The Gulf Stream and Other Currents
c. 1993
A few weeks earlier I had been looking at the original in New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, and now I was living it. A black man, bare-chested and barefoot, sprawls in the cockpit of a small wooden boat. Only a splintered stub is left of the mast. Sharks with gaping jaws swim nearby. A squall approaches from over the man’s left shoulder. I seem to recall that the man is scowling. This is Winslow Homer’s “Gulf Stream.”
My Gulf Stream was not an exact reproduction; the mast on RESURGAM was not splintered, only swaying without a headstay. But there were sharks, and I had encountered hundreds of miles of thunderstorms since clearing Nantucket en route from Boston toward St. Augustine, Florida. I know I was scowling.
It had been a hard passage; the headstay had broken that dawn, as had many other things, from the zipper on my foul weather parka to the engine. Florida was closer but to windward, so under mainsail alone I turned back toward Beaufort, North Carolina, about 190 miles to leeward.
An hour later I saw a fishing trawler on the horizon and talked to him on my hand-held VHF. In a deep Southern drawl he reminded me, “You know you’re on the east, repeat east, side of the Stream. If you can't go to windward, best keep as far west as you can.”
I thought aloud. “You’re concerned that I’ll get swept beyond Hatteras.” And I thanked him for his advice.
The rhumb line to Beaufort was 040º magnetic, and I found that I could bring us up to about 350º with the wind just aft of the shrouds. However, after a few minutes I had to ease off to 000º when waves threatened to shake the rig out of the boat.
The engine was inoperative because of a cooling system failure, not improved by my changing the water pump impeller, so I had turned off all electronics, wanting to save the solar panel charged batteries for occasional use for the SatNav and depthsounder. The present moment seemed close enough to an emergency to warrant battery use, and by noon we had a couple of fixes. At our 5 knot pace, we should be well into the Gulf Stream.
Back on deck I looked over the side. This was our fourth crossing of the Stream in the past few months; as before, I could not tell it was there.
On the chart the coast ahead fell away to the northeast in three 75 mile scallops, with shoals at each point reaching far into the sea. The one closest to us, and at which we were steering a magnetic course, was Frying Pan Shoal; the next, near Beaufort and toward which I expected to be set, was Lookout Shoal; the last was Diamond Shoal off Cape Hatteras, beyond which we could only hope for Bermuda, England, or a wind shift.
Dawn the next day found light winds, still from the southeast, and RESURGAM on the wrong side of Frying Pan Shoal Light. We had overcompensated and almost gone too far.
Once past Frying Pan, in light winds, we safely reached Beaufort the next afternoon, completing this passage without a jib, as earlier this year of breakage we had completed a passage to Key West without a boom. So little is really essential. But I was beginning to wonder if minimalism cannot be carried too far in sailing as in other arts.
About a year and a half earlier, on leaving Durban, South Africa, we had powered out on a light day to the 100 fathom curve, where in light winds we spent an afternoon and night with only 3 knots showing on the speed indicator, but confident that we were actually making at least 5 over the bottom with the help of the current. Fixes the next morning disillusioned us, and we did not have a measurable boost from the Agulhas until we were off East London. For the next hundred miles to Port Elizabeth, we did gain 3 knots from the current.
I am not quite certain what conclusions to draw. I don’t doubt the existence or power of the Gulf Stream and the Agulhas. I have seen photographs of ships damaged by gale against current off South Africa and the east coast of the United States. But prior to my long swim when RESURGAM sank, I found the great currents disappointing. Perhaps this is because I was comparing them to the stronger currents I experienced in narrow waters near England, Australia, and New England.
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The first time I sailed RESURGAM was in July of 1983. When I bought her she was in a marina in Ipswich, about 10 miles up the River Orwell on Britain’s east coast. English tides change at Dover, so by timing your departure it is possible to carry a tide for 10 hours from the North Sea well into the Channel.
We left Ipswich under sunny skies, which were devoured by impenetrable fog just beyond the river’s mouth. After feeling our way out to the 10 fathom curve, and with the sounds of fog horns and engines passing close by, we were able to turn south. By keeping to the 10 fathom curve, we should be safe from running aground and remain inside the shipping.
