Wick(ed) Winds, Ep. 211

It was cold, it was rainy, and above all else the wind was howling unremittingly in the rigging. All of the visitor spaces at the Kirkwall marina were full, as boaters either sought refuge or delayed plans to depart until this gale blew through. Our comfortable berth was calling us, like the mythical Greek sirens, into the warmth of its embrace. But following Homer’s good example, we heeded not these temptations, choosing to cast off our docklines and sail south. To wait a day would mean southwest winds, directly on our nose, as we headed down to the mainland of Scotland to meet our daughter Alaska in Inverness. What we all do for our family, what our parents did for us, can often escape the attention of those it benefits, but we do it regardless.

We had rigged up our storm jib on its removable forestay for only its third showing in six years of ownership. As we cleared the opening of the harbor breakwater, a crazy confused sea smacked us in the face with horizontal water whose source was tough to distinguish – either the sea or the sky. I was trying to finish stowing the fenders up in the bow, getting them down below decks before too much water followed them into the sail locker. In the sensory confusion and poor visibility, we continued to head straight out of the harbor on a course that would put us aground on the shore in just a few minutes as the side breeze pushed us, on each crest of a wave, sideways closer to danger. After correcting course at the last minute, it felt like an auspicious start to our passage.

As far as sheer distances from landmass to landmass go, this crossing to mainland Scotland should have been something of a non-event. It is just over 5 miles from the southern tip of Orkney to Duncansby Head on the northeastern end of Scotland. But this was the proverbial wolf in sheep’s clothing.

Sea Rose was heeled way over just from the wind on her hull and rigging. No other pleasure boats were out, but an annoying number of inter-island ferries were approaching us from astern or crossing close in front of us. We really needed to raise some sail and turn downwind out of the harbor, but we needed maneuvering room around the ferries. These ferries have priority over everyone else including sailboats, a point made crystal clear in every source we read about UK navigational rules. The sooner we could set sail, the sooner we could figure out if this choice we had made to leave port was going to stick to the wall of logic and reason. For practical reasons, it is never good to motor a sailboat at an acute angle of heel. At some point, the engine loses oil pressure and we didn’t want to learn how that would play out in the court of public opinion or our own self opinion.

Karen turned us into the wind so I could unfurl a small amount of the mainsail. Bearing away and shutting the engine down, we began to accelerate across the harbor, confusing a ferry captain who we had just let pass us. Across the harbor and rapidly getting larger was the island of Shapinsay that we had just visited with friends Steve and Julie a few days earlier, and on a day too calm to sail to boot! We had to turn downwind, out the main channel to the sea called ‘The String’ which is known like so many other channels here for its strong currents. We had planned our marina departure in order to cross the tricky Pentland Firth – the 5 mile stretch of water between the landmasses – with a favorable current, but that put us in the teeth of the current in The String, against a 30+ knot wind. And we had to urgently gybe the mainsail before hitting Shapinsay. The boom came over with a thud as we executed the gybe while trying to keep the boat from gybing back in the precipitous wind-against-current induced waves. With just the mainsail up, it can make the boat difficult to steer because of the imbalance of forces – especially in strong winds. We had the storm jib all ready to go on its own removable forestay, but it was difficult to raise it going downwind. It kept getting fouled in the sheets from the rolled up genoa. It’s a tiny sail, meant for these gale force conditions, and once set, it helped to stabilize the boat in these rough waters. But more land was rapidly approaching off our bow before we could clear the Orkney Islands and turn south. We decided to wear about, a maneuver we use often when the conditions are nasty and gybing the boat could be too much on the rigging and sails. It involves coming about – the normal process of tacking the bow through the wind – but with the purpose of heading downwind on the other tack, a maneuver that results in turning the boat about three quarters of the way around instead of one quarter around, and without all of the drama of gybing.

