Beware the White Caps

Twice in a row we have been caught be the "Mad Mile". Heading over to Anchorage on a Tuesday and then our return trip the following Thursday.

On the way over we had all sorts of conditions, hoping for the sea breeze we had headed off, only to have very light breezes made very uncomfortable by the left over swell coming from the North. We decided to motor through this as it wasn't doing anyone’s stomach any good, then slowly we came into five to seven knot breeze, with darker patches on the water closer into shore which we chased. This worked well the first time and we got a good breeze 10-12 knots for a little while before we lost it again. Playing word games with the kids and hoping it wouldn't be too dark before we got to Anchorage we again spotted more ripples on the water with a few white caps, so I decided to head for that. We went from 5-7 knots, up to 15 straight away and I thought Woo Hoo this is going to be good, next thing I know its up to 20 then 25 and I couldn't hold the boat on course. I called out to Dan and got the kids inside. Dan started to ask me to release sheets (ropes for those of you non sailors) as we had full sails up and the wind was now gusting above 30 knots. Dan put in a reef (make the sail smaller) while I was back on the helm (steering wheel) and I stopped looking at the wind gauge when I saw it say 38 knots. There were now white caps everywhere that hadn't been there before but thankfully no size in the waves as it had come up so quickly. We had released the Genoa also but hadn't furled it in and in blew around so much that the knot at the end pulled through the pulley and then it pulled out a lead block and completely tangled ropes that we couldn't use it again that trip. After about 10 minutes of adrenaline pumping we were on our way again only to have the wind settling mid 20's and finally dying away until we were at a stage we needed to motor into Anchorage as we had no wind!! As I said, a trip with many conditions.

On our return journey we left Anchorage middayish and again had "variable breeze up to 10 knots". We decided to stay along the coast as far as Marahau as the breeze seemed to be more consistent there. We were just off of Fishermans Island, it had taken us about two hours to get there and the kids and I were sitting on the tramps at the front of the boat, when Dan said we was going to head towards the darker patch of water off to the side of us in the hope for better breeze. Well did we get it! I was still sitting up the front with the kids when we got there, but it was a chilly breeze so said to the kids to come back to the cockpit where it would be more sheltered. I only just sat down when Dan was asking me to adjust the traveller (this effects the position of the boom). I still wasn't really aware of what was going on until Dan said he thinks we should put in a reef and could I take the helm. Here we go again, wind in the mid 20s, gusting up to 30. Kids inside with the dog, Dan got one reef in then said thinks he will put in two. The noise of the sail flapping around was intense and made communication quite difficult save for yelling at each other. I knew things weren't going quite right this time as it was taking ages for Dan to get the sail tensioned up when I realised he was saying we had lost our battens (fibreglass that helps the sail keep its shape). With no battens our mainsail wasn't effective, so we took it down completely and relied on our Genoa, which we had also furled in a bit to make it smaller as Dan felt we were still going too fast. This time there was another boat out there with us so was good to know we weren't the only ones experiencing this. Once we were all settled we needed to work out where we were and try and decide what to do, carry on to Nelson or turn back, was this going to last or would it die out? Dan had a wee mistake on his plotting of our position but we decided to head back to Anchorage as being the closest safe point we knew, and the unknown of what the wind was going to do if we carried on without full sails. Again by the time we were heading into
Anchorage we had lost the wind and looking back out to sea no sign of the white caps that had caused the excitement earlier.
The following day was a long trip returning to Nelson under Genoa but surprisingly not as bad as we thought it may have been, and the boat averaged 5.5 knots most of the way. We talked to a couple of people about the battens going and realised that for a sail of our size they needed to be lashed in place as well as Velcro (which is all we had) so the sail maker was contacted Monday morning and we are currently waiting for the return of our sail with eyelets and lashing to secure the battens for next time.