Memoirs of a Worldly Guy
We made a mistake on our eighth day and paid a price for it. After sailing all night with headsail and loose-footed mainsail with very changeable weather; squalls then calms, with three hour shifts at the tiller, we raised the twin headsails at 7:00 a.m. before a steady southwest breeze. Cross waves from some distant disturbance caused us to roll heavily but we were logging between five and six knots and pleased with ourselves at the short duration of our tiller duty.
By about 4:00 p.m. the following seas had built up to an astonishing size and we were watching from the hatch with amazement as she steered herself down the front of each swell with the effortless aplomb of a seasoned surfboarder, but as the sun dropped to the horizon I was seized by an uneasy presentiment of danger. A check on the log showed our speed to be in excess of eight knots and the wind gave no indication of abating; rather the opposite.
'When do we start dragging ropes from the stern to slow her down?' I inquired of the skipper.
'We don't!' he replied. 'We'll get our sails down first!' He didn't seem overly anxious to put his words into effect. 'I only hope they'll take this strain!' I looked up through the forward port to the staysails clipped to the forestay. Every fibre straining, they were bellied out like strutting white pigeons, dragging our eight tons behind with terrific force.
I had just finished a batch of scones and set them steaming on the sink board. 'Just in case, when the time comes,' I said, slapping butter on a hot morsel with with an elaborate attempt at nonchalance, 'What procedure do you propose to follow when it gets too breezy to sail?' I will never know whether Joe opened his mouth to frame a reply or to devour a scone, for at that moment a loud, splintering crash followed by a horrid sound of thumping and flapping smote our ears.
'Sounds as though the time has come!' I said grimly as I started for the hatchway, peeling off my clothes en route; I was bent on keeping at least that much dry. When I reached the cockpit only my jockey shorts remained. I quailed inwardly at the scene confronting us; in the failing light great drab olive walls of water marched toward us, while the howling wind decapitated them en route and lashed the heads before them in stinging sheets of bitter tasting spume. Looking forward I saw Joe inching along the bucking deck toward the bow. The port staysail had backwinded and the supporting boom had split clean asunder. The two fractured sections flailing crazily about and the wildly flapping sail added their urgent notes to the nightmare of sound that enclosed us. Reaching the halyard, Joe dropped the sails and struggled to drag them down and stop their dance of self-destruction.
Meanwhile, the storm trysail, fastened earlier to the cabin top to dry, had poured in billows into the water on the lee side and I struggled for what seemed endless minutes to drag it aboard and wrap and lash it to the boom. The boat was leaning so far over that the lifelines on the lee side were under water. In the midst of my struggles a huge wave came over the boat and lifted me bodily overboard and several feet into the sea. I was moderately amused since the boat was not under way and was merely drifting slowly to leeward. We had long since abandoned the use of the safety lines and the clips because of their tendency to encumber our moves. As a result I merely dog paddled back to the boat and stepped aboard without even having to raise my legs to climb over the safety lines.
Joe shouted for pliers and as I opened the hatch to climb below a full sea came aboard and gushed below, landing directly on the clothes I had so carefully removed. Its work done, the water channelled across my bunk in leisurely fashion and disappeared into the bilges. Nothing daunted, I grabbed the pliers and climbed out once again into the fury. As I stepped from the cockpit the gale caught my shorts and filled them like a parachute, shooting them down to my ankles in an instant, in a most embarrassing fashion. No time to be lost! I waddled forward like a herniated mallard and delivered my cargo. Holding the sails as Joe unshackled them, I crouched lower and lower before the cold intimidation of the blast. With each wave that thumped my back my jaw muscles clenched tighter and my shiverings increased in vigour. Finally all was secured and we lashed the tiller hard down and retired, deflated, to the cabin. So we knew now what were the limits of a staysail boom's capacity. Too bad we didn't have the staysail boom left with which to apply our hard won knowledge! Phooey on the sea, anyway!
All of our energies for the next forty-eight hours were involved with a steady progression of misadventures. At first sight these would have appeared to be the result of plain poor luck but fair examination showed them to have resulted from improper equipment or poor seamanship, or both. After the frantic episode on deck during the initial stages of the gale, we retired to our bunks to continue the consumption of the remaining scones, which Joe found underneath his pillow.
