December 1986

At two o'clock in the morning of the twenty-seventh day of June, I sighted land and completed my solo non-stop circumnavigation.

PACIFIC YACHTING December 1986

With doldrums and gales to endure, Peter Freeman's last three months were the hardest...

By Peter Freeman

At 4:00am, I rubbed my eyes slowly and eased my stiff body out of the quarter berth. The alarm clock's strident clanging had eventually roused me from the deep sleep I had been enjoying the last four hours. For a change, it was a pleasure to be land locked in the Otago Harbour and I was looking forward to the annual Dunedin to Oamaru race. Arriving in New Zealand waters a few days before Easter had given me the idea to accompany the Otago Yacht Club fleet up the coast to Oamaru.

I quickly dressed, came on deck and looked around. The pre-dawn air was still, crisp and quiet and above me I could see a number of stars twinkling through patches of cloud. The only winds blowing were the soft night breezes drifting down the grassy hillsides and out across the harbour waters. Although the tide was ebbing, I would have to get away quickly in order to sail the five miles to the mouth of the harbour and start line. The race was to start at seven o'clock and I wanted to be in position early. Taking care not to awaken the crews of other sailboats, I quietly slipped my moorings and eased Laivina out into the current. As we drifted slowly with the tide, I relaxed and allowed images of the past to flow into my mind. By the time I reached Harrington Point at the harbour mouth, a large group of sailboats were close behind me, motoring to take up their positions.

It was easier to see, now that the dawn sky had brightened. So far, conditions didn't look promising as the wind was still faint. The minutes ticked by and the maneuvering became more intense and confusing until the moment of the start. Boat after boat shot across the line and into the last of the ebb current. To avoid collision, I worked over to the port side of the fleet to set the spinnaker. I suspected some maneuvered over to the starboard side to give me a wide berth! Unfortunately I sailed into a "hole" in the wind and was left becalmed while everyone sneaked past. I was in the last position. The wind picked up again and I was soon sailing alongside Laivina's sister ship "Teka Jay". A half hour later she was just a sail in the distance behind.

My spirits were high as Laivina surged along the New Zealand coast, her old spinnaker pulling well. The sun had risen high in the sky, warming my body and coloring the clear coastal water a translucent light blue. I was quite pleased with Laivina's speed considering the heavy encrustations of goose necked barnacles on her hull. As the wind steadily increased, we picked up speed until I overtook the slower boats and placed Laivina about the middle of the fleet. Up ahead I spied a large ketch. Its crew were having trouble keeping the red and white striped spinnaker drawing properly and eventually it twisted. They lowered the spinnaker on deck and the distance between us shortened. Laivina saw her chance. In a panic, the crew of the ketch saw me coming and hoisted the spinnaker hastily. A wineglass. I was ahead. Once they had it set they never managed to catch me and I was able to stay in front and even increase the distance between us.

What a glorious sail as the miles slipped by. Around noon I went below, cooked up a meal and ate it on deck while keeping an eye on the rest of the fleet. During the mid afternoon, Laivina rounded the last headland and headed for the finishing line. I have never liked the finish line at Oamaru and this time I was very nervous. With this southerly wind, a wave washed stone covered lee shore lay a half mile away. I had worked out a safe plan of action and as I crossed the line, I went into action. I raced aft and set the self steering for a close reaching course to run parallel to the beach. The wind was fresh and the spinnaker protested as Laivina's bow swung closer into the wind. Two race officials, waving and shouting in a small motor launch, plowed through the choppy seas in pursuit. I didn't have time to talk to them. The spinnaker had to come down.

I ran up to the bow and released the tack. In a smooth arc, the spinnaker swung around until it rested limply behind the mainsail. Now it was an easy matter to lower the sail down the main hatch. After tidying up the running rigging, I gybed around and headed back to the entrance of the Oamaru harbour. I shouted to the race officials still folowing in our wake, that I was going into the harbour to anchor. After they left I finished tidying the gear and started to fake the anchor chain on the foredeck. In my mind I was planning the tacks I would need to make to get past the tricky harbour entrance.