It was a long sleepless night. RESURGAM was then an unfamiliar vessel to me. Navigation was by depthsounder and RDF. I didn’t trust RDF for an accurate fix, but the signals were useful for relative bearings. Several of the beacons were on the same frequency. At one point ahead of us was the Falls Light Vessel and to the west should have been the Tongue Light Vessel, the last in a six signal sequence. By the time it came on, I was startled by a bearing that showed us to be already past it. I marked the bearing on the chart and calculated our speed to have reached the position where it crossed the 10 fathom curve. We were sailing at no more than 5 knots, but our speed over the bottom was 10. In the light wind we did not seem to be moving at all. It was difficult to accept that we were rushing through the night
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I’ve always wanted to met the man who writes the Admiralty pilots. Surely he is a Dickensian character, wearing a frock coat, sitting on a high stool, scratching away with a quill amidst stacks of dusty tomes. With his wry sense of humor, he must be one of the most entertaining companions imaginable. “Overflows occur in Albany Pass,” he once wrote, “therefore close attention must be paid to steering.” And with wild shrieks of laughter, he doubtless fell off his stool and rolled about the floor, holding his sides.
I didn’t have to sail through Albany Pass to reach Cape York, Australia’s northernmost point, in CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE. I could have taken the easier shipping route through Adolphus Channel. But I wanted to see the site of Somerset, the first attempted settlement in the Torres Strait region, once intended to rival Singapore. And so I saw the site of Somerset. For a very long time. Another man I would like to meet is the one who thought Somerset would become a great seaport. He must have had a sense of humor, too.
The sail north inside the Great Barrier Reef from Cairns to Cape York is one of the great sails in the world. Sheltered water, dependable reaching winds after the southeast trades re-establish themselves in April or May, and good anchorages off a deserted landscape, except for the last one, where you are pretty much stuck stopping at a place called Bushy Islet, that doesn’t offer much protection at low tide and disappears at high.
I left Bushy Islet at dawn which brought me to Albany Pass at noon. The pass between the mainland and Albany Island is only three miles long, and Cape York, though hidden from view, was only another three or four miles further on. If the tide had been with us, we would have been there in an hour. But a mile south of the entrance to the pass, without needing to consult tide tables, I became well aware that the tide was not with us.
I prefer to approach land under reduced canvas. Often near headlands there are gusts capable of knocking CHIDIOCK down, and visibility is much improved without the mainsail, so I lowered the main while we were still well clear of an off-lying rock. Twenty knots of wind was more than enough to move the little yawl comfortably under just jib and mizzen.
Water flowed quickly past CHIDIOCK’s hull. Sails strained. The boat felt alive. Ahead I could see waves bunching up on the mainland side of the pass. CHIDIOCK sailed and sailed and sailed. She sang like a lark. She soared like an eagle. But although I tried to ignore it, keeping my eyes fixed determinedly on Fly Point, up ahead, ultimately I had to accept that the rock remained abeam. I studied seaweed drifting rapidly past. I studied CHIDIOCK’s wake. They said we were doing five knots or more. But the rock remained abeam. I raised the main, and gradually we left the obdurate rock behind.
I had read that the Coral Sea to the east of the Torres Straits and the Arafura Sea to the west have separate tidal systems, with high tide in one often coinciding with low tide in the other; of how currents of up to eleven knots have been recorded, while currents of seven knots are common, and overfalls occur where shallow fast-moving water encounters deep slower-moving water. But it was all so much more impressive in person.
Skirting the worst of the overfalls by keeping to the Albany island side of the entrance, and obediently paying close attention to steering, I entered Albany Pass at about the time I had hoped to be enjoying lunch at Cape York. Somehow lunch was forgotten.
The pass is actually very pretty. Green hills rise a couple of hundred feet above the scalloped shores of the mainland and Albany Island, facing each other across a quarter mile of water like pieces of a puzzle. The second cove on the mainland side is Somerset, a shallow indentation a hundred yards or so deep and two hundred yards across, completely exposed to the tidal currents. I had not then seen Singapore, but I felt confident I would not mistake it for Somerset, unless it too had only a single house beneath a few palm trees. On the Albany side of the pass was an enterprise that seemed more successful, a cultured pearl farm.
