The Lonely Sea and the Sky (49 page)

  At the end of this third week Blondie, who had escaped the storm, had sailed farther in a straight line from Plymouth than I had. However, he had been bearing away to the north, passing within 300 miles of Greenland, and he was still 85 miles farther from New York than I was. Lewis had gained on me too, and was now only 350 miles astern.

  During the next week's sailing I came to terms with life. I found that my sense of humour had returned; things which would have irritated me or maddened and infuriated me ashore made me laugh out loud, and I dealt with them steadily and efficiently. Rain, fog, gale, squalls and turbulent forceful seas under grey skies became merely obstacles. I seemed to have found the true values of life. The meals I cooked myself were feasts, and my noggins of whisky were nectar. A good sleep was as valuable to me as the Koh-i-noor diamond. All my senses seemed to be sharpened; I perceived and enjoyed the changing character of the sea, the colours of the sky, the slightest change in the noises of the sea and wind; even the differences between light and darkness were strong, and a joy. I was enjoying life, and treating it as it should be treated – lightly. Tackling tough jobs gave me a wonderful sense of achievement and pleasure.

  For example, on 5 July I was fast asleep, snug among my blankets at 9.30 at night. I woke with a feeling of urgency and apprehension. A gale squall had hit the yacht, and I had to get out quickly on deck to drop sails. This is one of the toughest things about sailing alone – switching from fast sleep in snug warm blankets, to being dunked on the foredeck in the dirty black night a minute later. Conditions have to be at their worst to demand the urgency, and I had that dry feeling in my mouth as I dragged on my wet oilskins in the dim light. Then I was standing in the water in the cockpit, and from there pressing against the gale. I made my way to the mast, and wrestled with the mainsail halyard with one hand, slacking it away as I grabbed handfuls of mainsail with the other hand and hauled the sail down. The sail bound tight against the mast crosstree and shroud under the pressure of the wind, and the slides jammed in their tracks. The stem of the yacht was leaping 10 feet into the air and smacking down to dash solid crests over my back. The thick fog was luminous when the lightning flashed, but I heard no sound at all of thunder; it was drowned by the thunderclaps from the flogging sails. I scarcely noticed the deluge of rain among the solid masses of seawater hitting me.

  When I got below, my oilskins off, sitting on the settee in glorious comfort sipping a bowl of tomato soup, I had a wonderful sense of achievement. It was a positive, but perhaps a simple thing, dealing with a difficult and tricky job in a thrilling, romantic setting, When next I left my blankets I found that
Gipsy Moth
had averaged 6.1 knots for the past four hours with only a storm jib set, which showed that there had been plenty of wind.

  This was the sort of life I led day after day and night after night. Everything in the boat seemed to be wet. One morning I was delighted to see a dry patch on the cabin floor, only to find that it was a piece of light-coloured material which had slipped out of a locker. I began to worry about a fuel shortage for the Aladdin heater, which was going day and night. Whenever I had the Primus stove alight I heated a big saucepanful of salt water, and wrapped clothes round it to dry them out a little.

  By this time I was over the Grand Banks, and in fog nearly always, thin fog, thick fog or dense fog, always some kind of fog. Before I started I had intended to heave to and keep watch in fog, but in the event I never slowed down; I was racing, and what difference would it make if I was stopped anyway? I had expected 300 miles of fog, but actually I sailed through no less than 1430 miles, equivalent to two and a third complete Fastnet Races. It did not slow me down directly, but indirectly it did, because sometimes I would lie in my bunk for hours before I got the necessary peace of mind to drop off to sleep. My reason told me the chance of being run down in the broad Atlantic was infinitesimally small; but my instinct said you must be a fool to believe that. There was something uncanny about charging at full speed through this dense impenetrable fog, especially on a dark night.

  Then there was ice. I dreaded icebergs, though there were many times more trawlers on the banks than icebergs. I could not get any ice information with my radio, and could only guess at the ice area from the information got together before the race. Once a cold clammy air entered the cabin, and I thought there must be a big berg nearby. I climbed into the cockpit to keep watch, but found dense fog on a pitch black night. I could not see 25 yards ahead with a light.
Gipsy Moth
was sailing fast into the darkness. I decided that keeping watch was a waste of time, went below and mixed myself my anti-scorbutic. The lemon juice of this wonderful drink not only keeps physical scurvy away, but if enough of the right kind of whisky is added to it, mental scurvy as well.
Gipsy Moth
sailed on through the dark.

  One day I had a surprise when I saw a long low island in the foggy mist. By my reckoning the nearest land was 360 miles away. Then it moved. The fog had thinned, and this was a big swell looming in the mist half a mile away. The Grand Banks seem wrapped in romance after the turbulent Atlantic. One night, sailing through a calm sea with the moon behind fine clouds, a bird flew overhead, making queer squeaky mewing sounds, as if it wanted to talk.

  Once I was nearly becalmed, and thought that I would try for a fish, as I was on the greatest fishing grounds of the world. My line had not been down long and I was below, when I heard a sort of deep sigh, which brought me up into the cockpit. Four whales were just diving, their backs above the surface. I could have prodded the nearest with my boathook. They looked awfully black, sleek and powerful, and the thought flashed through my brain, 'Are you friendly?' When I looked round there were about 100 of them near. I hurriedly hauled in my log line, arid then I took in my fishing line; those backs seemed a broad hint that I was poaching. As I watched, I got the impression that the whales were in a number of small groups which one after the other sent one whale to inspect
Gipsy Moth
until at the end after ten or fifteen minutes they all dived like one and vanished. I did not really wish to catch a fish after living alone for a month; I remember that Slocum could not shoot a duck in the Magellan Straits although he was short of food.