That we would lie hove-to properly with no sail whatever was the greatest optimism as we would discover later. Although riding fairly comfortably in the seas, she was almost beam on to the big waves. As the seas built up more and more during the night, so, more and more frequently, did we have the big green ones come aboard. Like Roman chariots, they roared and rumbled ruthlessly past, overrunning or pushing aside what lay in their paths. About 2:30 a.m. 'Granddaddy'arrived with a great double crash and roar that shook 'The Wren' from stem to stern. A hurried check of the damage made us realize that there would have to be some changes made, and with despatch. The heavy cleat holding the bent pipe frames for the canvas weather dodger on the starboard side had been torn free, carrying a five inch section of hardwood coaming along with it. The bracket holding the patent log line was twisted out of shape. The next big wave would perhaps finish what its predecessor had started. The dodger was folded flat and secured, then we clambered forward and raised the storm jib. No more seas came aboard.
In the morning we set off before high winds with loose footed storm trysail and jib. We sailed hard all day running northeast but hove-to again at nightfall when the wind and seas again increased. We started sailing at first light again the next day with wind and seas slightly moderated. Running northeast with the mainsail on the boom we logged up to seven knots at times.
During the afternoon I started wrapping the shattered pieces of the staysail boom with twine. I had an idea fixed in my mind that if it were lashed to one of the dinghy oars the boom might once more be made serviceable. The staysails would be a great boon in this wind, relieving us once again of tiller watch. We carried on sailing through the night and I was on from 8:00 p.m. till 12:30 a.m. It was an immense effort at one stage to keep my eyes open, but I hummed a series of little songs and tunes to help the time to pass. After the change Joe lasted till 3:30 a.m. then called and said he wanted to drop the sail as he could no longer stay awake. Drowsines under the conditions was a hazard, running 'flat out' a jibe 'all standing' could be calamitous. Cold and sleepy in my damp blankets I was in no mood to take over, so down it came, although my conscience was troubled at such a waste of good wind.
As though sulky at being checked during her headlong dash, "The Wren" acted like a peevish child in the morning, frustrating us at every juncture. When raising the mainsail we noticed a long tear of mysterious origin in the foot. We dropped and reefed above the tear and raised it again and it promptly split wide open in a long tear from the clew. When dropping the sail this time, Joe dropped the main halyard in his rush and up the mast it went. When we tried to pull the block, the halyard slipped through and the block and wire flew to the masthead and started a little maypole dance of their own, snarling all and sundry. In desperation we rigged the staysails, one with boom and one without and raised them, but not before the halyard had jammed in the topmast snafu. Joe sat down and gazed at the horizon, crushed. I said 'Move over!' and did the same.
I worked away at the repairs to the boom whenever I had a moment. The dinghy oar was tied to the joined pieces and then I sat for hours twisting the loose strands of twine, then wrapping them round and round the splinted boom. In unity there lies strength! A striking example of the old adage! Any one of the loose strands of binder twine could be parted with ease, but twisted for extra toughness and laid side by side with dozens of other strands it formed part of a gradually strengthening compact that bound the members together with amazing durability. My fingers were blistered and sore by the time I considered the job done, and I carried the monstrosity up the hatch to the deck.
'There she is, boy!' I said, not without some pride. 'I'll leave the rest up to you!'
'Looks like a rowing club's coat of arms!' Joe said, obviously not impressed.
'Never mind the smart remarks, chum!' I said. 'Just rig it up and cross your fingers.'
I sat at the tiller and eased the port staysail sheet while he brought the sail inboard and rigged the boom. I held my breath while he hoisted it outboard and I took up on the sheet. As the wind caught the sail it billowed forward, the pressure came on the boom and it bent alarmingly like a comedy fat man's rubber crutch. Joe came back and we clove hitched the sheets to the tiller then put her on her own. She yawed slightly then caught the wind, righted herself and surged forward. Our little 'Wren' was flying again, pretty as a bird, albeit a slightly ruffled one, and we were free once again of tiller duty.