It all seemed to go fine as we set our new course directly East, but moments later, as we were checking the trim of the sails, I noticed that the storm jib had ‘hour-glassed’, a frightful arrangement where the upper half of the sail wraps around the forestay on one side and the lower half wraps around the other side. This leaves the sail to luff violently in the wind and, with equal pressure on both sides, can make it very difficult to unwind. It is an occasional occurrence with a light and fickle spinnaker, but this had never happened to us with a jib. What’s more, with all of the shaking of the sail, we noticed that both of the sheets had shaken themselves loose. The sail had to come down to the deck immediately before it was shredded to pieces. While I was up on the foredeck as Karen lowered the halyard, I noticed a batten – the stiff, thin fiberglass blades that are used in pockets inside the sail to keep its shape – was laying on the foredeck. Looking up, I could see the top batten pocket in the storm jib had torn. Miraculously, sailing downwind, this batten had come loose from the sail and instead of blowing into the water forward of the boat, it had landed on the deck. We got the sheets re-tied on to the sail and re-hoisted it. As I was heading back to the cockpit, trying to minimize the time I was on the bouncy foredeck, the wind caught my hat and whipped it off my head. In another odd coincidence, the hat landed squarely across one of the lifelines, being pushed equally on both sides which kept it from flying overboard. I grabbed it quickly and hustled to the safety of the cockpit. Our efforts to minimize the drama weren’t meeting with much success.

Finally, we cleared Deerness Island and could make a significant turn towards the south. The counter current had mostly subsided, and our inner, unshared thoughts of turning back were pushed down the this-needs-to-be-dealt-with-immediately list. The winds were steadily in the mid-30 knot range and the seas were building more than we would have expected from the short fetch that existed from the land upwind of us. I worried greatly that if it was this windy and rough here, behind the protection of the big landmasses of Orkney, what would happen when we cleared the southern end at South Ronaldsay and entered the Pentland Firth. Pages of cautionary advice and stories of unfortunate experiences were dedicated to the Pentland Firth in our guide books, for, despite its small area, great and turbulent seas can form, particularly when the 5-8 knots of current is flowing against the wind. On paper, we should have been fine, crossing it at a time in the cycle with strong winds and current headed in the same easterly direction. But our desired course took us in a southwesterly direction, and combined with the current pushing us strongly to the east, we had to ‘crab’ further westward to keep our course over ground in line with our destination, forcing us to sail a close-hauled course. And our destination was not yet set in stone. The logical goal for the night would be the harbor of Wick, just south of Duncansby Head. We could rest up, and then strike out for Inverness the next day. But the winds were shifting overnight to be directly from the southwest. It would be a long 70 mile slog upwind if we threw in the towel early at Wick. We came around yet another odd place name of Horse of Copinsay Island where we could fully head on our ultimate course. I made Karen a bit nervous as I shaved the distance to the rocky outcropping like a Miami Grand Prix driver not wanting to lose any time on our ETA. My punishment was a washing machine of pitched waves on the other side of the island that we could only guess was the result of a change in the strength and direction of the current. There was no discernable pattern to the waves. It was like a two year old flaying about incoherently because they’ve been too many hours in the car seat.

Eventually the rhythm of the waves was restored and we resorted to 15-30 minute watches at the helm, hand steering to best keep the boat on course through the big swells while not pinching too far into the wind. We needed every inch to windward we could get without slowing the boat down too much. A quick check of the chartplotter told us that we had 13 miles to go, or about 3 hours at the current speed over ground, to get in the lee of the mainland of Scotland. We could decide then the question of whether to Wick or not. For now, it was 3 hours of endurance.

In the middle of the Pentland Firth, we started seeing 2-3 knots of current pushing us sideways, close to the forecasted current. This caused our course over ground to be considerably off course from the vicinity of Wick. As we passed behind the protection of Duncansby Head, it didn’t give us any wind or wave protection as we had hoped, and the current pushed us even farther off a course from Wick and the stretch of coastline leading down to Inverness. In frustration at our heading, I called out that we should look at meeting Alaska in Aberdeen. But sarcastic as it was, we couldn’t even contemplate that destination, as our current heading intersected the Smith Bank, home of two new monstrous wind farms totaling 250 wind turbines, enough to power a million homes in the UK. Dodging turbine blades that are each up to 150 meters or 500 feet long, even if they would have allowed us to transit through, is a game best left to Hollywood.

