I'd been waiting for sometime now for a bad weather forecast so that I could undertake some training in heavy weather sailing. Then out of the blue I received an email: Force 7 forecast off Arran this weekend - you up for it? You bet I was!
We spent sometime in Ardrossan marina putting up the foresail pole and leaving it out to starboard before eventually setting out running towards Arran under an easterly F6 sailing with just the foresail out to port. Then we had a discussion about how to use just the jib to bring the boat into wind to raise the mainsail. We tried heaving to under the jib. This can work for some boats but not ours. Need a longer keel I think. Then we put the mainsheet traveller well down to leeward and carefully came round to beat with the jib alone. Obviously you can't sail forward of the beam unless you have two sails, but it was enough for long enough to get the boat into wind. Then we hoisted the double reefed mainsail quickly. It worked as expected, so we turned back towards Arran running on starboard tack with the foresail now poled out to starboard. So we rolled our way onwards looking for more wind.
We approached the NE of Arran and when we could see the whites of the sheeps eyes we turned N. We had the wind now all right. We messed around doing stuff in 30 - 35 knots of wind, as you do, then when we got bored of having fun with that we beam reached up to the sound between Inchmarnock and Bute. We took the pole down now and entered the West Kyle.
We now started to practice heaving-to. We played with the size of the foresail to see the effects, but it was pretty reefed down by now anyway. You can gybe out of being hove-to or you can tack out. The wind was now 44 knots true and gybing was dangerous so we practiced heaving-to and tacking out perhaps half a dozen times. Everytime we found she settled best at 60 degrees to the wind.
When we decided it was now time to seek shelter, the foresail became jammed. Sod's law. There was very little furling line left. I think that given the wind we had been reefing the sail too tightly and that had been the cause of the problem. What to do? We could drop it but first of all we tried some hare-brained scheme of taming and tying the sail around the forestay. It actually worked perfectly well and until we could sort it out properly we hoisted the storm jib with the spinnaker halyard and tied off the tack with tape, running the sheets aft. Not sure we got the length of the tape short enough, but we could sail the short distance we had remaining.
So we rattled up the Kyle at a great pace. It was getting silly now and the wind was F9. There were no other boats around. In fact there was no sign of any other life around. We approached Caladh Harbour as it was starting to get dark. In we went - never seen it empty of boats before - and wanted to practice laying two anchors in a fork. We only had two small anchors. The main anchor was still lying in some welder's yard. He had promised to fix it and get it to us that morning, but as is the way all over the world, sailors are always being let down by these guys.
There is three ways of laying a fork. The first involved the dinghy. It was no weather for dinghies. The second method involved buggering around with a long warp in the dark with the possibility of getting it round the prop. So bugger that. We would use the third way.
We put a tripping line on the anchor and laid it, pulling back at high revs. It dragged. There was no electric windlass So I pulled up the chain by hand nearly giving myself a heart attack. We laid it and the tripping line for the second time. It held. Then I untied the bitter end of the warp, tied a fender to it, and threw the whole lot overboard. Great fun this!
So now we pulled out the Danforth and fixed a chain and warp to it. We moved forward until the tripping buoy was on the beam of our bow and we dropped anchor number two along with another tripping line. Pulled back and yes, even though it was hard to see transits by now, it was clearly dragging. Forward again and pulled the bugger up. Laid it again and it dragged again. The idea was that if it had held we would have picked up anchor no 1 with the fender and put both warps through the bow fairleads. There would have been a period of fiddling and adjusting until we got the balance right. But it was not to be. Had enough. So both anchors and tripping lines were recovered with much cursing and we set off for the Kyle under engine alone. It was now as black as the Earl of Hell's waistcoat and the wind was absolutely screaming a full force 9. We identified the lights of the main passage and drove the boat through. We went to look for a buoy at Colintrive belonging to a mate of one of us. Shining torches everywhere. What an entertaining spectacle we must have made. Couldn't find it, but the swell was horrible so we abandoned the idea anyway.
We drove down the East Kyle towards Rothesay. Me helming the boat which was bucking around all over the shop, especially passing Loch Striven. The wind was now 50 knots true, and we turned for lights of the town. (In fact the highest gust we recorded was 54.1 knots). We got into the inner harbour at 2100 hrs and were tying up onto the pontoon when the Harbourmaster approached me and in a weary tone he sighed and declared "Therrs always wan!" He went on to say "Are ye's mad? Whit are ye's daen oot in a wee yacht (33 feet) in weather like this?" I left him talking to the others because basically I ran away - to the Black Bull for a wee libation or two.
The following morning, the wind was around 40 knots and it was absolutely freezing at -4 degrees centigrade ambient and the hills were covered in snow. God knows what the wind chill was, but I can tell you that you needed gloves. The Sunday papers had not yet arrived on the ferry so we worked on the boat while we had the shelter of the harbour. We took the furling jib down and flaked it away before bending on the storm jib and furling it away ready for use. A bit bright orange for my taste it was. I had never put on a trisail before so this was all learning for me. We took out the mainsail slides and piggybacked the trisail over the furled main on the boom. Hoisted it to check it then tied it away.
Now we had to get off the pontoon the wind was holding us against. We tried a stern spring. No joy. Thought of warping forward along the pontoon and trying a bow spring so that we could go astern down the aisle. Before that, we thought it might be less work to warp the bow through the wind. I took a line over and sweated it on a cleat from a pontoon finger. All I succeeded in doing was exacerbating my tennis elbow. Someone suggested a longer line and a further away pontoon finger to give a better angle. I took another line to extend the first one but could not remember how to tie a sheet bend and was getting myself worked up and had skinned my knuckles. Eventually I tied the lines together with two bowlines, pulled the bow of the boat through the wind, as it passed, the line was dumped off the boat, I recovered it fast and ran along to the hammerhead to heave it to the approaching boat.
So dear reader, we eventually got away after a great deal of faffing. Then we beat around to the east in a F7 and in driving snow and poor visibility! Christ it was cold, and then the hail started! We had intended to practice deploying a sea anchor, recovering it, and then deploying a drogue off the stern. That all meant getting wet and cold so we binned that idea and sailed under the orange storm sails down to the Cumbrae Gap, beat through it, and turned south for Ardrossan. Just as we were approaching, the wind had one last blast at 44 knots true and our oilies went white with the driving snow.
I am begining to understand the attractions of sailing in Turkey.
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