Great Seamanship: My Way Around the World

Saša Fegic had rounded Cape Horn, but the biggest challenge came when a knockdown nearly ended his circumnavigation. Tom Cunliffe introduces this extract from My Way Around the World

Mainstream yachting nations have produced many great authors, but as the years pass and the nautical world opens its arms …Continue reading »

The post Great Seamanship: My Way Around the World appeared first on Yachting World.

Saša Fegic had rounded Cape Horn, but the biggest challenge came when a knockdown nearly ended his circumnavigation. Tom Cunliffe introduces this extract from My Way Around the World

Mainstream yachting nations have produced many great authors, but as the years pass and the nautical world opens its arms to new communities, adventurers from unexpected lands are joining their number. An exceptional example is Saša Fegić who circumnavigated recently from Croatia.

Saša’s book My Way Around the World describes his voyage with small crews in HIR 3 (Caprice in Croatian), a CAT 34 of 10.3m LOA. She’d already circumnavigated but had fallen on hard times in the Croatian war and was found riddled with bullets and shrapnel in a near-sunk state. She was rescued, then inexplicably left horribly abandoned until Saša, who had actually learned to sail on her when she was working as a school boat, found her and decided she was to be the boat to complete his dream.

We join the crew of HIR 3 having just crossed 50° North heading up for the River Plate. They’ve rounded the Horn direct from Auckland, stopped for a few drinks in Puerto Williams fulfilling the objective of the whole trip, and are now on course for home. Having just braved the Southern Ocean they’ve every right to expect a better deal than the one served up to them.

Extract from My Way Around the World

We had officially rounded Cape Horn. A non-stop passage passing above the latitude of 50° South in the Pacific and Atlantic oceans. The atmospheric pressure remained extremely low and it was still cold, with water temperature of just 10°C and air not more than 15°C.

The wind changed strength and direction twice a day on average, ranging from 10 to 30 knots and varying from north to south-west. Although the pilot charts suggest that prevailing winds are south-west, we had northerlies most of the time, beating again.

At dawn the wind increased. I got all my foul weather gear on and went out. First, I reefed the mainsail. Then I dropped the genoa and secured it on deck. Finally, I hoisted the storm jib. When I came inside, Nebojša was still sound asleep. All the noise of flapping sails and the excessive heel of the boat that was threatening to throw him off his bunk couldn’t wake him up.

In the afternoon Nebojša announced, “I talked to my Minister of Finance.” By this I knew he meant the Portuguese girlfriend who was now supporting him. He continued, “You know… your Marina is coming. And since you haven’t seen each other in a long time, I don’t want to intrude.” I was waiting for his point. “And Luisa will pay for my plane ticket to Lisbon. So I’m leaving the boat in Mar del Plata.” I nodded.

“No problem, if that’s what you want.” Next morning, he already had the plane tickets to Lisbon.

He started counting down the miles, but this leg was far from over. There was a big low coming from the south-west and there was no escaping it.

The air mass comes from the Pacific and hits the high barrier of the Andes where it loses humidity in rains along the coast of Chile. The thermal and dynamic factors accelerate the winds in their descent from the Cordillera and nothing can stop them along the Patagonian plains. The barometer was extremely low. Then it started to rise and our northerly wind shifted to south-west and was soon gusting 50 knots.

We already had the storm jib up and Mishko was steering straight downind. Nebojša was standing in the companionway under the sprayhood, while I was sitting down in the saloon.

The wind was increasing even more. The waves were huge, with threatening white crests. Suddenly, one wave knocked us down. It lasted about 15 seconds, and we were still recovering from the shock when another wave knocked us down even harder.

A wall of white foam came crashing down the stern. The wave broke the sprayhood door and rushed into the cabin. I fell helplessly on my back as I watched cans, bottles, books and clothes flying across the cabin.

The boat was heeling more than 90° as we were pushed sideways. I just prayed, ‘Please come back up, please right yourself!’

“Oh God, be good to me; the sea is so wide, and my ship is so small.” (Breton Fisherman’s prayer)

Slowly, after a few moments that seemed to last forever, the boat righted itself. We rushed out into the cockpit. It was chaos. The sprayhood was flapping around, torn away from the cabin; the stanchions were bent; the radar reflector was broken. One of the brackets that holds the windvane was gone and all the ropes were over the side.

But the mast was still standing, and Mishko was still steering. We’d survived a near capsize. But we couldn’t leave things as they were.

The wind was blowing fiercely, and breaking waves were threatening to crush us. We had to react.

“Tried and tested rule of the sea is to put the boat first. If she survives, so might you. Put yourself first and both you and the boat are likely to be in trouble. “ (Sir Robin Knox-Johnston)

I took over the tiller. There was no way we could rely on Mishko in these conditions. Nebojša clipped on and went forward to secure the sails and then came inside to disconnect the batteries. Everything was flooded. The control panel, solar charging controller, cables, speakers, electronic barometer, all the external power banks and chargers: all were wet. If we didn’t disconnect the terminals, we’d soon lose all of our electrics.