'Well, I'll be damned!' Joe said, as I beamed proudly. 'I guess laziness is definitely the mother of invention!' He turned and went below. The sun had set and it was getting dusk. Some time later I heard him call out, 'Come down out of the cold and cook some dinner, I'm starved!'
'Huh! What's that?' I said, roused from the rapt contemplation of my masterpiece. I sure hated to leave off looking at that boom! You see, I think it was the first thing I ever made that really worked, as far as I can recollect. Except maybe that dessert dish I made in Grade VII manual training. Come to think of it, I think it was warped and fell apart eventually.
During the early afternoon of our eleventh day we passed the thousand mile mark on our cruise. We sat on deck and watched the hand of the log creep past the mark, then gave a loud "Hurrah!" in unison and decided on a Christmas pudding for supper dessert. We had reached what we considered to be the halfway mark between New Zealand and Rarotonga. We were right on schedule and the remaining days would seem downhill ones as we narrowed the distance to landfall. We had started the long slow slant to the northeast now, coming at our goal from below to miss heading into the prevailing east winds in the higher latitudes. For this reason we had pushed east for the first week, in spite of the colder weather and the temptation to flee north from the chill.
It was a day of light airs and trade wind skies as we carried on still under staysails and had a chance to dry our clothes and catch up on odd jobs. Just after noon there was a shocking thump forward and the boat shivered from the impact. A twinge of fear and something close to panic caught at my vitals.
'What'd we hit?' Joe shouted from below; it was a good question, one I was anxious to know the answer to myself. Then, slipping past our larboard side within reaching distance, I saw a great black glistening shape exposed above the water, the slow slant of the dimensions as they entered the water suggestive of a vastly more ponderous bulk yet unseen.
'A whale!' I cried, as Joe looked out the hatch. I was greatly thrilled and excited at the splendid sight. As if for our express delight, the giant of the sea blew a a white spire of spume to the sky, once, then twice again as it lolled in our receding wake.
'She blows! She blows!' I cried delightedly. Joe seemed not to be amused. 'A sperm whale, I vow, and a real beauty at that!' I added.
'I hope it didn't hurt the boat,' Joe said indifferently. 'Damned thing must be kinda stupid, getting in the way like that!'
It occurred to me that the great blubbery leviathan we had struck, monstrous cousin of Moby Dick, nursing the world's largest headache in the shadowy deeps, might be making precisely the same observation about us.
Morning found a fresh northeasterly breeze looking us in the face so we started a slog north with our spare mainsail and a single staysail on the starboard tack. She would not sail herself close-hauled with this arrangement, we found, so we replaced the staysail with a smaller working jib and found she held easily. As the seas built up toward late afternoon the strain on the gear became excessive so we hove to, leaving only a storm jib rigged. Thus we lay beam on to the waves as night fell and the tempo of the storm increased. Although pleased with our early decision to heave-to as the continuing violence of the storm became more assured, we were concerned over the 'Wren's' continued failure to lie hove-to properly and quarter into the waves which were coming on board more and more frequently.
Nevertheless, we turned in and lay listening to the banshee moan of the wind and the intermittent drawn out rush and hiss of the big seas as they approached before hitting the boat with a bone-jarring crash. Then about 2:30 a.m. the great wave came. Considering the apparent immensity of the wave it afforded little warning of its approach. My first sensation was of being lifted high and fast, then there was a blow of incredible force as tons of water smacked against the sides and deck of our craft. I thought later that it could well have been the crash of the boat itself landing back in the ocean from which it had been thrown! Then began a second mad chaos of sound as every movable thing in the boat left its place and dashed for the opposite bulkhead.
'The light, Ron, quick!' I heard Joe shout, and I reached for the rack above my bunk for the flashlight but felt only air.
'Hurry up!' Joe shouted.
