my hope grew that I would round the terrible cape unscathed.

New Years Day morning, the western horizon showed the signs of an approaching depression and the signs of my approaching depression. I was worried. Laivina was still three hundred miles from Cape Horn and I knew that I would not get around before it struck. By noon the barometer was dropping fast and the wind was rising accordingly as I reacted to the effects of my troubled state of mind. Cursing and grumbling, I felt helpless in the face of this oncoming blow.

I massaged the shoulder I had dislocated the previous day and wondered if I would be able to use my arm in the critical hours to come. It had taken me three hours to set the storm sails, a job that in good weather would take ten minutes as my one handed climb up the mast had drained a lot of my strength. The problem occurred when I was about to hoist the trysail and the halyard had became wrapped up with the light line going from the mast step to the cap shroud near the top of the mast. As I could not free it from the deck there was no solution other than to climb the mast. With only one arm working properly I struggled my way slowly upward as Laivina kicked and bucked in the waves. At the masthead I attempted to unwrap the light line and untie the bowline knot that secured it with fingers that were numb from the biting cold winds. With three frozen fingers I clung to the mast step as I forced my index and middle fingers to undo a knot they couldn't feel. Slowly, the knot loosed as I strained my wind torn, watery eyes forcing the stiff fingers to work. It was free. Back down the mast I clambered slowly, every inch gained at the expense of my shoulder already inflamed with a sharp lancing pain.

For the rest of the day, I only had strength enough to come on deck every hour to check the weather and keep a lookout for potential rogue waves. The barometer reached its lowest point, then started to rise and with it my spirits. The back of the gale had been broken and I had a good chance of getting around the Cape safely.

On the fourth of January, in the dawn sky I sighted Islas Diego Ramirez abeam about twenty miles away. "Land Ho!" Up and down on the deck I jumped as I yelled out the call that many sailors have shouted from the masthead in this place for centuries before. "Laaaannnnd Hoooooo!" My first land since Easter Island. The weariness of the last week was still affecting me so I made my way to my bunk for some more sleep. While I slept, the wind shifted around and when I awoke later I found that instead of passing the islets we had swung in towards them and were now only fifteen miles away. It was still plenty of room but I was annoyed that I had trusted the wind and been fooled instead.

It was a special day. I started a day long celebration of my birthday, opening a cake and poking into it the thirty-three candles my friend Penny had packed in a special watertight container for this occasion. It took a little while to light all the candles as the heat was getting intense and the wax was melting quickly. As the huge bonfire of blazing candles belched up towards the cabin top, I took a photograph and then blew out the fire in one gale of a breath. With a slight smile on my lips, a wish came easily to mind. A half an hour later Cape Horn reared its awesome visage above the horizon. This was the first goal I had been seeking these long and solitary months.

The overcast morning had given way to bright blue sky and warm sunshine and when the final clouds over the land cleared around noon, I could see Mount Darwin and the Pyramids. These snow covered mountains around seven thousand feet high, stood sixty miles away tinged with the golden yellow of distance. In the cabin I plotted our noon position and measured the distance to Cape Horn. Twenty miles. At our present speed of four knots along with a knot of current I would be soon there.

The day had turned out beautiful. The shallow dark green water and the nearby land had blocked the heavy swell coming from the north and conditions were similar to sailing outside of Victoria Harbour. Up went the spinnaker and Laivina started surging along in ideal sailing conditions. Closer and closer we sailed with Cape Horn getting bigger and more awe inspiring than before. When we were a mile off, I climbed the mast to look out for rocks below the surface of the water. I arrived at the top of the mast and was overcome by the power and beauty of the place. The wind had died down but I could still hear the air whispering as it flowed across the sails. Far below, the soft swoosh as the hull gently spread the water like the legs of a lover. All around, numerous albatross hugged the air currents on the surface, climbing and diving, flattening out inches from the water, their wing tips caressing the wave tops, then banking hard and lifting for yet another search for food.

I stood there on the topmost step, with Cape Horn looming high above me now only a half a mile away, overcome with emotion. My body quivered with adrenalin and my mind effervesced with feelings I have not experienced in a long time. The power of that place, but above all the sense of age, history and permanence struck me. It was as though I had come across the ancient ruins of a temple in a desert. I had met the object of my most intense fears and found it benevolent.

It was time to climb down from the mast as the distance to the cape was closing rapidly. I was about a half a mile away when the breeze started to slowly fade away and Laivina slowed down. Four cables to go, three, two and finally at one cable distance, I turned and veered away a little. There it was. I could see the cracks in the rocks, the tough grasses and lichens, the small waves washing the barnacles between the tide lines. Cape Horn. I made it. Never again will I have misty imaginings of this place. Like a lover wanting more intimacy, I longed to feel the hard rock under my hands, I wanted to mount the rock and climb to the top of the cape in ecstasy. I felt as Odysseus would feel with the Gods controlling the winds bringing me to this place and then fading to a faint zephyr, leaving me gliding gently past its bold visage.

  Slowly my mood softened and I looked around me. Ahead at the eastern end of the island stood a couple of buildings which my binoculars revealed to be a either a weather station or other government outpost. I broke out the ships flag, unfurled it and sailed on past. A sudden fear overcame me. I had read some time ago of the terrible treatment a man and his wife had at the hands of the crew of a patrol boat which came upon them cruising the coast. Thinking that this may have been a military observation post I became very eager to get away from the coast and back into international waters. All the effort and desire could not help me now. I was becalmed! For a half an hour I drifted slowly parallel to the coast waiting for the powerful sound of a patrol boat coming at me.

Idly the boat turned around as the horizon ahead ruffled with the incoming new wind. I dropped the spinnaker and set the boat for a close hauled course. Within ten minutes we were driving at maximum speed in a freshening north easterly away from the coast. What a remarkable event. To be at Cape Horn at such a time. The Gods had smiled on me. What a day! What a birthday!

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