Crossing the finish line.. Just added more pictures! See PICS

Tuesday 16th June 2009 : 10:00

There are no line honours for Huib Swets (Vijaya) in this years OSTAR (he was 12th over the line) but according to Huib, this is his best race yet. Unlike his experience of other races which he says for him were 'fragmented', his 22 days racing across the North Atlantic have welded into one seamless time span to which he felt very well adapted.

Huib attributes the sensation of 'cohesiveness' in this race to a number of factors, not least of which was the back-up received from his excellent shore team. Other factors included the impact of trackers and instantaneous communications which meant that at any time, he could know his position in relation to the rest of the fleet.

Another factor that Huib found helpful was the weather patterns which, in his experience on this race, were consistent for several days at a time.

Huib's race was not without incident. A few days out, while cooking supper, there was a terrifying crash. Vijaya had hit a large whale and the sea was awash with blood. His first thought was 'keel damage' - the end of the race for him! But on checking, despite the impact of the collision at 9/10 knots, his keel was intact.

Sleep is an issue for many an OSTAR sailor and on this race, The Sleep Research Team at the University of Amsterdam are a beneficiary of Huib's transatlantic experience. Huib has been wired up and given swabs of saliva for analysis.

Finally, Huib says that OSTAR 2009 has taught him plenty about sailing and a lot about himself.

VIJAYA Huib Swets Finished 16 Jun 2009 11:57:30

He did it, again!

I suddenly woke up. With disbelieve I listened to the sounds of the boat. What happens? I shouted at myself. DAMN! (excuse me) we came almost to a standstil! With a speed of 2 knots my boat had turned into a cruiser on an outing on the IJsselmeer! She seemed not to mind, I discovered to my suprise. Very relaxed and satisfed she continued her way over the ocean. well, I was not satified. When I went to my bunk she was doing 8 knots and that's not 2.

In Part I of "I'm so tired.." I explained why my default naps are appr 15 minutes. There is another reason. If i want to go fast, I need to check the sailtuning, course and speed regulary. In 1 hour a lot can change. In 15 minutes (in theory) less. If you want to stay 'in contact' with the boat keep you naps short.

There is another reason why I like these 15 minutes. Somehow they keep me more alert. When I sleep 20 minutes, 25, 30 minutes or even more it cost me much more mental energy to wake up, to check the boat & instruments, etc with a clear mind than when I have a real power nap of +/- 15 minutes.

The example above (wich really happened the other day), is typical worst case scenario for a single handed boat. The skipper falls asleep, and is unaware of almost everything. Here, where I write this, on the Atlantic Ocean it is only a disaster in race terms. I was losing miles on the other competitors. There are stories though where the solo skipper fell asleep and actually grounded the ship. In my opinion it is of the utmost importance for the solo skipper NOT to get too tired. Fatigue/tireness of the human body is soo incredible powerful that you need a shot of a gun (or the modern equivalent the Screaming Meanie (a 120 dB alarm clock..)) to wake somebody up. Not to get too tired means sleep regulary. Even when one is not tired at all, start taking your nap/rest. Even if you can't sleep and only listen to the waves at the other side of the hull, go to you bunk lay down and rest. Don't wait till you can't keep your eyes open anymore, that's defenitely too late. Your body just can't recharge in 15 minutes and basically insist to get asleep and takes over from willpower.

Many people frown when they hear solo skippers talk about their naps: how in this world can you sleep in those 15 minutes? My experience is one can. Especialy when you have some sort of 'base layer of tireness' in your body it is not difficult to do so with some effort. You actually fall asleep after a few (5?) minutes, so you are in a sleep state for about 10 minutes. That works very refreshing.

When I am not very tired I can put my body in a resting position and and let my mind go into a kind of subconscious state. (I never went to a Yoga master nor took any lessons in this field, by the way) In that state I can hear the sound of the water and the sails, even hear the VHF, but all from a distance, and they seem to slow down a bit. So somehow my mind is still awake. A strange effect occurs then, my thoughts become, so it seems, completely autonomous. They go incredibly fast and become totally random. There is no structure it seems and in my observation there is no relevance between the sound I hear, or even the ceiling I stare at(for it even happens with eyes wide open) and these random or maybe associative thoughts. Then the alarm rings, you get up quickly, check the current affairs aboard, go to your bunk again, set the alarm again (and there is the catch! one tends to foget that.. so you need dicpline with this system) and go back into your 15 minutes cocoon. It is a strange phenomenon but it happens and it is repetitive.

