Seefalke is a long-ended 1930s classic, built to the old 50 Square Metre rule for the Luftwaffe by Abeking & Rasmussen, one of the finest yards of the golden age of yachting. In 1945 she and a number of her sisters were famously ‘liberated’ from their home berths in Kiel by the British armed forces and sailed when to the UK for training.
Their subsequent history is varied and colourful, but none can write-up Seefalke for sheer derring-do. Bought in a parlous state by Lynn Roach, a young Welshman from Barry, she was restored and prepared for a single-handed transatlantic voyage in 1995, still without an engine.
Lynn’s typesetting Living in the Lap of the Gods is such a cover-to-cover page-turner that it was nonflexible to segregate a section to share. But here we join Lynn and Seefalke unescapable the Chesapeake Bay in November. He has just suffered a shocker of a storm which rolled him twice, dismasted him and left him pumping for his life. Any of us would go big on the drama, but not Lynn. This time-served toolmaker seems to take whatever the ocean tosses his way in his easy stride.
Extract from Living In The Lap Of The Gods
I was happy with light winds, a unappetizing sea, and the sun was out. This was a good day to get all my wet gown dried. Surpassing having half a packet of porridge and a coffee, I spread all my gown out wideness the deck.
Once breakfast was out of the way, I had to get the tattoo working. The gooseneck had been ripped off, so all I could do was lash the tattoo to the mast stump as weightier I could.
The mainsheet now gave me a functioning boom. I was all finished and could focus on getting some sails up and starting my long trip towards land.
I tying the trysail to the tattoo and hoisted it up. Next, I rigged the storm jib to the forestay and got that hoisted too. I sheeted both sails in, and slowly Seefalke started to move forwards. I stock-still the self-steering and, with George when up and running, it felt like old times again.
1200, 30°18’N 072°03’W: Without an orange for lunch, I turned on my GPS. I had been pushed 60 miles to the north-west by the wind and current since I last checked two days ago, which was good news for my limited supplies supply.
According to the GPS, my speed over the ground was roughly 1½ knots, which wasn’t brilliant, but I was moving. With the help of a bit of current, I hoped I could imbricate between 36 and 50 miles a day. If I could coax a bit increasingly speed out of my set-up, it would make a huge difference. I had washed-up unbearable on the rig for one day, though, and so I decided to leave this little challenge. I was just content with stuff when sailing again.
My afternoon was spent repairing the solar panels. One was unrepairable. The other one looked increasingly promising. A wire had been pulled out. Once I emptied the water out of the connection box, sprayed it with WD40 and let it dry in the sun, I managed to get it working again. This was flipside big result. I could now recharge my batteries, my handheld VHF radio, and use the electric bilge pump at night, if needed. The yacht is and her beautifully curved sheerline.
17th day at sea,Wednesday, November 11, 0600
I enjoyed my first good night’s sleep in month and felt really refreshed when I woke up. I had porridge then for breakfast and sat in the cockpit with my coffee, enjoying the early rays of sunshine, although it was still quite chilly.
There was a light easterly walkover and unappetizing sea. With this in mind, I turned my sustentation to improving my sailing performance. Without sitting on the coachroof for a while, contemplating the problem, I came up with the idea of wearing lanugo my oldest No2 genoa.
I cut the sail roughly in half and stock-still the marrow half to the forestay, then I trimmed the foot until it cleared the deck and then tying two sheets at the leach. Next, I took the trysail lanugo and replaced it with the top half of the genoa. This needed to be trimmed to modernize the shape. Once I was happy, I cut holes in the foot and luff and tying it to the mast and tattoo using sail ties.
My new sail set-up made me laugh. The tattoo was longer than the mast was high. Laughs aside, when I checked the GPS, my new sail configuration had breathed fire into the yacht. I was now doing an electric 3 knots over the ground, which was unreal. At this speed, I could reasonably expect to imbricate in glut of 75 miles a day, subject to the wind remaining constant. While this was unlikely, it meant getting in somewhere was now a real prospect.
