SEABURBAN AROUND ALONE, PART 2 Bert ter Hart (Flying Fish 2020/1 followed Bert and his 45ft Seaburban from Victoria, British Colombia down to the Southern Ocean – the first part of his planned circumnavigation via the Five Great Capes navigating only by traditional means. We left him becalmed on the Burwood Bank near Cape Horn... Bert was awarded the Barton Cup for 2020 in recognition of his achievement.) First to Last: Cape Horn to South Cape, January–April 2020 Becalmed on Burwood Bank, the enormity of traversing the southern Atlantic, Indian, Tasman and Pacific Oceans sank in. For the previous two months the Horn had occupied nearly every waking moment. Slowly but surely, I came to grips with the realisation that the real work of the circumnavigation was yet to begin. I had been more than lucky with the weather prior to rounding the Horn, but that luck looked to change for the worse after leaving Burwood Bank and approaching the Falklands. This was confirmed when I was unable to clear the shoals and currents lying to the north and east of the Falklands before an extremely severe storm swept through the South Atlantic. With steering issues compounding every day, I made the decision to seek refuge and anchor in Stanley Harbour. Despite sustained winds of 60+ knots, gusts well beyond and a 2m chop, Seaburban somehow managed to stay anchored. I had left her usual complement of ground tackle at home, thinking there would be no need for 85lb hurricane anchors and 100m of heavy chain. What I did bring I cobbled together and, despite fore-reaching wildly about the anchorage, we stayed put ... but just barely. At 0315 on the last night of the blow, unable to keep station and dragging shoreward ignominiously towards the local graveyard, I called Stanley Harbour Control on the VHF to let them know things weren’t going as planned. No one answered. I had reserved the Minus her normal complement of ground tackle, Seaburban last 10m of rode to be hangs by a thread in Port Stanley. Photo R Goodwin deployed in case of emergency, and could think of no greater emergency than that at hand. Up on deck and making my way forward, my only view of the situation was of the deck as I crawled, head-down, towards the bow. Whether the extra rode kept me off the rocks I can’t say, but 22 Departing Port Stanley, the obligatory radio call to the Port Captain drew a long silence when I announced my next port of call as Victoria, Canada, east-bound via the remaining Great Capes. Photo G Munro within a few hours the sound of the wind in the rigging ceased to be that of a freight train thundering across the Canadian prairie. Leaving Stanley and determined to get east, the only option was north. East and south were impossible, west was out of the question, and north became north-by-west before foul weather to the south finally moved off enabling me to set a course across the South Atlantic. My plan for the southern Atlantic and Indian Oceans was simple – avoid the seamounts centred around 42°S 0°W, give the Agulhas Current as wide a berth as possible and, come what may, do everything humanly possible to stay in the deep oceanic waters north of Marion and Prince Edward Islands. The Southwest Indian Ridge is discontinuous between 35° and 40°E and I felt that the rising, tortured seabed was in no small part responsible for the horrific conditions for which the southern Indian Ocean is infamous. Add in a variable current resulting from eddies spun off the Agulhas Current opposing the prevailing winds and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. I wanted no part of any of the above and to get east of the Crozet Islands as fast as possible. I had not given much thought to typhoons spinning their way south into the Roaring Forties. Not counting Stanley Harbour, the only one I had given any thought to had been months ago in the Eastern Tropical Pacific. None, I thought, frequented the Roaring Forties, let alone that patch of ocean north and east of the Crozets. Squeezed between a tropical storm bearing down on my track and the now ubiquitous gales and storms parading eastward, I once again pointed Seaburban north. Cursed north. Above 40°S, Moitessier’s warnings of Vito Dumas’s problems began to ring in my ears. Days later, standing in the cockpit under an impossibly blue sky lording over an azure sea crowned with whitecaps, I put Seaburban’s helm hard over, tacked, and set a course south-southwest. Finally. It was 45°S or bust. 23 24 Desperate to get east after leaving the Falklands, I am forced north by severe