Oamaru Harbour is a small harbour sheltered by a breakwater on the eastern side with a jetty coming out from the beach to almost meet the end of the breakwater. In the past, the entrance was kept dredged as large vessels used to call into Oamaru. As only fishing and sailing boats use the harbour now, the entrance has a sandbar extending from the end of the breakwater almost to the jetty. On my first tack, I sailed up to the hidden sandbank, carefully watching the depth sounder. Thinking that I was not aware of the bank, people on the jetty shouted at me to keep clear. I continued as I needed to get as close as possible to the sandbank to get a better run in to the harbour on subsequent tacks. I wasn't unduly worried as the sandbank was to weather of us and I could get off it if we ran aground. As soon as the sounder started dropping fast I tacked. Our next tack took us along the outer edge of the sandbank and right up to the end of the jetty. When Laivina's bow was a few feet from the piles, I tacked again. This last tack took me safely along the inner edge of the sandbank and into deeper water. Now that I was clear, I lowered the genoa and found a spot to anchor.

It turned out that I had finished ahead of Laivina's sister ship "Teka Jay" by three quarters of an hour and in addition I had finished before a number of much larger boats. It must have embarrassed them to be beaten by a solo sailor in a barnacle encrusted boat. Plenty of sailing practice, that was my secret! While more of my old friends came over to talk, I was visited by the officials who had chased me along the shore line. They gave me a certificate which stated that I had taken "LINE HONOURS Overseas Entry". I had a chuckle at that since I was the only "Overseas" entrant in the race. In reality I wasn't an overseas entrant since Laivina's home port is Dunedin. It was just that I had to sail a long way to get to the starting line. It also transpired that it was the centennial of this race, an event which people will remember for many years to come.

It was getting late and I wanted to make some sea room before it became to dark. I said goodbye to my friends, weighed anchor and set sail. From the other boats came a rousing cheer causing blood rush to my face. The jetty was receding astern as I gave my last farewell "Goodbye New Zealand!" Laivina was now pushing out into the worlds greatest body of water, the Pacific ocean.

The last three months of my voyage, I found the hardest. Soon after leaving New Zealand, I ran into a high pressure system which persisted for two weeks. The associated light winds halved Laivina's daily runs and frustrated me. Albatross and petrels, unable to soar, settled on the water in numerous groups and Laivina adopted these birds as we sailed through colony after colony. By the end of the week there were hundreds accompanying us.

These light conditions delayed me to the point that I had to sail much further north before I was able to meet the trade winds. At last, at eighteen degrees south latitude, I reached them. During the struggle to reach the trades, the new genoa had its luff torn to shreds in a minor squall and the mainsail split from luff to leach in another. As if to make up for lost wind the trades turned on their full strength and we punched into near gale conditions for many days until we reached the doldrums.

Our passage through that strange barrier was exciting and unusual. At the northern edge, rain lashed down on a tossing deck for hours as I struggled in windless conditions to coax Laivina into the trades beyond. Huge clapotic seas tossed her violently on her beam ends until I felt that the mast would be wrenched overboard. A few minutes before breaking through this invisible barrier, the mainsail, tired of the torment it was being put through, split from luff to leach yet another time. It was the first time I had blown out a sail in windless conditions.

In the north Pacific, conditions weren't as good as I expected. The pleasant trade winds soon decreased in strength until I was again struggling to make some northing. During the calms I had plenty of time to observe the variety of life around me. I fished out of the water a pelagic barnacle and kept it alive in a bucket of water. Throughout the day, I lowered a piece of plastic screen mesh over the side and sieved numerous celphs out of the water. Within a few hours, the barnacle ate hundreds of these mobile jelly like organisms.

At two o'clock in the morning of the twenty-seventh day of June, I sighted land and completed my solo non-stop circumnavigation. It had been 236 days since I had been sailing in these waters. I had achieved what I had set out to accomplish. Now all that remained was to call into Santa Barbara and then sail the remaining thousand miles up the coast to Victoria.

That afternoon, I called into Santa Barbara and the next day I sailed out of the harbour on the last leg of my voyage. A day later I had cleared Point Conception and was soon out of sight of land, close hauled on the starboard tack. As I worked my way up the coast against the wind and current, I was acutely aware of the hazards around me. After having achieved so much, I did not want to lose Laivina or my life so close to home.