'I can't seem to find it!' I said, hoping the slight edge of panic I felt would not show through in my voice. Flailing about with my hand I finally found the flashlight. Odd, it was beside me! Then the shock drove home hard--we were on our beam ends! The masthead, normally towering better than forty feet above the water, was now lying on or slightly below the surface, out in the darkness on our port side. Fear laid an icy fingertip on my forehead as I heaved myself from my bunk and fumbled for the flashlight button. As all keeled boats will, 'The Wren' was slowly righting herself now and there was a roar of water as a thousand tiny cataracts streamed and poured both outside the hull and within. I was initially horrified because I thought the cabin roof had itself been broached. If so, we would soon have been swamped and with several tons of dead weight in the keel, been carried to the bottom. The beam from the flashlight disclosed a heartbreaking scene of devastation. The stove had been thrown completely out of the gimbals and was dangling from the-- luckily unbroken--gas feed line. The floorboards had burst open when the boat lay overturned, as had most of the cupboards, vomiting out their contents, all of which lay in the bilge now, a melange of tinned goods and broken crockery and soggy clothing. A quart bottle of olive oil had shattered, spreading a greasy slick over the floorboards in which we slipped and staggered as the boat came upright. The sails in the forepeak had been dislodged and required our combined efforts to manhandle them back in place.
On deck there was a similar confusion of broken gear. First I went forward and dragged down the storm jib which was flapping furiously, the sheet having parted when the wave struck, presumably from the weight of water striking the sail. The things which seemed to have been thrown across the cabin had, of course, actually just fallen from their places when the boat rolled. I was interested in knowing just how far the boat had gone over. A package of breakfast cereal which had been standing on the sink board had lodged in a soggy mass in the clock shelf above Joe's bunk. I set the navigation protractor on the sink and sighted up at the clock shelf and read an angle of thirty degrees. This meant that our mast had been thirty degrees under water, almost half way to being completely upside down, with our keel facing the sky. We had been thrown far over. It was about 3:00 a.m. by the time we had finished restoring order to the depressing shambles in the cabin. There was a strange silence above, and when we removed the batten on the life-saving main hatch cover and went above we found that the wind had dropped to a mere whisper compared to the howling tempest of a half hour previously. The seas were still immense, but were confused and came from several directions at once, meeting and throwing geysers of water high in the air.
'Maybe it's blown itself out,' Joe said, with a tone that lacked conviction.
'I'd like to think so, but I don't believe it!' I replied, 'It's my guess that we're passing right through the eye of the storm. Unless I'm greatly mistaken it'll come back on us from the opposite direction, worse than ever, and fairly soon, too!'
'I've got a horrible feeling you're right,' Joe agreed reluctantly. 'It's hard to believe, though, the way she's so quiet now!'
'How long do you think it would take to rig the sea anchor?' I asked.
'I don't know, I've never rigged it, but it's stowed below the dinghy and I'm not too keen to try rigging it up in the dark. I'd do a hell of a lot better once it gets light!'
'Right! Then there's not much to do now but wait for the blow. May as well try to get some rest.'
We went below and crawled into our bunks and lay in the darkness without talking. I was still too wrought-up by the nightmarish experience of being turned turtle to consider sleep. I thought back to the events that followed our being struck by the giant wave. When I had been searching for the flashlight, the boat had just been breaking the surface again after having been completely submerged. The sound of the water pouring from the topsides had convinced me that the cabin top had been stove in from the crushing force of tons of water striking it and that the seas were pouring into the cabin. When this happens to a small boat it loses the buoyancy upon which it depends and the tons of lead on the keel drag it to the bottom like a stone.
Never before or since have I had such an absolute conviction that my time had come. When the flashlight came on and showed us still intact I felt like a man must feel when granted a reprieve from the gallows. Terror of this kind cannot be adequately described and is always most unpleasant, but I am convinced that the fear of death, far from land in the black of night, must be amongst the most lonely and terrible of all.
People occasionally ask me about storms at sea and I try to describe the conditions as accurately as I can, since I feel that exaggeration is unnecessary.
'There we were,' I sometimes say, 'waves forty feet high, a full gale blowing, and the nearest land two miles away...straight down!'. This is always good for a laugh but the quip has certain bleak overtones that invariably cause my laughter to be somewhat strained.