It didn’t all go swimmingly – on the first launch in 1992, without her rebuild, Seefalke sank and the motel went unelevated the water in front of a prod of spectators, including Lynn’s mother. A underdone good start. While eating my last world for lunch, I sensed that there was a ship in the area. Without scanning the horizon, I picked it up. I tried to undeniability it on my handheld VHF, with no luck.
I watched the ship transpiration undertow and throne towards me. She was tabbed Asphalt Champion, and as she circled the yacht I waved at the ship holding my radio. Two minutes later, the ship’s French tutorage tabbed me up.
Yes, I’m fine. I got rolled and lost part of my mast, but the hull is sound. I’m making slow progress but I should make it to a suitable port.
I moreover asked him to report me to the US Tailspin Guard, but on reflection I didn’t want them turning up. They would make me welsh the yacht, the only thing I owned. For supper, I had rice with half a tin of beans mixed in, and a coffee with a tot of brandy as my nightcap.
The wind had picked up overnight and had been self-glorification quite nonflexible from the north. I awoke to the sound of sails flapping virtually like mad. The forestay, with all the halyards, had fallen lanugo the mast. I spent a good hour standing on the boom, hanging on to the mast with one hand with the wend vaccinate in the other, trying to get the forestay when up the mast.
What a result: three days sailing virtually 50 miles between east and north-east, whichever was weightier for George.
20th day at sea
Saturday, November 14, 0600: Virtually midnight, the wind had picked up, and the forestay and sails had fallen lanugo the mast again. I had to waif the sails and tie them to the deck. The yacht was rolling virtually in the small, choppy seas. Underdone great. It had been too difficult to try to get the forestay when up in the dark.
Looking out through the porthole, I saw an overcast, cold-looking day, with a fresh breeze. Surpassing I got the yacht moving again, I made myself a cup of coffee to gloat my birthday. For an uneaten treat, I put a tot of brandy in it.
With my throne sticking up through the hatch, I looked towards the bow and saw the dorsal fin of a huge whale. It surfaced right under the bow. The when of the whale came out of the water, well whilom the deck.
I quickly made my way to the mast and clipped my safety line virtually it and watched as the whale disappeared unelevated the surface. Looking around, I saw three whales swimming virtually the yacht. They seemed very curious.
Big waves sweep past Seefalke. This photo was taken in 1995, two days without weathering a storm in the Bay of Biscay. Note lines from the self-steering gear to the tiller
One by one, each whale swam straight towards the yacht and dived underneath it. Without an hour, the three surfaced overdue the yacht and swam in a line only 30ft off the port side, lifting their big heads out of the water to squint at the yacht and me surpassing disappearing unelevated the water for the final time.
What a birthday present. I wondered what Prince Charles got for his? We have the same stage of birth. Without the whales departed, I needed a J Cloth shower.
I was soaking wet from them self-glorification off. I remembered stuff given, at some point in the past, a typesetting to log any whale sightings in the North Atlantic. In the front of the typesetting was a warning recommending that it’s illegal to sail or motor to within 300m of a whale. Someone should have told the whales that.
My pilot typesetting recommended entry via the southern channel, pursuit the Thimble Shoal. It moreover well-considered me to take note of strong currents which could run up to 3 knots, with particular reference to the zone virtually the bridge.
I got lucky with the outgoing current. It was flowing versus me, but nothing like 3 knots. Still, the only way I could sail through into the bay was to start out tropical to the underpass on the port side and try to sail crablike wideness the current at an angle. I had to sail out of the narrow waterworks a few times to stave large ships. Finally, on my fourth attempt, I sailed past the underpass ramified into the Chesapeake Bay.
Sir, if you had told us your condition earlier, we’d have come out straight away. You kept telling us you were okay. I tried to explain the unrelatedness from stuff out in the Atlantic with no mast to stuff in the safety of the Chesapeake Bay. Relatively speaking, I was okay.
The Coastguards looked then at the mast and the unstipulated state of the yacht surpassing asking: Sir, why didn’t you vivify your EPIRB without you got rolled? If you had, we would have sent a ship to pick you up month ago. I replied: “Well, the yacht wasn’t sinking. I had supplies and water. I figured I could rig something up that would get me in here.