When I had only 120 mile to go, I noticed on the distant horizon, two stationary masses of cumulo-nimbus clouds. According to my position, the cloud masses were hovering above the Olympic mountains on one side of the Juan de Fuca Strait and southern Vancouver Island on the other side. I was ecstatic. Soon after I spotted the majestic snow covered Olympics showing faintly above the sea mist. Near sunset we sailed into coastal water with its brown green colour and I sighted a few fishing boats. After a bit of maneuvering I managed to pass close to one of them and throw on his deck a message stating my E.T.A. at Victoria. It was written on a piece of paper and wrapped in a plastic bag with a length of brass rod as a weight. He read the message and assured me that he would radio it to the coast guard. I waved goodbye and turned Laivina's bow towards the Juan de Fuca strait. If the fresh wind would hold I would be in home the next day. The prospect excited me.

Cape Flattery was reached at midnight and the steady wind died and left me wallowing. All night long I sat in the easy swell as freighters thundered past. Dawn came and found me in the same place rolling gently in the oily swell. My chance of reaching Victoria that day had gone. At noon the wind finally sprung up. A nice westerly. With twin genoas, Laivina started to move, slowly at first and then faster as the wind freshened. I sailed closer to the Canadian shore and enjoyed the sights as the mile slipped quickly by. Strangely enough, the intense excitement I had experienced the previous day had died down and I was now feeling quietly content. Although I felt relaxed, I was still very aware of the dangers and pitfalls that still separated me from the customs dock at Victoria.

By sunset, I was approaching Race Rocks so I took the twin genoas down and replaced them with the mainsail and number two genoa. What a fantastic sail through Race Passage with a strong wind and current behind us. As Laivina shot out of the race into the slack water, the last skylight was fading. Up ahead, the brilliant lights of Victoria beckoned. I wanted to continue and complete the last ten miles. There was enough wind, however it was already 11:00pm and I would not arrive until around two in the morning. I took the sails down, started the motor and chugged into Pedder Bay where I dropped anchor. At least I would get some rest and be fresh the next day.

The sounds of early morning fishermen, powering out of the marina woke me. A glorious morning heralded my last day of the voyage and I ate my breakfast with a lump in my throat. I had a little difficulty in getting moving as the morning's low tide had left Laivina's keel, stuck in the mud at the edge of the channel. With a bit of sawing back and forth under power, Laivina came free and slid back into the channel.

Once I was around William Head, I looked ahead and tried to identify distant objects distorted by a temperature inversion. Objects on the horizon were elongated making a cruise ship at Ogden point look like a city skyscraper. As I came closer, I spotted through the binoculars, the lighthouse on the end of the breakwater. Knowing that my friends would be waiting there, I had some difficulty in stilling my beating heart. At first I started to discern people through the binoculars and eventually I could see them with my naked eyes.

When I finally arrived, there was a large crowd of friends waving and cheering. Not being used to much human contact, I looked at the familiar faces and saw only a blur. My mind was suffering from a kind of emotional overload, allowing me to only recognize a couple of my closest friends. I immediately recognized my girlfriend Penny. She was the one person I was longing to see. I spoke a few words, waved and then continued my way until I was near the customs dock.

 Down came the mainsail and genoa with the last few feet diminished as I approached the dock. As Laivina touched the rough boards, a small band played "Waltzing Matilda" and I was presented with a garland of fresh smelling flowers. The voyage was over. All that I planned and more came true. It had been a beautiful experience for me. My planning had been accurate and the food and equipment adequate. I was in excellent physical shape except for a low iron count in my blood. Although I took vitamin and mineral pills, the stress and exercise of the voyage slowly leached the iron out of my system. If I were to repeat such a venture there would be very little I would change. Not that I would, as it is the challenge of the unknown that gives a voyage of this kind its meaning.

Today Laivina, rests at anchor, sheltered from the storms and spray that lashed her from stem to stern those many months. Like a warrior, she carries the scars of her long voyage proudly. On quiet evenings, I like to sit on the beach and watch her moving easily in the soft breezes. It brings back intense memories of the journey we took together, of the seas we endured and of the fights we won. It brings back the love of life I experienced. It puts me in touch with my soul.

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