I asked Nebojša if he wanted to take over the steering while I got the water out of the bilges. He was nervous. “No, I don’t want to steer. You steer! I’ll take the bucket and do it. I’ll do what I know.” He went inside and slowly started to fill bucket after bucket, throwing the water out. It took him an hour and a half to get a thousand litres of seawater from the bilges while I was fighting to keep our course down the waves.

Nebojša came out into the cockpit when he was finally finished and lit a cigarette. He looked at all the long lines we had stowed on the stern. “Do you think it would help if we threw these lines over the stern and trailed them?” I’d read a lot about heavy weather sailing. Many people said that trailing warps helps to stabilize and to slow the boat down. I glanced back and thought about it for a second. “I doubt it,” I said, “but you can try and see if it works.” He threw the long lines over the stern and was intently watching them. He finally asked, “What do you think? Is this helping at all?” I looked back. “I don’t know. I don’t think so. I can’t see any difference.” He looked back too. “Yeah, me neither.”

I was steering down the waves, trying to avoid the ones that were coming from the side. It seemed to work, but it wasn’t easy to stay focused. Nebojša looked at me and said, “You know, I admire the solo sailors. But I can’t understand them. I could probably survive on my own, but if I wouldn’t be able to talk to anyone in a situation like this, I’d kill myself.” I laughed and had to agree with him. “It definitely helps to have somebody who can tell a joke.”

Chaos below

It was getting dark. I couldn’t see the waves that were chasing us anymore. I could only hear them roaring behind me. I was now steering by feeling. I had to stay 100% focused and catch each wave perpendicular to the stern of the boat. Nebojša went inside and made tea. He lay down fully dressed in his oilskins on a wet bunk while I took comfort in warming my hands holding a warm mug.

By dawn, the wind was down to about 45 knots and the waves seemed more regular. I put Mishko in charge. But still, I couldn’t leave him alone. He still needed help every few minutes to hold the course, but at least now I was finally able to rest a little.

Nebojša came out, so I left him in charge of controlling Mishko. I went inside for the first time since the capsize. I looked around the cabin. And I saw there would be no rest for a while. Water was sloshing everywhere – it was above the floorboards again. All the food, cans and bottles were in my bunk. There was glass everywhere – on the floor, on the bunks. Nebojša even found one piece on the ceiling. The navigation table was empty; everything was on the floor.

I had to do something. First, I took a bucket and started bailing the water. It took me an hour to get it all out. My every muscle hurt, but I had to keep going. Piece by piece, I put back the things from the floor where they belonged: on the shelves, and then I made coffee.

It was time to let Marina and everyone else know that we were okay. I turned on the Iridium. It started initializing. But then it stopped. I repeated the process a dozen times, but it wouldn’t work. Nebojša came in and took it apart, sprayed it with contact cleaner and left it in front of the heater to dry. He put it together and tried again. It still didn’t work. We were concerned what everyone would be thinking since our tracking stopped working in the middle of the storm and nobody could reach us.

I tried my emergency Iridium satellite phone. The SIM card had expired, but I put in a card that was in the router instead. I dialed Marina’s number. It was 3am in Zagreb. No answer. I tried again. It was ringing for 15 seconds before Marina answered in a sleepy voice. “Hi! How are you?” I was relieved and answered, “We’re fine. Everything is okay, but it was rough. The Iridium is gone and the battery on this phone won’t last long. Let everyone know we are okay, and I’ll try to call you again tomorrow.”

The wind was still blowing hard, but now it was manageable and Mishko could steer by himself. The heater heated the cabin nicely. It was a joy to sleep in almost dry and warm bunks.

By the morning the wind was down to 25 knots. The sun was up, so we took the cushions and bedding out to dry. I connected the batteries and Nebojša checked the engine. It worked.

We made a list of spares we needed. It was a long list. Solar charger controller, wires, terminals, multimeter, stainless steel fittings and screws for the windvane, glue, epoxy. I called Marina, explained that she would have to go shopping before boarding the plane for Mar del Plata the next day. She wrote it all down and said she’d do her best.

We were just a couple of hundred miles from Mar del Plata. But the wind shifted north again – more hard beating and an uncertain ETA. And as we were now sailing closer to the shore, we started encountering big fishing boats.

During the night Mishko had trouble steering. At first, I couldn’t find the problem. Then I examined all the moving parts and found that the connection rod between the wind vane and the rudder was broken in half. I took some duct tape and put the two broken pieces together. I hoped my temporary fix would hold until Mar del Plata.

Having survived the storm, as well as beating against the headwinds and avoiding the fishing fleets, we now thought we had made it. But about 30 miles from the entrance to La Plata I noticed dark clouds approaching.

“We better reef now.” Nebojša looked at the sky and with a relaxed attitude said, “That’s not coming our way. The wind is blowing from the opposite direction.” I didn’t hesitate for a second; I continued taking down the genoa and putting the second reef in the mainsail. Two minutes after we had finished, the wind was gusting 40 knots. Heavy rain reduced visibility to less than 50. So this was the famous ‘Pampero’.

We were sitting in the cockpit soaking wet. Nobody said it, but we were both thinking, ‘What’s next? Could this leg get any worse?’

But the blast lasted only an hour. The wind turned to a moderate southerly. For the next four hours we sailed downwind watching the lightning in front of us as the storm continued its path along the coast, and at 2am we began our final approach to Mar del Plata.

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