Squall

One of the most frequent questions we are asked is 'have you had any storms? Scary times?' And thus far, we've been lucky enough to be able to say no, eight thousand miles and not even gale force winds.

Well, today the weather gods decided to play a few games with us.

We'd been sailing south in a moderate breeze from the north when a thunderstorm approached. It wasn't a very black cloud and we didn't reef. It passed with a few knots more wind and a lot of rain. We were ready for the rain. We washed down the decks and felt good about a clean boat.

Half an hour later and we are nearing Plymouth, our destination. Another thundercloud is approaching from behind us and looking more menacing than before. Do you think we should take in sail, Gesa asks me. Yep, this one looks a bit black and we're almost at the harbour entrance anyway. We turn the engine on.

A few spots of rain appear as we begin to reef the jib by rolling it up. We are about half way through this when all hell breaks loose.

The wind goes from maybe ten miles an hour to over fifty in an instant. The boat is thrown on her side, the main boom drags in the water and the sea cascades along the deck as the leeward rail dips under the water. It's at times like this we are glad we have a well designed and seaworthy boat. Water isn't going below and she's not going to capsize. The half reefed jib flogs and the full main tries to shake itself to bits. If we were in open ocean, prepared for this, we'd have perhaps a fifth of this sail area, if that. The jib gets stuck and I can't reduce it further, a line has got caught in the roll of the sail. The noise and shaking is horrendous and Gesa looks at me and asks what we can do. Not much. I need to get this jib safely away and then deal with the main.

Gesa dashes below to sort out the kids and grab safety lines. We are already, as always, wearing our lifejackets and harnesses. Issie was on the toilet when the squall hit and was thrown - no, Daddy, I slid - off the loo. Max was on a bunk and ended up on the floor. The books above the chart-table have left the shelves and catapulted themselves into the galley, where they are wedged underneath the stove.

Gesa tells the kids to get their lifejackets on and get under the table, where she places a bunk cushion to protect them from any more flying books or worse. Everyone is a bit scared. When she asks Max to put his lifejacket on he looks at her and says 'why, are we sinking?' She's not quite ready to give him a definitive answer. I'm watching the rigging jerk and shake violently and worrying about whether we can keep the mast in the boat as I work on the jib.

I manage to free the jib. Against all instinct, but making perfect sense, I let out more of the sail until the rope that is caught is freed, then it rolls up easily. I look for the wind direction, but our wind instruments read zero, they have stopped working. No problem, I can feel it and put the engine in gear and give it a lot of revs to push our nose into the wind. You can do this for a few seconds but over-revving the engine is stressful and makes it spit oil everywhere. I back off but the engine doesn't. The throttle cable has stuck full open. Now I'm worried about the engine but just as Gesa says 'what is that burning smell?' a jerk on the cable has it back under control.

Gesa hands me my harness line that she has dug out of the locker and she joins me on deck. Both clipped on, I can go forward and drop the mainsail whilst she keeps an eye on me. We can't see further than a few feet from the boat, there is lashing rain and wind blown spray everywhere. Going to the mast, I let the main halyard go and the sail just slides down to me, perfectly. Thank goodness for that, and I secure it and tidy up a few loose lines to make sure we don't risk a rope around the prop.

With the sails down, it is suddenly calm, relatively. The wind and spray are still howling around but the boat is comfortable and no longer shaking herself to bits. We take a deep breath, put the engine in gear and motor forward gently waiting for the squall to pass. The radio is full of boats calling the coastguard. Through the driving rain we can see a local ferry, about 80 feet long, sitting head to wind, riding it out.

Thankfully we had plenty of sea room, I knew we were a good half mile from any dangers and we are well under control before we used up that space - in fact we'd gone further away from shore anyway.

It all lasts perhaps twenty minutes, with the really strong winds for ten, maybe fifteen of that. As the wind dies away and the rain goes with it, we have a quick hug then go assess the damage. It is surprisingly little. Both sails are fine, although our jib pole has got a little dented. The stitching on one of our sun covers has torn, we knew that was a bit weak and it's easy to fix. The worst is the wind instruments - the vane at the top of the mast has twisted through ninety degrees so the little spinning cups are not horizontal but vertical. It explains the lack of data and needs a trip up the mast tomorrow. Hopefully it's just a case of turning it back and re-connecting some wires. The engine, although it's spat out some oil, seems OK.

Best of all, the rig is still taut and all the important bits worked well. It's hard to put more stress on the boat and rig than being caught out like this with full sail in so much wind. Whilst we're pleased how the boat coped, and that few things got loose down below, we are cross with ourselves for not taking in sail sooner. Hopefully we'll learn from this one.

The wind instruments record their maximium speed. Before they stopped working, it was fifty three knots, that's over sixty miles per hour. We think it kept rising after that. Not quite hurricane strength but at least storm force ten for a few minutes. That's enough for me.

All's well. N.

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