Sleep well, h

This passed my mind after a short 15 minutes nap, when I was heading towards the cockpit. The sky cleared a bit, the horizon had a distinct line again and right there I discoverd some yellowish light. That must be sun! So there WAS life outside the cabin of my boat after all. Right at that precise moment a brigade of 20 dolphins were heading to the boat, galopping over the waves. The leader pointed out were to go. There! Straight into the bow waves. For 15 minutes I was treated by their beauty. Amazed by these animals and nature I took a deep breath and looked at the words in the back of my cockpit "Tijd bestaat niet" [There is no time / Time doesn't exsist] Suddenly the meaning of those three words changed for me. It meant much more than the litteral meaning. No time means one is always living NOW!

h

The Grand Banks area is a fascinating world. The 'collision' of the cold and warm currents and the influence of the North American continent generates a unique weather system. As mentioned earlier here the big depressions see their daylight, the icebergs drifting south and slowy melt away at the south Grand Banks, the huge differences in seawater temperature (20 degrees within 60 miles) which are seperated from each other as a wall in the ocean, this all is unique, makes it facinating, but a difficult area to sail in. The nature of this area makes it extremely fertile, which attracts life, for all those creatures need to eat. Loads of dolphins, whales, birds, fish (Grand Banks used to be one of the riches cod fishing grounds in the world, wich attracted a huge fleet of fishing vessels) We are leaving this rich area. Propelled by an SE blow for more than 24 hours now, Vijaya trembles her hull and rudder when reaching double digit speed (ok, I'll use the word one time..:) ) This wind brings warm air, which makes it very sticky. Last night I stayed outside in the cockpit for a few hours lit by a beautiful moon only wearing my fleece stuff. Something I could not think of a few days ago. The wind will slowly veer to South and later to SW today and will drop eventually. All well aboard, where everything has its rythm, and its place. The regular sleeping, eating, drinking a lot of water, check sails (!), charging the batteries (I'm very pleased with my tiny Rutland wind generator. It doesn't give you a power station, but contributes quite a bit. Especially in a blow it almost breaks even the power consumption. Its sizes makes it not much to bother about and hardly any noise) De Franschman is the nearest boat at the moment. Bart is sailing a good race, although he must have been very annoyed and frustrated by his foredeck hatch incident (which was basically washed away) He lost his gain and momentum of that moment. It took him a few hours to do the repairs, in which he couldn't make any progress. He is catching up, but is not in the frontline as he was hoping for unfortuntely. But still 550 miles to go so much is possible. Hurry Bart!

h

I met a girl who can be sweet as honey and yet could send a hurricane to you. Sunday night the center of the Low in which Vijaya was parked slowly moved East. Quickly the wind increased. The prediction was SW appr. 35 knots wind. It was pitch dark, the white crests were almost spotlights in the night. The wind howled in the rig. Vijaya had to beat against the steadily increasng wind. The new tiny fluo orange storm jib (Hagoort) had its dress rehearsal. Initially I had put only 2 reefs. After a few hours this was far too much, the boat went much too fast, it jumped over the waves and landed with incredible force in the next one. In these circumstances one fears the worst altough it is a strong boat. The noise of the bashes against the waves, the free fall of 1 or 2 meter flat on the surface of the water is terrifying. Waves are breaking of the fore deck, with an occasional one who landed in the cockpit (keep your hatches closed..) Inside the red light is illuminating the cabin. It's damp, the floor is wet, and slippery. Try to keep it tidy and seperate the dry stuff from the wet zone, to prevent that after a few hours everything is wet. Specially my bunk is a well protected place as far as humidity is concerned. Fortunately I could catch some sleep, and from time to time I checked the windspeed meter. It showed that the force of the wind was much more than the grib files indicated. I heard reports of other competitors of 50 knots (Dick, Bart) My max was 47 knots. The boat performed exceptionally well, it kept good speed. My fear is the mast. The forces caused by the excellerations and instant topping are huge. The mast trembles like in an earthquake. Yet it didn't gave in, it withstand it with ease it seemed. I installed extra checkstays last winter as extra support. Early Monday morning the wind slowly veered degree after degree and decreased to 'only' 30 knots, that was good, for it meant closer to the great circle course to Newport and made life aboard much easier. That Monday the wind stayed in the end twenties and yhe sky kept its grays, but fascinating and beautiful. Who sent this baby huricane?

h

Sunday was outstanding sailing, strong northerly flow, so wind from aside. Blue sky with white clouds. Later that day wind decreased considerably, sky got covered with a lead grey layer of clouds, rain, fog, very confusing sea. A typical front passage. Later wind decreased even more! Ooops... have I seen this scenario before lately???? The wind dropped completely, the sea in contrast stayed choppy and very irregular. The day before I met Her Royal Highness, today I was introduced to His Royal Lowness. I had a 6 hrs discussion with him, during which I was set back another 6 miles in the direction of Plymouth (more or less) despite the reason of the goal of this race which is Newport! This was the centre of the depression which would cause a difficult night for most of the OSTAR sailors.

