KNOCKDOWN!

By the time we entered the Indian Ocean in February of 2018, Moli, my 43ft aluminum-hulled expedition sloop, and I had seen plenty of high-latitude action. The previous December, we had entered the Southern Ocean from the Pacific for a nonstop loop in the Roaring 40s as part of my long-planned Figure 8 Voyage, an attempt to solo circumnavigate both the Americas and Antarctica in one year.

There, and while on our final approach to Cape Horn, Mo was overtaken by an intense low packing steady winds to 50 knots with gusts to 70. A knockdown late in that gale gushed just enough water into the pilothouse to find and short-out the autopilot junction box. Three days later we were 400 miles off shore and sailing hard in fresh westerlies when a non-serviceable part on my beloved Monitor windvane broke, leaving Mo without a way to self-steer. It took six long and cold days of 12-hour tricks at the tiller to make the sheltered waters of the Beagle Channel, after which it was on to Ushuaia, Argentina, for repairs. In other words, the Southern Ocean had already given us a rough go by the time Indian Ocean water began flowing under the keel.