Falmouth Academy Resonance 2020-21

Perseverance

The southernmost part of the Southern Atlantic Ocean is a tough place. To be on a 350’ research boat in the roaring forties was one thing, but to be alone on a 60’ foiling sailboat in the roaring forties, and 1,200 miles from the land was totally another. That happened to be just where Alani Moorhen was when she realized something was wrong. The boat wasn’t sailing correctly, something was off, something bad, and just the thought of that made her sick. She was, in fact, near Nemo point, the farthest point from any inhabited land in the world.

Being one thousand two hundred miles from land made rescue a slim prospect.

To be in the Vendée Globe and get anywhere you had to be a pro. Alani had been sailing her whole life and training for years. Her boat, Fly High, was five years old, modified for this race but not built for it. Alani had sailed across the Atlantic, around Australia, and from Portugal to South Africa on three separate solo trips.

She had more than the necessary experience to qualify for the Vendée Globe, an around the world sailing race starting and ending in France. She knew that the ocean’s emotions wavered and that it could have severe mood swings from calm to raging and back again. However, nearer to Antarctica, the ocean was always raging. It could toss a boat about and snap it in half like a toothpick if it felt like it.

The Roaring Forties had been named by sailors a long time ago, but the nicknames stuck around. The forty degrees area was named the Roaring Forties, followed by the Furious Fifties and the Screaming Sixties, each 10 degrees in latitude farther south than the last. They all deserved their names. Alani remembered Vendée Globe ice limit only let sailors go into the forties and partway into the fifties because after that there was too much risk of hitting an iceberg, and the line was on her charts. However, you wanted to sail farther south because there is more wind for faster sailing.

Alani had been sleeping for an hour when she was woken by something. In her lethargic state, she couldn’t make sense of much or know what had woken her. After a yawn and rubbing her eyes, she sat up and listened. At first, she heard just the endless crashing of waves and felt the rocking of the boat, up and down, side to side, back and forth. Then she heard the slight tink of metal banging on metal. She sat up and checked the wind speed on the navigation computer. There were 32 knots of wind, but the boat was only going seven knots, rather than 18 or 19. For a confused second, she sat there wondering what to do. Soon she leaped into action, pulling on her foul weather gear and cinching it firmly around her wrists, ankles, and neck.

Howard Keeler

As she wrenched open the hatch to the cockpit, water sloshed inside and she slammed the metal hatch shut again. She waited until the boat was going up a wave to try to climb out again and burst into a very wet, salty world. As the water cleared off of the forward-facing cockpit window, Alani saw a large white and blue piece of the mainsail being thrown around by the harsh wind on the deck of the boat.

A low moaning “no no no noooo!” escaped Alani’s lips as she took in the sight. The 60-foot tall mainsail had torn in half diagonally, and not along a seam, but jaggedly, with a few dangling pieces. The clinking noise she had heard was the small metal pieces in the sail banging against the boat. The metal pieces were meant to help the sail hold its shape but were now useless.

As Alani was observing the damage to the sail, a large swell caught up to the boat, splashing onto the deck and smashing into Alani’s back, slamming her into the wall in front of her and knocking her off her feet.

As the water receded, she gasped at the sudden shock and hauled herself onto her feet and back into the cabin.

Alani wiped the water off her face and out of her ponytail, only to realize her hands were red from a bloody nose. As she cleaned her hands and face, she checked the boat’s course and altered it to head more north and hopefully into calmer and less dangerous seas. She sent a brief message to her team on land, reading: Mainsail torn in half, holding course, but at a reduced speed of 6-9 knots.

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