Last night at the severest moment in the gale (40+ knots) I discoverd that 2 sliders of the mainsail were broken. The sail is ok, and the connection tape of the slides to the sail is still ok. But the slider is in 2! Can't believe it I lowered the main immediately, which was quite a job for without the support of the sliders the top of the sail just blows away in the night.. I managed to tie everything firmly to the boom and continued under storm jib alone, which was better anyway for it was an extremely wild ride . Can't believe what the boat had to withstand. Breakers, 1 or 2 meter free fall, with awfull bashing noise. After the main drop I went fast asleep.. Now at 10 utc the wind is around 30 knots still but decreasing every hour. Will set another jib now and repair the main in a few hours when the wind has dropped little more (a little later...) Few hours ago I replaced the 5 broken with new ones. Looks ok now. Mainsail is up and making normal speed again. It's a glorious day, blue sky still wind F5 to 6, white crests and I just made the best pasta in my life. h

The days of the steady NO wind are over for now. They were amazing. Too simple to say that it was just the speed of the boat. It was the more or less stable situation. Wind direction stayed the same, weather stayed the same (except 1 gorgeous sunny-blue-sky day). It was like one long rush. When the boat was slowing down a bit like to 7 knots I frowned.. Pull some ropes and there we went again into the 8 zone. The grey clouds, in a thousand shades. One wonderful long day with a few nights (in one day). After The Surfing Days I took the boat to a very special area in the Atlantic. The Breeding Ground of Lows, The Baby Chamber of Depressions. And I call it since yesterday The Witches Workshed. Let me explain breefly. Meteorological Lows (as we meet them days later in Western Europe) start as a turbulence, a disturbance in the seperation zone between the cold Artic air mass and the warmer air of the south. The north American continent (hot in summer, cold in winter) and the meeting of warm Gulfstream and the cold Labrador current from the North are the other influencing factors. The location were this all takes place is were I am now. Yesterday I was in the centre (the eye) of this not-yet-born baby depression. We had (literally within minutes) Force 7 to Force 1. Windshifts of 80 degrees. Squalls, lighter spells. The sea was rough and than calm again. Current with us or against. A Melting Pot of a mighty Witch! When she was ready in shaping this new Low she sent it to Werstern Europe, on its way East the baby Low will grow and become adult and give the British and the Dutch rain and wind but also the amazing skies.

After this birth the Weather Witch decided to clean her shed and switched on her Hoover in the shape of a Westerly blow F 6/7 to blow all dust away The clouds went away, a brisk light in the blue sky, the white breaking waves, and Vijaya accelerated again to the 8 knots. Thank you Weather Witch. What an amazing day that was.

Life aboard was not entirely comfortable. The boat was bumping around, it fell from the waves with loud bangs. It was still wet from the spooky morning. I was tired, and slept like a log for a few hours (hmm... a little too long) An hour before (beautiful) sunset the wind decreased gradually. During the night luckily it stayed with a force 2 or 3 so we could continue with good speed. All well aboard, h

PS: Yesterday during the many sailchanges I discoverded that the excellent Ronstan batten cars actually got loose from the sailbatten pocket, it should run allong the groove in the mast! The 10 mm stainless steel bold of the car just had been 'eating' the thread in the batten pocket (some kind of 'plastic') mmm, what to do. How to attach them again? I could not think of any usefull strong and lasting solution, therefore I took out the batten and took the batten pocket away. Sailing now with 3 battens (I hope only temporary), which makes the saill less efficient in the top, but it works, even in the strong blow yesterday

From a friend I received a mail, "Everyone (hs: other ostarsailors) writing about the surfing on their blogs! " Well dear friends here is my surf news. It's is not that we've been surfing for the last 3 days, but pretty much like that.. Can you surf on the North Atlantic? YES WE CAN ! (we are heading to the US so why not use that quote.. again) Give me about 30 eager and talented sailors, a goal (to surf to) and a fierce Northeasterly blow (the waves are included then) and we're all happy for we are all SURFING. It's that easy. Is it?