As expected, the wind came back at dawn with a sudden gust and a roar that had us out of our bunks and scrambling for the companion ladder in an instant. I unlashed the tiller and got the feel of the seas as they began to move again before the wind which had backed completely around from its previous direction. Joe went forward and unlashed the fifty fathoms of anchor warp and streamed it out astern to add its drag to the gear we were already trailing, which included two spare sheets, to one of which we had tied an old unused sail. By this time the wind had built up sufficiently to send us surging down the front of each great sea that came up from astern and I was having difficulty handling the tiller from the usual position sitting on the side of the cockpit. I tried sitting in the bottom of the cockpit facing astern with the tiller in front of me and found it gave me more satisfactory control.
The lines dragging astern helped to slow the boat as she ran off the front of the waves and also reduced the size of the crests on the seas. It was daylight now and I was impressed by the great seas that rolled toward us, changing from slate-grey to deep green as the sun came up. I must say that the image of great waves turned to bright green with the rising sun behind them was simply magnificent. I think I was not so overwhelmed by the seas themselves as by the awesome valleys that yawned between them. One moment we would be in the trough and I would watch with morbid fascination as the next green mountain of water rolled ponderously toward me, until it loomed so high and close I would have to tilt my head back to see the foaming crest. Then, miraculously, we would be borne upward at terrific speed until, in a matter of moments, we were at the crest and I could look down to see the trailing lines, snaking back through the foam-flecked chasm astern toward the next sea, advancing toward us an eighth of a mile behind.
By about ten o'clock the seas were begining to peak over from their size and the force of the wind. The first few broke either ahead of or astern of the cockpit and I was not completely prepared for the first one that broke directly onto me. It landed with a deafening roar right in my lap and I experienced the same sensation as a surfer who has fallen off the front of a wave. It was impossible to see through the greenish-white foam that churned all about so I held my breath and gripped the tiller for dear life. Then, to my amazement, as the main body of the wave passed by, I found myself completely submerged in the clear water to a depth of what I guessed was six or seven feet. I could look ahead like a skindiver and see the light of day illuminating the ripples on the back of the wave. I suddenly realized that I was floating slowly upward and had to hold tightly to the tiller and hook my legs below it to stay in place. After what seemed quite a long time but was probably only five or six seconds my dripping head emerged from the water as the wave continued on by.
The great danger in running before a full gale is the possibility of 'broaching to'. If the boat veers off on either quarter it tends to heel over until the bow gets under water. It will then be forced on deeper and deeper as the water at the stern pushes the boat along and finally flips it end over end, or 'pitch poles' it, usually snapping the mast off at about deck level. As soon as the wave had passed the cockpit I felt the stern lift as the 'Wren' started her wild surf ride down the front of it. I was a bit slow on the tiller as a result of my unexpected submersion and I could feel her veering off almost immediately. It took every ounce of my strength to hold the tiller steady and still the list increased swiftly until the port scuppers were completely awash. Just when we were nearly on our beam ends and I thought in desperation that we were about to go over, the crest of the wave passed and the boat quickly righted herself. I heard Joe unscrewing the lock on the batten and a moment later the hatch flew open and he stuck his head out.
'What the hell was that?' he cried anxiously.
"What the hell do you think it was?' I replied, blowing a large drop of salt water from the tip of my nose. 'It was a wave and it damned near broached us! Now I suggest you get the hell back down, because here comes another one!' I heard the hatch slam down and the batten being secured. A moment later I was 'skin-diving' again! We were pooped in this way by about half of the seas during the next two to three hours.
I secured the loose end of the main sheet to a bollard, then tied it firmly around my waist. After that, when the water enclosed me I would just float up four or five inches until the line snubbed me short. I was thus able to concentrate on the tiller and had no more close calls. By this time I had rigged a piece of heavy canvas in front of me as a windguard, for although the sea itself was not too cold, the blast of wind I received between dunkings had a cold edge to it. As each wave passed, the water draining off the stern about six feet from me was picked up by the wind and hurled back in my face with terrific force. The droplets stung lke tapioca from a schoolboy's peashooter, and I was forced to close my eyes against each vicious barrage.
