From the nav station

Getting a bit smelly now, Roger Nilson reports from mid-Pacific on board Orange II

This morning we are feeling relaxed. We had managed to get through the night with good speed without seeing any trace of ice. The icebergs here in the Pacific are a bit like Jesus. Everybody talks about them but so far nobody has seen them...and we certainly hope we will not...

As our radar has, for quite a while now, had red tape over it's screen, with the words 'MORT/DEAD' written on it. So we have to trust our eyes and a small nightscope that magnifies light, like the one Hannibal Lecter used in "Silence of the Lambs..." He was trying to find a young innocent women in a dark celler. We are just trying to find a possible innocent iceberg which could be equally bad news, especially if it is surrounded with bergy bits each weighing a couple of tons, hiding most of their mass under water...

Yesterday we started to, perhaps a bit reluctantly, diving down south again, straight into the cold mid-50s latitudes. The goal is to gain latitude, stay in stronger breeze, reduce distance to Cape Horn and pick up a wind shift later on. The powerful northerly winds we have enjoyed since yesterday are like an appetiser before the main course, as a tropical storm called Olaf rolls down behind us. Olaf will join one of his fellow lows in the South and they are due to both slow down before merging their energies and resuming their journey as one mighty new LOW...

So once again we are executing the Orange trick of going so fast that hopefully we will stay in front of the really nasty action of the newborn LOW.

On our MaxSea routing software you can put colour on the windspeeds. Orange II loves the green and yellow, which means windspeeds of 20-30 knots but does not enjoy the light to dark red representing 35 to 50 knots of brutal, cold and heavy breeze. Small and large multihulls alike prefer flat water and moderate winds as that is when we can stretch our legs.

In the Southern Ocean the chill factor makes the air heavier, more dense which means that 25 knots of wind down here feels like 35 on a nice spring day in France. Certainly we do not like the blue colour on the PC screen, meaning less then 15 knots of breeze. We also try very hard to avoid gales and big new or old waves, especially waves which are not lined up 90 degrees to the wind.

With help of the amazing speed of this vessel we also get another advantage: The sea just on the eastern edge of a low, is flat like a pancake, with a steady breeze aloft and the screaming sound from the hull indicating a steady 30 knots of boat speed. As a result we are moving as fast as the whole weather system...

As we head south it is getting colder and this morning got really close to the north bulge of the Antartic convergence at 145degW. That means we are halfway across the Pacific. Water temperature is slowly dropping to 5.8 degC and air temp is heading that way too. We are about to pass the area where Ecover in the Vendee Globe 45 days ago came across a large old iceberg.

A little bit further east we also know about ice further to the north reported by the MRCC (Marine Resque Coordination Center) in Chile.

This morning dawn came to calm our worries about running headlong into some nasty mine, a growler, a chunk of ice big enough to end this so far highly successful journey. The visibility was acceptable and I went down to our galley in the starboard hull to make my traditional morning porridge and find the ingrediants for my favorite post sleep reviver - coffee with chocolate powder, milk powder and a touch of sugar.

I took the time to brush my teeth, to pull out a few baby wipes. Hiding in the navigation station, I give myself clean as best as is possible using a baby wipe and made the decision to wait another day to change my underwear. Once a week is good enough...Actually I think this impressively large boat could have taken the weight of a small shower with hot saltwater...Next time perhaps.. Bruno insists that I should cut off a piece of my blue towel, heat up some fresh water mixed with light soap and wipe myself down with that. Perhaps I am not smelling so good?

This a French boat which means we have plenty of well selected toiletries on board, things you would never find on an Anglo-Saxon racing boat. So far I have not used Bruno's towel technique but last night used another piece of advice from my dear skipper. I slept for the first time without my Henri Lloyd mid-layer outfit. We have great thick, warm sleeping bags and as a result I woke up feeling more refreshed then ever before..! I have heard about this trick from mountain climbers - better to have a first class sleeping bag and sleep in underwear then a thin bag, which you sleep in fully dressed.

This morning I was once again reminded about a mistake I made before the start. Everybody, except Ludo, Nicolas and myself, shaved their heads. Should I look like a skinhead or a poodle coming out in the spring? No way...Now I have to pay for it. There's been no chance for a good hairwash since we left Brazilian waters and this makes long hair a bit sticky and almost certainly a bit smelly. Anyway, it seems that it will only take us a few more days to be back off Brazil so I can wait till then...

After the hygiene session and breakfast in my little 'nest' back aft I make my way forward in the long, black carbon corridor-like starboard hull. At speeds around 30 knots the movement of the boat is very jerky and one needs to hold on all the time. It feels like being inside a fast train which travels on a perpetually curving track. You are thrown from side to side but never feel 'the train' come to a sudden stop. This machine has 4m of freeboard and has to date never hit a wave with her crossbeams. That is the major reason to why we can keep these high average speeds.

Two hours after dawn I am up on deck again. The scenario has dramaticly changed. The boat is flying along, like an amphibious airplane with two hulls. But the visibility has totally gone... A dense fog has descended like a ice cold, wet blanket all across the ocean.

The relatively warm air from the north hits the cold masses of water pushed up from Antarctica - not unusual down here. I have even been in a northerly gale at this latitude,
with zero visibility. Not pleasant...

At 30 knots we are this morning running into a white nothingness....Like driving your car at too high a speed in a snow blizzard. The only difference is that you can slow down or stop the car. It does not feel like a good alternative for us. At least we know we are on a fairly empty highway and most likely there are no obstructions ahead... One can just imagine the old clipper ships rushing blindly through the nights down here. For them it was not easy to change course. At least we can stop this wild monster in a few hundred meters.

Thankfully there was a a great relief when after a few hours the whole white blanket lifts away like with a magic invisable hand and the Southern Ocean scene returns in it's raw naked beauty.

A huge king albatross is enjoying his day, gliding effortlessly just metres from the boat. He has no problem keeping up with our speed without even moving his wings. One wonders how this perfect gliding birds makes it upwind...? Perhaps they never go upwind, perhaps they just follow the westerlies around Antartica..? Who knows..?

We have been at sea now just over a month, having sailed more then 16 000 nautical miles in this time and are a bit more then four days ahead of the outright nonstop record. We know that our virtual competitor, Cheyenne, had a very lucky and fast passage up the Atlantic. That means that we would like to have a bit more than four days 'in the bank' when we reach Cape Horn. The Horn is not so far away, a bit less then 2000 nautical miles. With some luck it looks like we will round this famous landmark in moderate conditions but you never know in these waters...

All well onboard , specially tonight as we got vacuum bagged potatoes with delicious meat. Not freeze dried this time which makes a welcome change.

Yours Roger