No, not me! Definitely not on the bucket list! We are content to have sailed between Eastport, Maine and Grenada, West Indies -- only about 6,000 miles, round trip, less than a fourth of the distance of the equator and one must also put in a lot of northing and southing to circumnavigate. Europe still glimmers in my mind but is improbable. There are many ports in the areas we have sailed that we have not entered. And the "alone" part has no appeal to me either. I believe that I could handle the boat but Im far too social an animal. Without Ilene it would be no fun. And in certain longitudes one encounters pirates. No thanks.No, the sailor in question is Captain Joshua Slocum. A New England Yankee retired merchant sea captain: both square riggers and steamships. Slocum set off for his 38 month adventure when he was in his fifties during 1895-98. His was the first such long cruise for pleasure.
I read his account, a classic, at the suggestion of my friend Jim. It is quite interesting and well written with footnotes explaining some of his few archaic sailing terms and references to the personalities and current events of the day (meeting Stanley of Stanley and Livingston in South Africa; avoiding mines when entering Newport RI during the Spanish American War). He also included 65 illustrations (no photos) among the books 265 pages. These include his boats sail plan, lines, and other views and views of some of the more exciting incidents. His writing is better than mine but shares a common characteristic: an unemotional recounting of the facts which speak for themselves; he does not need to characterize them. He was opposed to witchcraft and I believe organized religion, and liberal in his political outlook except as to race and colonialism, in which he was of his times. He includes in the narrative as to each stop along the way, his dates of arrival and departure; from this someone could calculate the number of stops and the percentage of sailing days as compared to lay days, as I do in this blog at the end of each of ILENEs long cruises.
"Spray" his wooden gaff rigged sloop (reconfigured as a yawl half way round), was only 37 feet long on deck, compared to ILENEs 42 feet (but with a long bowsprit and aft extension for the sheet of the jigger, Spray was quite a bit longer than ILENEs 45 feet overall). She was 14 feet wide compared to ILENEs 12, with less draft, concrete ballast instead of lead and double the weight. And he had rebuilt her himself using hand tools on the hulk of an old fishing boat. And Spray had no engine or fuel tanks, no refrigeration, no GPS, no EPIRB, no chart plotter and no radio -- he was rather alone out there, taking pleasure in frequently referring to himself as "the crew of the Spray."
My interest in this book was enhanced when I toured a modern-day, fiberglass, larger-scaled replica of Spray at the dock of Marina Cay in Tortola in November of 2010, before Ilene and the kitties joined me there for our trip down to Grenada. The replica had modern amenities and was home to a family with several small children.
Slocum was a self educated man about writing as well as about the sea. I could not help but compare his chapters to posts of this blog. Of course my own adventures and accomplishments pale by comparison to his, qualitatively as well as quantitatively, but both of us are sailors who write. Generally, when I read, I find the stories interesting substantially to the extent that I can identify with and compare myself to the characters. There are a lot of things in this book to which I could identify. He wrote comparing himself to the early explorers, who did not have accurate clocks or charts and found himself wanting; and I am not a fraction of the sailor he was.
Yet there are many episodes that resonated for me. He wrote that following a big storm he took out his palm and sewed a new sail to replace the torn one, calling it "serviceable if not beautiful". I recalled my adventure aboard On Eagles Wings this past winter during which I used such a palm to repair a sail.
He was given a set of books by the widow of Robert Louis Stevenson during a visit to her island in the South Pacific off South America. This put me in mind of the generosity to me of Eve, the widow of Selwyn, a great sailor of our club and a great mentor to me.
Nearing home Slocum encountered the USS Oregon, which I learned about in the Oregon History Museum. She signaled "CBT" -- i.e., "Are there any men of war about?", referring to Spanish warships, to which Slocum flew the negative flag.
An interesting unresolved question that this book raised involves usage. When I hail another ship, my usage, which I believe is the common one today, is "Ahoy [name of vessel]". The "Ahoy" serves to capture the attention of the listener to listen for the name of his or her boat. Slocum, if he greeted us would reverse this: "ILENE Ahoy!" There is a lot of "ahoying" in the book and it struck me as wrong each time. I wonder when and why the custom changed.
He described an incident in which he mistook the light of a lighthouse flashing on wave crests as a reef, way to close, and the scare it gave him, This reminded me a moment of horror of my own off the Maine coast one dark and stormy night in 1992 -- the moon peaked out from behind the clouds, low, near the water and I thought it was a strong light on a large ship crossing our bow.
Slocums description of the joy of a landfall at the end of a long voyage will resonate with every cruiser and his description of ports in my home waters --from New York to Maine -- were very rewarding.
He did not keep cats like ILENE and humorously described a short passage with a goat which had been given to him as a gift. He used rope instead of chain to tie the goat to the mast and after eating through the rope the goat ate Slocums hat and his chart of the Caribbean
He had a few groundings and was hit by another boat while at anchor; all things that have happened to me and are going to happen to you if you are out there enough.
He tried to tow a much larger boat that had grounded but the captain refused his offer and the ship was later lost. On my first boat, "Just Cause;" I went out from the safety of Three Mile Harbor (the back door of Easthampton, Long Island) to tow in a much larger sailboat, and during another Club cruise was the beneficiary of a tow from a power boat when both my engine and the wind failed (Thanks again, Stu).
News of Slocums voyage had spread and he was greeted as a celebrity in most ports, large and small, and fees were waived while he was feted by the local dignitaries. This has not been my experience.
He also traded in merchandise that he picked up along the way in Port A for sale in Port B; you couldnt take the merchantman out of him. And later in the voyage he was given the use of lecture halls to earn money by telling his sea stories.
The most exciting portion of the trip was his circumnavigation of the western half of Tierra del Fuego, which lies between the Strait of Magellan and Cape Horn. This was also where he encountered natives who were pirates. He had not intended to circumnavigate these islands, but upon exiting the Strait into the Pacific, he was hit by a storm that simply blew him back south and east of the Horn. The book contains several charts of his path, and a separate one for the tip of South America where all of this action occurred.
Having transited a good part of the Pacific from an island 340 miles west of Chile in 43 days, he passed just south of the Marquesas without stopping there and continued for another 29 days nonstop to Samoa -- 72 days at sea. He read a lot underway and reported on what he read.
He also had many pertinent observations on the winds tides, currents mileage made good, sun sites, and such matters as crossing the Equator and crossing his own track.
One amazing feature of his boat and his own skills was that he could trim his sails so well that he could lash his wheel in place and let the boat steer itself for days at a time. Only once, in a storm, did he tend the wheel by hand for 30 hours. Many people doubted the veracity of this self steering assertion and he repeats it several times with an illustration of how he lashed the wheel but with the caveat that he could not vouch that boats with large overhangs, fore and aft, could perform this way.
This will be the last nautical book review in this blog -- for 2014. I plan to help a friend bring his boat from Essex CT to Annapolis at mid month.
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