Vendée Globe

All is quiet, but it is an oppressive silence, which engulfs you.  
A strange, deafening silence.  Silence is said to help you rest, but here in the middle of nowhere, this silence is tiring and, for some, worrying.

Since the start, noise has been omnipresent to the extent that you become used to it, even if it is rather too present.  When you slam into the waves, the ear-drums are struck with noise above 120 dB during this rough ride.
But noise also signals that you are making good headway.  The louder the noise, the better the speed, so no one ever complains.  The keel sings, the water whistles by the hull, the mast and shrouds groan - it's more exciting than a Jimi Hendrix guitar solo!
But when the sound of the water is reduced to a simple lapping sound, nothing is going well. You do not need to look at the speedo to know that the speed is down to below 2 knots.

Not a breath of air.  All you can do is wait.  Impossible to get a move on.  The burning, leaden skies will come to an end.  Ocean racing teaches you to be patient and humble, as you suffer this frustration.  And you keep telling yourself that your friends have found the wind and that you must be a complete idiot to have ended up in this mess. There is nothing more irritating. You go over and over the same things, looking at the charts and you even start to miss the gales during the first few days.

You go out on deck. It looks like the boat is sitting on a polished mirror. There is just a northerly swell to give some relief to this smooth surface.  The lifeless sails flap miserably.  Occasionally, the sheet clangs against the pulley to punctuate the silence. All very gloomy. It feels like you are elsewhere, in another world, in a motionless desert, where time has stood still.

Over there on the horizon, you look for the sails of your fellow competitors, but all you can see are the cumulus clouds with their dark bottoms indicating strong gusts to come. How can you get over there?  Your course changes according to the whims of the Doldrums and that keeps you from sinking into despair.

Under the scorching sun, the heat is stifling and hard to stand. Hat, sunglasses, sun cream...impossible to go outside without covering up without risking getting sunburnt.
Inside, in this cabin lacking insulation, the temperature at midday is close to 50° and the dark colour of the hull does not help. It is difficult to breathe.

Each little movement is difficult.  With all the sweat, the skin is wet and sticky. The effect of the sea water shower you just took only offered temporary relief. Once the water had evaporated, the salt remains to make the skin itch.  You should rinse yourself off, but fresh water is a precious commodity. When you think that it was only a few days ago that you were in a fleece and waterproofs.  The change is striking and therefore all he more difficult to live with.  Adapting to climate change is tough on the body, as is the jet lag.  It takes a fortnight to get used to it.  Just when you get used to it, you start to feel the chilly weather of the far south!  

Before that happens, you just have to stay in the steamy conditions and drink. Drink to sweat.  The water that evaporates helps evacuate the surplus heat from the body that the dilated vessels take to the surface. A sort of personal air-conditioning system.  But in the Equator, when the air is saturated with humidity, this evaporation is difficult in spite of all the sweating, which can total 15 litres a day! Seawater showers are vital to keep cool.  These dilated vessels mean less blood for the muscles and neurons with cramps during tricky manoeuvres and sometimes even dizzy bouts.
So it is best to try to work more at night, whenever possible. Without being knocked out by the heat, you can think more clearly and manoeuvres are not as difficult. And with a little luck, you will be able to make the most of every puff of air and get out of this open prison.
Dr Jean-Yves Chauve

Infos précédentes :