The Crossing

We woke to an unfamiliar motion. It was a calm morning off La Ciotat, with barely a ripple in the bay, but enough of a swell to remind us that we were no longer landlubbers.

After breakfast, we weighed anchor and set sail for Porquerolles, 30 miles away. The fresh southerly breeze and calm seas allowed us an easy run, with no warning of what was to come. We crossed the traffic separation scheme outside Toulon with a tinge of anxiety, but it was unfounded and the only ships we saw were safely tied up in the port. 

A little after three that afternoon, we dropped anchor off Porquerolles. Once the boat was secure, we began planning our twenty-hour crossing to Calvi in Corsica for the following afternoon.

We had never sailed out of sight of land before without a seasoned skipper on board. We had crossed the Drake Passage between Cape Horn and Antarctica the previous year, but I had spent most of the time curled in the foetal position feeling sorry for myself.

My seasickness hadn’t presented itself since leaving Marseille, but conditions had been near perfect, and I had very little confidence that the deferral would continue. 

The navigation was simple. After rounding Porquerolles, we would head almost due east with nothing but sea between us and Corsica. But the weather gave us pause. The forecast was for winds of about 25 knots from the south during the night, which would be perfect for the crossing. Knowing that wind strengths are often underestimated, we added 10% to the forecast, for an expected wind speed of about 30 knots. Waves of not more than two meters were expected.

In order to arrive during daylight, we decided to leave at 15:30, which would allow plenty of time to prepare for our first night passage, and also to arrive at our destination in the middle of the following day, giving us plenty of leeway for the unforeseen. 

My seasickness hadn’t presented itself since leaving Marseille, but conditions had been near perfect, and I had very little confidence that the deferral would continue. I went to bed with anxiety gnawing at my stomach like a rat.

The following morning we launched Persephone for a trip into town and were reacquainted with our irascible outboard. It would not idle. I adjusted the idle screw until the engine ran without cutting out, but it was idling so fast that I dared not put it in gear.

So, I adjusted it back to a slower setting and had to keep blipping the throttle to stop the engine from dying. It worked in theory. But when we neared the beach, we came very close to being the afternoon’s entertainment. When we slowed to line up with the beach, the motor died and left us drifting. The pull cord resisted heroically and tried to rip my hand from my arm every time the motor caught. And then, when it was running, if I dared slow down, the motor died again.

Fortunately, the beach was sandy at the water’s edge and we could safely approach with a little bit of speed so that I could kill the motor and lift it before we hit the sand.

Porquerolles is a holiday town, but summer was still a month away and the crowd was thin. We wandered around a little and stopped for an ice cream before returning to Alter to prepare for the crossing.

As our departure time neared, I considered the 120 miles between us and Calvi with trepidation. It seemed like an ocean. We’d spent a lot of time going over the weather forecasts, checking the GRIBs for the route and taking every precaution to ensure that we were doing the right thing. We were sheltered from the fresh southerly breeze on the north of the island as we motored out of the bay. Rounding the north side of the island, the breeze began to build. By the time we were clear of the land it had freshened to 20 knots.  We tucked a reef into the main and  rolled out most of the genoa.

But the wind hadn’t read the forecast and, before the hour was up, we cinched a second reef and rolled the genoa in to the next mark. The sun fell and the darkness swept down on us with more wind and waves. 

I was still feeling fine, so I went forward to put the third, and final, reef in for the night. It was apparent that the forecast had underestimated the wind’s resolve. Even the extra 10% that we’d added as a precaution didn’t come close to the gale that began howling and threatened to tear the wind generator from its mountings.

We needed to stop it, but it wasn’t easy. There was a little rope that we had to pull to bring the blades in line with the wind to stop them. But the wind was in front of us and the spinning blades were between us and the rope. It was necessary to climb the pushpit, reach over the solar panels and slip my arm between the solar panel and the spinning blade, through a gap that was barely bigger than the diameter of my arm. The boat was heaving over the swell, which added an unwanted complication. I slid my hand underneath with trepidation and, just when I thought that the string was in reach, I lifted my arm a little too much and a blade hit my watch with a loud crack. I reflexively snatched my arm back and eyed the howling disk warily for a second attempt.