Well not so. 1. Only once every 4 years about that many talented eager sailors are crossing the Atlantic with a common goal.

2. Only every Trillon years (rough estimate) one will encounter a fierce Northeasterly blow for 3,5 day!

So all suggestions about changing the meaning of the 5 letters O S T A R, into something like Original Surf Trans Atlantic Race will be put aside

h

Not talking about eating vanilla iceream in the sun. More serious stuff though. For with the cold Labrador current Artic icebergs, growlers and small bits drifting south where they melt in the warm Gulfstream (we still sail in that one: water is 2.5 degrees) just east of and on the Grand Banks. There is quite a lot of it this year, so nobody wants to be there. Fortunately, The Canadian + US Met offices issue daily reports about the current situation. By e-mail or internet, but also by weather faxes transmitted on the shortwave bands. Lastnight I received the first ice fax from Boston. First contact with the New World + extremely important and useful info on the ice at sea. Fortunately it reports a further decrease of the amount of ice a more northerly south limit of the sea ice. On my meteo pag you'll find that weatherfax too. All well and happy sailing (only need to speed up a bit) h

I'm struggling ith the speed. With this kind of wind + direction Vijaya should be able to zoooom over the waves. But she's going really to fast for the cicumstances or to slow (when i reduce). Hard to get good + safe speed. Now at day break I'll experiment more. Wind dropped a little, after last nights 30 + knots (F 6 / 7), so a little more sail would do the job. Fan Fan is ahead of me I think and that's not according to my plan! 2000 Miles to go.

At around 2200 UTC Vijaya hit a whale. I was inside the cabin preparing some food, when a bang was heard. The boat did not come to a complete stop. Instead it heeled forward , bow in the water, slowed down considerably and basically continued sailing. (speed was about 9 knots) I immediataly looked behind the boat and saw a medum sized whale (about 10 or 12 meters??) fighting against the pain of his/her wound. The sea was coloured red, the whale rised out of te water, went under, came up again, apparently in severe pain and distress. My first impression was there were two of them, but cannot verify that. I checked the keel construction, and especially the rudder. All seemed ok. The skipper was a little shaky after the incident ... It went all very quick. The boatspeed was considerable at that moment so the whale was soon out of sight. Unfortunately I was not able to make pictures. I think the boat skimmed over the poor creature and hit it with the keel. All well aboard, surfing over the waves with a nice wind in the back. hs

Huib is very sad about hurting the whale.."It was beautiful, black and as long as my boat (40ft).. the sea was red with it's blood and it heaved and sighed like a monster.. he was like the wounded dragon when Siegfried got him (Wagner). I hope I didn't hurt him too badly..he must have been sleeping! Or surely he would have got out of the way!"

LATER last night, Huib was woken with a huge BLAST!! It was the wind hitting him from behind, Vijaya heeled over at 40 degrees, flying along at 6 or 7 knots! He tried to correct his main sail with the autopilate but the force was so great, it blew the main fuse! So then he had to do it manually and fix the fuse (done).

HUIB JUST HIT A WHALE AT 1AM !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

After 2 days of outstanding sailing conditions, a steady southerly, now the sneaky part of this week. A quite extensive low moving east just north of the Azores 'pushes' a High north, exactly cross the course of the ostar fleet. So, what does that mean? 1. A nerve wrecking last night, kept the sails up as long as possible, with hardly wind to fill them, eventually I decided to take everything down and wait.. There was no wind and the flapping of the sail would damage them. Early this morning at around 8 a tiny little bit of wind, almost a sigh, was flowing over this part of the Atlantic Quickly hoisted sails, and there we went again. Now a few hours later 5 knots of boat speed again with the main a spi 2. the Lows track is south of us in the direction Azores, the two systems wll generate later today and the next days a strong Easterly blow over the mid Atlantic. I can hardly believe it.. I don't have to pitty I left my symmetrical spi at home (for better rating) for the wind will be too strong to set it anyway. Will be a Force 4 to 6 from the East. That's very cool. So basically we are slipping through the gate between the two systems, the calms in the north (you don't want to be there) and the gale force wind in the South (you don't want to be there either!) Sneaky! all ok aboard best wishes h

