Feel no fear our captain is here

Current location: 14°51′31″ N  51°17′42″ V

We’ve had our fair share of squalls so far. We had those rough 48 h of 20 kts (10 m/s) wind with squalls every hour. My memories of squalls is that some of them can make you pee your pants. The squalls we’d encountered so far have not fallen in that category - even if they have been wet and windy. It’s easy to assume that all mean-looking clouds that give some rain and wind are squalls, but one should not be fooled. Those are little babies of monsters. The real monster is as I recall them; you get a 2 min warning and then all hell breaks loose. The rain whips your face sharp as nails and the noise of the wind is louder than anything else. The horizon disappears and the line of sight is barely that of the length of the boat. Today we encountered the mother of monsters. Too late we recognized that the dark horizons had turned to a massive system surrounding us. We’d seen it far away and started seeing lightning. Naturally, we didn’t like that and decided to jibe to try to get away - but it was too late. When we started the radar it became obvious that it’d pass over us. In with the foresail - no time to adjust the main sail. Put all safety electronics in the oven. Brace yourself for impact. When it hits, it hits you in a split second. From calm sunny weather to pure chaos. Normally, from my experience, the squalls last 5 to 10 minutes. This one lasted 25 minutes. Just as the squall hits the helmsman has a decision to make; face the wind and go as close to it as the boat allows while still maintaining control, or go with the wind making sure that the angle it hits the aft doesn’t change. Jibing or tacking is NOT an option. Nor is getting the wind from the side. That would be detrimental for the sails and the stability of the boat, worst case scenario making the boat rock so forcefully one could fall over board (stay calm parents - we are clipped in an staying safe). When the squall hit I was just in the process of giving the helm to Olle. It hit just as I passed the helm and the circus was on. It took Olle a minute or so to find the perfect balance of the boat, and after another minute or so something said “poof!”. Olle looks bewildered and started too look around to see what that had come loose that had stuck in him. When he realized that it was his life west that had popped due to the heavy rain he started to giggle. As did we all until we realized that his man over board device also got activated when the life west inflated. Once it gets activated you have 30 seconds to deactivate it before it sends out emergency messages. I lean over and manage to deactivate it.  So far so good. At the same time Nisse watches how our man over board Dan-bouy flag deploys from our aft and sees how the inflatable flag bobs away in the distance. After some 10 minutes or so the intensity of the squall has hit some sort of steady state and feels less chaotic. I start taking advantage of the fresh water downpour and rinse off the soap that never got washed off during the previous dribble of water half an hour earlier. So it’s me and Nisse holding on for dear life, Olle at the helm with a little smile on his face wet like a dog and with an inflated life west, and Mikael who was the only one smart enough to stand under cover to not get soaked. And he manages to capture the whole thing on film! When the squall finally is passed Olle proclaims “hey would you look at that! There is our man-over-board-bouy! Should we go and get it!?” “YES!!!!” we all respond. Me and Nisse throw  ourself onto the deck with our arms out (yes, still clipped in and safe) when Mikael says “it’s smarter to take it on the other side!” So then Mikael throws himself into the other side of the boat and Nisse repositions himself. Nisse and Mikael manage to recover the bouy that is surprisingly big and heavy. Olle switched to our extra life-vest and Nisse restored the Bouy.

And now we are making coffee. Because we are all wet. And to all parents out there: we are safe and our boat is sturdy!

Nisse with our DAN-bout