gales and storms tracking along 45°S Gales and calms pile on with clockwork-like efficiency. Seaburban drifts aimlessly while becalmed on a confused and restless ocean. All in all, I was becalmed for more than 50 days during my circumnavigation 25 The Last: South Cape, 28th April 2020 ‘Battle-hardening’ is how Tony Gooch had referred to my transit of the south Tasman Sea. The Austral autumn had provided much the same weather that we experience in November and December in the Pacific Northwest – storm upon gale with little Like Moitessier, or no reprieve. Seaburban’s The weather had constant worsened consistently companions and without mercy since are the albatross passing Cape Leeuwin but, having been forced north My track over the tortured bottom topography north of Prince Edward and Marion Islands and west of the Crozets. I constantly marvelled at Cook’s astonishing ability to range about the place, illustrated on a page of JC Beaglehole’s ‘The Life of Captain James Cook’, the definitive autobiography 26 by a massive Southern Ocean storm immediately after passing under Tasmania’s South East Cape, my track to New Zealand’s South Cape was now cast in stone. The detour north was unavoidable, and now I needed all the sea room I dared take as storms astern and south of me forced my hand. I sailed straight for South Cape, and pushed Seaburban as hard as I dared in steadily building seas and wind as the weather deteriorated in fits and starts over the better course of a week. I had sailed most of the way across the south Tasman Sea with very little to reassure my navigation. Sun shots were few and far between and the few sights I did get were hampered by rough seas, indistinct horizons and hurried shots. I was more than nervous as I pored over the paper charts I had for the area immediately south of Stewart Island. The Traps and Snares, the islands I was aiming to miss, seemed aptly named and didn’t inspire confidence. Conditions harden as Seaburban crosses under Australia and heads deeper into the Roaring Forties 27 Tools of the trade – slide rules, the laminated S-Tables, customized work forms and plotting sheets. I spent at least two hours each day navigating During a shakedown cruise to Alaska I practise the dead reckoning and plotting I would need to master before attempting a celestial-only circumnavigation. Photo Nani Belle Browne 28 Gybing downwind between danger bearings, Seaburban’s track closes in on the Traps and Snares The worsening weather and seas had me doubly concerned about crossing the shallows that extend out from Stewart Island. With my navigation in doubt, I was feeling pressed either to throw caution to the wind and attempt crossing the bank, or take a much longer route in far deeper water south of Campbell Island. I wasn’t keen on the idea of crossing the Solander Trough in a gale hounded by a large and confused Southern Ocean sea. Depths in the Trough are in the order of 2500m rising to less than 140m in about 20 miles. Tidal currents opposing gale-force wind and waves, a steeply shoaling continental shelf and an uncertain landfall do not bode well for safe passage. I well remembered Jeanne Socrates heaving to and waiting for favourable weather in her latest, extraordinary, success before rounding South Cape, but for the life of me I couldn’t remember what Randall Reeves had done on his two roundings of South Cape while pursuing the incomparable Figure 8 Voyage. So I reached out to Randall and asked. Like Tony before, Randall responded almost instantly. Yes, he had dared cross the shallow bank. He had, in fact, lain becalmed within sight of Stewart Island on his second passage south of New Zealand. He gave me the latitude and longitude of the North and South Traps as well as of the Snares. The storm looming behind and another far worse to the south made the decision for me – I transposed the lat and long of the Traps and Snares onto a plotting sheet, drew in danger bearings, and put the proverbial pedal to the metal. I was lucky enough to get a decent running-fix* of the sun while still in deep water. This last piece in place, I took the time to secure the boat for storm conditions and then focused on keeping Seaburban moving as fast as the Monitor would allow. My passages through the southern Indian Ocean and south Tasman Sea had taught me * A running-fix can be used to estimate a vessel’s position when simultaneous observations are not possible. A single line of position is determined, and a careful record of course, time and speed (or distance) is maintained.