At 8pm, with the sun getting low in the sky and the wind easing a bit, we debated and then discarded the option of Wick. It would be peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for dinner and a switch to overnight watch mode. I almost preferred to have the higher winds. We needed more sail area up to keep progress through the big waves. At times, as Sea Rose would rise up the front of a wave and slam down on the back side, her momentum would be thwarted and we would see the knotmeter settle down to 1-2 knot speeds. Gradually, as we beared away to get more wind in the sails, the speed would climb up to 4 knots, maybe 5, and then the cycle would repeat itself. It was too rough for me or Karen to go up on the foredeck to douse the storm jib and replace it with the larger genoa. For now, we’d have to work with the sail plan we had. With our poor speeds, we were more at the mercy of the waves – a passenger in this race against time and tide rather than being the driver. Sea Rose can be a workhorse of a tough boat through big seas if she has the wind and the sail plan to match.

More waves were hitting the hull directly on the side, sending sea spray up and back to the cockpit. At one point, we were hit by a particularly large wave and plumes of water flew over the top of the bimini and out past the stern to leeward. That was a first. Did we have the mental stamina to endure this? Did our boat? Wick was at our stern, daylight was fading and the only possibility for a safe anchorage was Portmahomack 40 miles upwind ahead of us near a peninsula named Tarbat Ness. As the wind farm boundary approached, we tacked away which put the coastline directly ahead of us. But our tack angle, normally at about 90 degrees to the previous heading, was way off as we tried to hold speed through the waves by heading off wind more than usual. Frustrated by the lack of progress, we tacked back on our original heading. Yet, we still were not clearing the southern end of a wind farm that appeared to stretch from horizon to horizon. We made another tack back towards the coast and we agreed, as an overnight was unavoidable, that it was time to start getting some rest. Karen went down for the first two hour stent. I kept pushing on towards the coast with the hope that the closer we came to land, the better protection and less waves we would get once we tacked back again. Once I was close enough to see a few homes nestled up on the headlands, I tacked over. The wind had moderately considerably as well as the sea state, leading me to try furling the sails and motoring. I had never been so happy to motor! The seas were calm enough that we weren’t slamming into them, and the wind was light enough that we could make over 5 knots of speed through the water. At this rate, I could begin to foresee a future of us arriving in the present century in Inverness. The chance of getting some rest on a reasonably flat boat were looking bright.

Karen came up for her watch, not sure what to make of my newfound giddiness as I headed off to a warm berth below. At midnight, she woke me out of fear that following this close-to-shore approach put us at risk of running over hard to see fish buoys. Indeed, we were clearly not in the land of the midnight sun and with the shadow of a tall headland, the sky had become quite dark. We turned away from the coast again and set sails, this time with the full genoa. Some kind of counter current was enveloping us, as we could not hold a good close-hauled heading, but our options were limited. I steered my best course for the lighthouse at Tarbat Ness, with its light pattern, four flashes followed by a 25 second pause, burned into my visual memory bank as I stared into the otherwise inky darkness. I made three tacks back and forth, each time feeling like I was making progress on the lighthouse, still projecting its predictable four flashes with a long pause. When Karen came back up on watch to see the lighthouse still ahead of us, she shared my dismay. I was wide awake and gave her another hour of sleep while I pressed on. I could faintly make out a dark rain cloud ahead and moments later the wind dialed up to the high 20’s. I would regret not taking in a reef earlier, but then the wind would die back down to the 15’s and we could barely make headway in the choppy uneven waves. Another dark spot would appear in the sky and the cycle would repeat. Finally, when Karen came up on watch again, we agreed to try motoring, out of fear we may never reach Tarbat Ness. As we got ready to furl the mainsail, Karen noticed that the tack loop, at the bottom forward corner of the sail, had somehow slipped off the hook on the mast where it is secured and was rising up on the track. Waiting too long with this situation ran the risk of the sail starting to pull out of its track. Karen slackened the halyard and I want up on deck to re-hook the sail.

