Three hours sleep a day

David Rawlinson recounts his nine days at sea on leg one of the Mini's Les Sables-Azores race

On 30 July at 1302 local time, 70 minis raced across the start line of the biggest race of the season; the Azores and back single-handed race, premier edition.

A few days before the start, we had to compete in a prologue race, which is feared by all Mini sailors as there is a risk of breaking something or ripping a kite. The prologue is for the media and the general public and gives us a chance to show off our boats. This prologue went well, as usual half the fleet was over the line before the gun!! Each boat had a local child onboard form the sailing centre, which is good to involve people as much as possible and mini sailing even more popular. We finished 27th in the prologue.

The morning of the start everyone was doing their last minute checks on the weather forecast and talking to their routers. It looked like some head winds for the first two days until we got out of Biscay then it was downwind the rest of the way across the Atlantic to the Azores.

The start was hectic to say the least, the committee had set out the line some time before and the wind had shifted, to make the committee boat end by far the most favourable and the upwind mark could be made on the one tack! My start was going to be great, I was storming towards to bulk of the fleet on port and tacked onto starboard hitting the line shortly afterwards at full speed with the front boats. However after crossing the line I realised there was something seriously wrong with my backstay. We were in a heavy downpour of rain and about 17 knots of breeze and as I have to wear glasses I can never see a damned thing in rain! The topmast runner had somehow taken a turn around my starboard jumper spreader, I could not tack back to port because the whole fleet was there and I could not carry on, on starboard as there would be a risk of breaking the spreader off so I had to stop and everyone passed me. My pilot was also not currently working!

I eventually got the backstays sorted, and by the time we had sailed round the short course, before we could head off into Biscay, I caught up and was about the middle of the fleet.

The first eight hours were good, with the gennaker and full main sailing for the corner of Spain. The night brought a different story; I was down to triple reef main and reefed Solent beating to the northwest.

After two and a half days I made it with the rest of the fleet to the corner of Spain. By now I had had three hours of sleep and hand steered almost all the way, fixed the auto pilot. The boat was about the wettest it has ever been, down below would be best described as swimming pool conditions! I had to go down often to bucket out the water. I was also totally soaked, I still don’t understand why foul weather gear cannot be made waterproof!

The Atlantic was the best, it was great to be back out here. It was downwind 20 to 30 knots. I was averaging over 13 knots for 24 hour periods at a time. My top speed was 17.1 kts! Doing this speed the autopilot has not got a hope of steering the boat, it could not be trusted for any more than 2 seconds. So you have to handsteer as long as you can until you start to hallucinate and experiencing micro sleeps, and quite literally drop. This is the time to drop the kite and put up the gennaker and try the pilot and get some sleep. If you crash at these high speeds then all sorts of problems can happen, like losing your mast. Unfortunately three Minis had lost their mast in the conditions, two of them were heading back to Europe and the other is still heading here, the Azores. Early on in the second day Didier on Vector Plus, one of the race winning favourites, had broken his finger and so turned back to France.

It was day 4 when I had my biggest problem and shock - I hit a whale. Luckily it was not at full speed with the kite up. I was changing for a different kite and so I was only doing 8 kts or so. I had just got back to the cockpit after being on the foredeck with the kite and I first saw a spurt of water come up on the starboard side then BANG, the boat spun around 180 degrees, I had fallen off my feet and landed hard on the side of the cockpit in a lot of confusion and mess. I could not believe it, an ocean so big and yet it had to hit me while I am racing?! There was no immediate damage to the boat - there was still the same amount of water down below as usual and the rig was still standing. I decided as I was still daylight, I should have a look at the keel where I think it hit and see if there is any visual damage. Down came the sails and I jumped overboard with a line attached. There were no cracks. I decided not to push it so hard just in case. Strong wind downwind is the perfect conditions for my boat and so to have to ease back a little was a big disappointment. But I would rather arrive with my boat intact than not.

On days 6 and 7 the wind decreased a little and I was sailing with the medium kite. I had already broken two halyards through chafe and now I was about to loose another. I was sailing at about 10 to 12 knots and as I came off the back of a wave the kite filled with more apparent wind and went bang! As the kite fell in the water in front of the bow and as I drove over it, I was starting to get a bit annoyed with things going wrong. So once again drop the main and climb up the mast, for the third time, to re-reef the halyard. Climbing the mast is always a painful experience and I do not recommend it unless you have someone else to winch you up. I was hanging on to the main halyard with my two climbing clips, trying to crash against the mast as little as possible. After I came down and lay on the deck recovering I said to myself that for this next leg I am definitely putting in mouse lines.

I arrived in Horta in the Azores after nine days at sea and totally exhausted as I was having on average 3 hours of sleep a day, and hand steering. I crossed the line a disappointing 44th boat and I was 24th in the proto class. There were nine boats that had to abandon the race and three lost their mast. And lots of people had ripped sails and a few damaged rudders. This race is excellent experience for the Transat next year.

The initial forecast for the next leg is looking like headwinds, but it can easily change.