Slowly I turned the bow towards the Plymouth Sound. Jus behind me I heard the music from Mervyns loudspeakers in his cockpit. This is to play as loud as possible military marching (hopefully that's the word) music. Never asked him why, but must have something to do with his military carreer (marines?). It sounds completely misplaced, but is hillariously funny. It's 11.00 the start is at 12.30 and will be attended by a menmber of the royal family, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh. Plenty of time, one would think, but it is always amazing that there are many things to do in the meantime. The most important thing was that I forgot to attach a new shakle to the min halyard. Where did I put it after I bought it?? After things were settled and organized, I could enjoy the countdown. All boats were out in the Sound and slowly sailed their test runs, etc. The day before, Sunday morning , we were briefed by the Race Committee, got the latest weather info, a talk bout the Gulfstream, etc. On the programme as well is the demonstration of the starting procedure. Rodger an hi assistant did a live perfomance! With gun shot, the flags, the horn, all on the balcony of the Royal Western Extremely funny, and very usefull. My start was not particulary good. Started in the middle of the field. I don't like starts, and I'm not good at it (may be I should put it in reverse order, :) ) Light wind from the NW, but heavily disturbed by the hills round the Sound. Oh well, this was only the first hour. Hoisted the Code-) just after passing the breakwater, only for a short time. At sea the wind came from its proper direction. So C0 down and High Aspect Up! Things got much better then. Overtook other boats, by the time reaching the Eddystone lighthouse I reached the first boats of the second group. The first boats are of such a different class or type that they are not comparable to 'normal' boats Out at sea,I overtook some more boats. FanFan!, the 2 JOD's were close. Even Katie Miller with her Figaro was on my port side .

We went into the night with an increasing NW blow. I let Vijaya sail a bit lower than usual to prevent the bashing aginst the waves. Wind increased to 27, sometimes 34 knots. Two reefs in the main + the most beautiful trenquette (stayail) ever seen (made by Ian Wittevrongel). The night as quite rough. All skippers must have suffered from it, especially as being their first night. Went twice to the foredeck, to change sails. A few hours even with the old stormjib (wich is quite big for a regular stormjib) for we went much too fast, and were falling from waves with such force that one could fear for the hull and mast.

It must have been about 10:30 when I met Peter Taylor (race director Round Ireland & Britain Race) at the gangway to the pontoons where the boats are berthed. He looked in a slightly dispaired way at me and sighed "ah, there you are. Please Hup (phonetically) would you be so kind to go to your boat and go to the starting area" I almost contradicted him by saying " Yes , but its only 10:30. At 1100 we are supposed to clear the pontoons". I quickly decided to do not. Peter is a very mild and kind man, with a touch of too much respect for the other, which makes him 'aimable'. I went to the boat, and noticed the reason of his hastely search fo me. Harbourmasters of the QAB marina orders! Half of the boats were still berthed at their places where they were the last week. A week of intense preparations, considerations and social events. I only arrived Thursday after a prolonged stopover in Ramsgate and continous beating against a stubborn southwesterly breeze. The 3 days in Ramsgate turned out to be very favourable for me, for I had more to do than I thought and took longer. To-do's I would not have been doing if I already were in Queen Ann's Battery Marina. In Ramsgate I could work in a quiet and undisturbed way, while berthed just behind the old massive breakwater, with it's rusty mooring rings as ancient jewelry, while the wind howled in the boats rig. Arriving in the early hours on Thursday in Plymouth after a very exhausting 2 days of intense sailing and motoring. Busy coastal traffic never allowed me to sleep longer than 15 muinutes on a stretch. After mooring the boat at 0600 and a "Hey Hype, good morning", shouted by Jerry Freeman I went into a very deep sleep. Only to wake up when Mervyn Wheatley, arrrived with his Tamarind. That afternoon I met Anna at the railway station. She had a most extraordnary trip to Plymouth. From quickly switching means of transport (plane to train) and a Eurostar wagon cought fire while she was waiting to depart. She looked tired, but she's did it and made it. The days after we worked full speed to prepare the boat. A sponsor organized a lovely BBQ at a beautiful estate 60 min up he river. Very good to have a break.. Finest hours were at the OSTARian reunion on Sunday night both fully dressed to kill we met the OSTAR veterans and sozialized with members of the club, competitors of Round Britain and this year ostar sailors. Monday morning an early rise.Mervyn Wheatley, my neighbour in QAB, was already untieing his mooring ropes and said: they want us to get out of here". I started the engine and went. Went to the starting line of OSTAR 2009.