At 4am, after we rounded Tarbat Ness, I went down for my off-watch. The wind had mellowed, and with the protection of the land, the boat was nearly flat as we motored into a light chop. Even better, the sun had just risen and we could safely navigate around any fish buoys that showed up on our path.

At 7am, I took back over at the helm as scattered clouds allowed the sun to peek through and warm us up from a cold and difficult night. We still had 15-20 knots of wind on our nose, but the water was quite flat by now and there was some level of hope restored that we might actually make our original Caledonian Canal Sea Lock entrance booking for 2:45pm. I had called to make this booking two days prior, having no idea the challenges we would have sailing south from Orkney. Now it seemed that Aberdeen was going to have to wait for another day in the distant future. We were going to make the canal one way or another.

The bay leading into Inverness, named Moray Firth, is shaped like a funnel as it narrows steadily to just a river’s width. We fought counter current here as the waters narrowed, but with Inverness visible in the hazy distance, it was no consequence. Our 57 horses under the cockpit were driving us to an eventuality of safety and comfort. That is, as long as we paid attention to the chartplotter. Like many river outlets to the sea, the depths can vary widely. At one moment you are in water several times your keel’s depth. The next moment you are aground on mud. I gingerly followed the channel buoys as they snaked me from one side of the Inverness Firth to the other, with a dogleg around a stately lighthouse at Chanonry Point where a few clusters of people on this Saturday morning casually strolled along the water’s edge, possibly staring out at us with wonder, not knowing that I very much was wondering what it would feel like to have terra firma under my soles. How I longed to switch places with them. At Kessock Bridge, a busy artery leading car traffic into and out of Inverness, I suddenly saw four sailboats spat out of the canal entrance with their sails unfurling, headed downwind with glee. It was 10:30am and I was surprised to see the lock letting boats out as it was supposed to be closed at this time during low tide. On a whim, I called the lock tender on the VHF, asking if we could transit through earlier than our booking. He confirmed that the lock was open and we should hustle on up and enter. Still in an overnight brain fog, we both hurriedly got into lock passage mode, tying fenders on both sides and positioning four dock lines, two each at the bow and two at the stern. The entrance to the lock was impossibly narrow; I was certain that we were at the wrong location. Yet, this was it and we pulled in quickly, heaving lines 3-4 meters above our heads to the lock tender at the top of the lock wall so that he could wrap them around a metal hook and pass the tail back to us to hold onto back onboard. A total of five boats squeezed in with us – two from Norway, one from Germany, and one local UK boat. I couldn’t believe they left all of this boat handling work to one lock tender. He greeted us with typical British hospitality and cordialness. In addition, his duties included confirming our payment, providing us with a printed guide and chart of the entire canal, the handing over keys to use at canal facilities along the way, and the assignment of berths at the Inverness Seaport Marina just inside. This was a man that deserved a pay raise.

We rose up quickly to the top of the lock wall and soon enough the gates opened ahead of us. We proceeded slowly onward as a railroad swing bridge opened for us, followed by the entry into a second lock. As we approached, I saw our friendly lock tender speedily pedaling his bike down the canal path to help us at this next lock. We were astonished! For this second go-around, it was slightly easier now that we knew what to expect and what to do when. We were promptly emptied out into the main canal area of Inverness, heading for the first open berth we could find on the visitor pontoon. Karen backed us into our spot with ease despite a cross wind. With bow, stern and two spring lines, we were tied securely alongside and the engine was shut down. After a rest and a warm shower, we would be rejuvenated. But this had been our most difficult sailing passage ever. It was good to put it in the rearview mirror as we turned toward the joy of having our daughter onboard. The opportunity of spending a week on the flat, calm, tideless Caledonian Canal could not have come at a better time!