Around noon I was given some relief from the pooping seas in a most unexpected manner. Incredible as it may seem, the gale reached such insane force that it actually began to flatten the seas. Great solid green chunks of water the size of living room sofas were wrenched from the crests and shot by at high speed before my incredulous gaze. After several hundred feet they would disintegrate into large clouds of grey droplets that continued on at high speed, parallel to the surface of the water.
As an indication of my state of mind during these proceedings, I amused myself by repeating the 23rd Psalm in a loud voice. I alternated this with my best recollection of the verses from the poem that must have great meaning for all men who have been tested by the open sea:
They that go down to the sea in ships,
That do business in great waters;
These see the works of the Lord,
and his wonders in the deep.
For he commandeth, and raiseth
the stormy wind, which lifteth
up the waves thereof.
They mount up to the Heaven,
They go down again to the depths;
Their soul is melted because of trouble.
They reel to and fro, and stagger like
a drunken man, and are at their wit's end.
Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble,
And he bringeth them out of their distresses.
He maketh the storm a calm,
So that the waves thereof are still.
Then are they glad because they be quiet;
So he bringeth them unto their desired haven.
Not too surprisingly, I found them a magnificent source of strength and comfort, providing a much-needed boost for my beleaguered morale.
Joe remained below for most of this time for purely practical reasons. There was nothing he could do on deck, since relieving me on the tiller was out of the question. The first man on the tiller when a small boat is forced to run for it gets the feel of the waves as they build up and must stay with it to the end. A new hand at the helm need only miss one wave for it to prove disastrous. (Deny Ryan told me of a race he once took part in across the Tasman Sea to Australia. Their boat was caught in a fierce gale in mid-sea and forced to run with it. Although they had a full racing crew of six men, the helmsman remained unrelieved all night. The other five, cold and wet, huddled around him, fearful of being below in case the boat broached to and foundered.
Toward mid-afternoon the wind strength dropped quite noticeably and the seas became confused once more. Crosswaves from some distant storm centre angled across the swells, causing great explosions of spray and foam. Relatively calm patches of sea would suddenly peak up and burst like liquid volcanoes, then subside as quickly as they had formed. Joe appeared on deck with the brown canvas cone of the sea anchor and set about rigging it up. The anchor chain was secured to the mast then passed through the fairleads at the bow. The anchor warp was hauled in and shackled to the chain then passed outboard of the stanchions back to the cockpit and secured to the yoke of the sea anchor.
'I'll take the tiller now, Ron, you can go below and get warmed up; there's some hot coffee on the stove! We'll drop the sea anchor in about an hour and heave-to for the night.'
'Okay! call me when you need me!' I said. I went below, then secured the batten below the hatch and screwed it up tight. I started for the coffee pot on the stove but somehow seemed to lack the strength to pour myself a cupful. As I stood braced against the pantry counter I was possessed by a strange feeling I was unable to completely understand. Exhausted, cold, wet and depressed, I stood for a long time, possessesd by many bewildering thoughts as the reaction from the long ordeal set in. It seemed perfectly natural to me to feel at last the warm tears that welled up in my eyes then overflowed to course down my cheeks with the salt water that still trickled from the hair plastered to my forehead. I bent my head down until my chin was on my chest, and gave myself up to the blessed relief of this unexpected emotion. Head bowed, arms hanging limply from my sides, completely unmanned but somehow unashamed, I silently thanked the Almighty for giving us the courage, the skill, and the presence of mind to carry us through those long dark hours behind us. I don't know how long I remained in this unfamiliar attitude, but when I finally raised my head I felt purged emotionally and reached hungrily for the coffee pot.
It was dusk when Joe called me up and we dropped the sea anchor and lashed the tiller amidships. But insead of laying out behind it, 'The Wren' insisted on riding up past it till the warp lay angling back about forty-five degrees from the bow. We found later that two of the yoke ropes had broken, thus greatly reducing the effectiveness of the anchor. As a result, instead of quartering into the seas, we lay almost beam on to them all night, taking a fierce drubbing once again, but held back sufficiently by the additional drag to prevent our being rolled over again.
— The End —