The wind continued to blow hard, and CHIDIOCK TICHBORNE continued to seem to sail fast; but the sailing was slippery, more sideways than forward. I felt as though we were on ice, skating from one side of the pass to the other before jibing for a quick slide back, gaining a few palm trees with each crossing.
The water was bumpy rather than rough, with a chop caused by the current from ahead and the wind dead behind. Jibing required close timing, for in the instant the main lost power as it swung across, the current caused the rudder to stall or work in reverse. Twice we fell back onto the original broad reach and I had to tack rather than jibe in order to stay off the beach. Although I would have expected the current to be strongest in the middle of the channel, with possibly even a countercurrent near the shores, the opposite seemed to be true, and only by staying in the middle did we eventually make our weary way through the pass, at an average speed made good to leeward of less than one knot.
Six or seven years later I again sailed up the Australian coast, this time with Jill in RESURGAM. We, too, spent an uncomfortable night behind Bushy Islet and reached Albany Pass about noon. But the tide was with us and instead of an afternoon-long struggle, we were whisked through in twenty minutes.
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Among the more interesting currents are those around Manhattan Island. There is a gypsy in Spain who by now should be an expert on them.
Seville is one of everyone’s favorite cities. Before I left Portugal for the Caribbean in January 1989, after a quick trip in a rental car to Gibraltar to obtain a new shroud and other needed supplies, I stopped in Seville for the night and a meal at a restaurant I know on the square facing the cathedral. Spanish cities have an unfortunately well deserved reputation for theft, generally attributed to gypsies; so I found a parking spot directly under a street lamp on the main boulevard and walked a few blocks to my hotel.
When I returned in the morning, I found the passenger door had been pried open and several items stolen, including three jars of instant coffee, two bottles of Laphroaig scotch, and a copy of REED’s NAUTICAL ALMANAC AND COASTAL PILOT FOR THE EAST COAST OF THE U.S. Left behind were a great many cans of food, the new shroud, and two gallons of antifouling paint worth more than all the rest put together. Obviously, gypsies don’t do bottoms.
One of the nicest problems in piloting I can recall was caused by the currents around Manhattan. After spending a week anchored off the 79th Street Marina six miles up the Hudson, I was ready to head out to Long Island. Tides for New York Harbor are given for the Battery at the south tip of Manhattan, but the crucial area is Hell Gate, 5 miles up the East River. What creates interest is that the tide changes at all those places at different times, and frequently the currents on opposite sides of Manhattan are simultaneously running in opposite directions. My final conclusion, after considerable study of my second copy of REED’S for that year, was that on the morning I wanted to go to Long Island, with slack water at the Battery at 7:00 a.m. and at Hell Gate two hours later, all should go relatively well if I raised anchor at 6:00 a.m., although I would still have to fight the current for an hour in the East River.
I watched the anchor lift from the water somewhat more carefully than usual until I was satisfied that no corpses were coming up with it. Then, pushed by the current, we sped down the Hudson past abandoned wharves and empty streets, as the sun turned the World Trade Center peach and pink. For a few moments the violent, shabby city was deceptively lovely and tranquil.
We reached the Battery more quickly than planned, and giving a last glance at the Statue of Liberty and the strangely Russian looking buildings on Ellis Island, turned north, barely making headway for the next hour. Some early joggers were running along the Lower East Side. Sirens sounded from a police car and an ambulance. Traffic was stalled on Brooklyn Bridge overhead. By the time we were off the U.N. building, a few pleasure craft had joined us: several power boats, which hurried on to do whatever powerboaters hurry to do, and another sailboat that stayed about a mile behind. When you think of it, sailing really is un-American, for sailors know there is time enough.
According to REED’s, the currents between Roosevelt Island and Manhattan are at almost all stages of the tide stronger than they are in Hell Gate, although the whirlpools and other attractions of Hell Gate presumably do not form there. We were pretty much at slack water as we powered past the enormous gray sprawl of the Cornell Hospital. And then we were at notorious Hell Gate itself. As planned, 9:00 a.m.. Slack water. No wind. It was the proverbial, though often chimerical, millpond. Mirror smooth.
But, as I turned RESURGAM’s stern to Manhattan, I did not doubt that Hell Gate’s name and reputation are deserved. If a sailor knows that there is time enough, he also know that with currents, timing is crucial. For details, consult your local gypsy.