Nicky persuaded me that her arm was thinner than mine and that it would be easier for her. She climbed the pushpit while I held on to her to stop her from going overboard. Her grip was surer than mine and she soon grabbed the rope and swivelled the blades out of the wind, putting an end to the dreadful vibration.

One problem had been solved, but the wind continued to grow and the night ahead seemed to stretch on to infinity.

We prepared ourselves for the worst, with our lifejackets and harnesses on, tucked into our foulies, and the first watch keeper – me – equipped with both the integral AIS and also a small EPIRB.

Nicky made me a flask of tea and then went below at 20:00. While she tried to get some sleep the wind finally settled at a sustained 40 knots. A swell of over four meters pushed us on the starboard quarter, and set up an uncomfortable corkscrew motion. Despite the cocktail of drugs that I had swallowed, my condition began to circle the drain.

My seasickness takes on a peculiar form. I wish it was the more traditional nausea that can be relieved a little by expelling some of the misery in a good vomit. But mine is more like an onset of epilepsy combined with a touch of psychosis.

It begins fairly traditionally with a cold sweat, little gasps for more air and an unsettled feeling in my stomach. But it progresses to vision disturbance, the inability to tolerate anything in my line of sight and muscular tics.

By the time Nicky emerged for her watch at 23:00, I was in full Cuckoo’s Nest, flapping about like a landed fish. Nicky helped me below and had to take my foulies off for me because I had no control over my arms. She got me into the aft cabin, where we had prepared a bunk, and tucked me in. I had enough sense in me to feel despair because I knew that I had become almost useless and that Nicky was going to have to make the rest of the crossing on her own.

Fortunately, Nicky is at her best in adversity and she rose to the challenge. When my shaking eventually stopped, I lapsed into a blissful oblivion. Through my addled sleep I heard the winch grinding now and then as Nicky adjusted the genoa, reeling it in to a rag when the wind threatened to overpower her, then letting it out a little when it eased.

Nicky’s voice penetrated my restless sleep. It was time for my watch but, although I had largely recovered, I knew that if I moved from the horizontal, I wouldn’t last five minutes. I would be able to help her in extremis, but doing a solo watch was out of the question.

‘There’s a ship heading straight for us!’ she yelled over the wind.

‘It should move out of the way when it sees us on AIS.’

‘It’s getting pretty close.’

There wasn’t much scope for turning in the conditions, but right of way means little when a sailing boat and a container vessel collide. ‘If he’s not turning, we’ll have to.’

And the only thing I remember until much later was Nicky’s greeting to the ship as it slid past in the darkness, having kept doggedly to its course. ‘VAFFANCULO, YOU FUCKING ARSEHOLE.’ I didn’t know that she could speak Italian.

Nicky sailed on into the night alone while I lay below with my nightmares. But hers were real. Around three in the morning, the boat drifted off its course. Since we’d left Marseille the autohelm had performed flawlessly, giving us the confidence to shelter under the spray dodger in the worst weather and allow the autohelm to keep a constant angle to the wind.

But when it drifted off, Nicky couldn’t do anything to persuade it to return to our course, or even to hold it. She tried  heading-hold in case the wind computer had failed, but that wouldn’t work either. It meant that she could no longer shelter from the weather and was forced to spend the rest of the night at the wheel. 

She called me when land was in sight the wind had died a little. The sea was still up but the motion was easier. I managed to rouse and dress myself and join her on deck in time to see the mountains of Corsica emerge from the gloom. 

I took the wheel and suggested that Nicky go below, but there was still too much adrenaline flowing through her and, although she was exhausted, she wanted to be there to the end. I tried the autohelm again when it was light in the hope that we could identify the problem but, although all the indications were normal, it wouldn’t respond. 

It was midday before we nudged into the Golfe de Revellata, a small bay to the west of Calvi, across the water from the citadel. It was sheltered and calm, a strange contrast to the tempestuous night. We stowed the mainsail, reefed the genoa and motored to a quiet corner of the bay, where we dropped anchor.

While Nicky had a well-deserved shower I made her marmite on toast for breakfast. I put her to bed and told her what an amazing job she had done. Then I put the sail covers on and secured the boat, while feeling abashed at my impotence.