  On 8 July, excitement; after twenty-seven days of calling in vain on my R/T, I had an answer! It is true that I closed the land to within 40 miles of Cape Race, Newfoundland, but I got through a message to Chris Brasher in London. It was a Saturday morning and I felt that he would urgently need some news for the next day's
Observer.
I had an odd feeling of excitement in speaking to someone after four weeks' silence.

  Next day ended the fourth week of the race.
Gipsy Moth
had sailed as she should, like a horse picking up its heels and going full stretch.

  During that week she had made good 690 miles towards New York, and as a result at the end of the fourth week I was only 865 miles from New York, whereas Blondie was 1,208 miles. My dreaded rival, the black-bearded Viking, because of his taking the longer route in the south, had still 2,190 miles to go, and barring accidents to Blondie and me, he was out of the race. Lewis was about 600 miles astern now. Of course I did not know any of this at the time.

  After leaving Cape Race, which is the southernmost tip of Newfoundland, my next concern was Sable Island. This is a 20-mile long sandbank, 90 miles offshore from Nova Scotia. I have a chart of this island drawn up by a lighthouse keeper there, which shows 200 ships wrecked on it since 1800. In every account I had read of wrecks on Sable Island, the captain had thought himself a long way off when his ship struck. I was puzzled about this, and apprehensive.

  I think I know now why many of these wrecks occurred. At first it looked as if I was going to pass south of the island. Then the wind changed, and I began heading north of it. I ought then to have been in the favourable Labrador current, a comparatively narrow stream wending its way south-westerly along the eastern seaboard of America. Flowing alongside it, in the opposite direction, is the Gulf Stream, with such a sharp division between the two that it is known as the Cold Wall. As I approached the rocky coast of Nova Scotia I reckoned that I was in the favourable Labrador current. I never saw anything of the 300-mile long coast, although I tacked close to it on three occasions. I was in fog most of the time, and so cold that I was still wearing my long woollen underpants as well as thick clothes, with the Aladdin heater going day and night. Yet I heard a radio station reporting temperatures in the eighties only 50 miles away. On 12 July I got a good fix by bearings from radio beacons on Sable Island, Sambro Light Vessel and the north-east point of Nova Scotia, which showed that my dead reckoning position was 22½ miles in error, too far west. Three days later my reckoning was again too far west, this time 28 miles. Here was a total error of 50 miles, which could easily have caused a wreck if I had not discovered it. I think my error could have been caused only by an eddy from the Gulf Stream invading the Labrador current, and reversing it. No wonder the sailing ships of 100 years ago were wrecked when they lacked my advantage of being able to take bearings of radio beacons on Sable Island and the mainland.

  During this passage between Nova Scotia and Sable Island I had a narrow escape. I was sitting in the cabin with the last bottle of whisky aboard on the swinging table.
Gipsy Moth
suddenly performed one of her famous ski jumps. She would sidle up the side of a wave and roll sharply at the top before taking off the other side, and landing with a terrific crash in the trough. This was more than the swinging table could cope with, the bottle of whisky shot up into the air, turned a somersault, and was headed for the cabin floor neck first. I was faced with tragedy – my last bottle of whisky. My hand shot out and I fielded it by the neck on the way down. I could not have been more pleased if I had brought off a brilliant catch in a Test Match. I was not so lucky next day, however, with a jug of tea which was shot up into the air in the same way. I could not help laughing; it was incredible that so many tea-leaves could come from one spoonful; the table, the seat opposite, the whole floor, and the side of my settee were all plastered with tea-leaves. There were even some in the dustpan stowed away in the cubby-hole under the seat.

  16 July was a key day for me. It was the thirty-seventh day of the race and the first completely fine day so far. Also, it was a perfect sailing day, with a soldier's breeze from the north, not a cloud in the sky, big round sun, and a small crescent moon. I was bustling to and fro all day with clothes, bedding, mattresses, cushions, etc. My green velvet smoking jacket, which I had fondly hoped I should be changing into occasionally for a quiet dinner on board, was nearly solid with mildew, with parts worn through by chafing against the side of the ship. However, I put it to dry, and later, when I came to brush it, to my surprise the mildew came off, leaving that part spotlessly clean. Had I found a cheap rival to dry cleaning? By the end of that day there really were dry patches on the cabin floor. And at night the sky was clear with bright stars twinkling like diamonds, the first time I had seen them.

  Next day I moved on to a chart with New York at the other end of it. I had sailed 3,516 miles, but had no idea of how I was placed in the race. How well I knew from previous races that heart-sinking feeling on arriving to find my rivals already in! But even if I were last, I should have had the romantic thrill which only a voyage like this can give.

  I was approaching the Nantucket Shoals, about which the Admiralty pilots say, 'These shoals extend 40 miles south-east of Sankaty Head Lighthouse, and render this one of the most dangerous parts of the Unites States coast.' At first I hoped to sail round them to the south, without having to tack, but the wind veered, and headed me straight for the middle of the shoals. I was racing, and did not want to tack. I studied all the charts I had to see if I could thread a safe passage through them, bearing in mind that I had seen no landmark or seamark of any description since the Eddystone Rock 3,700 miles behind me. These shoals have affected American history; the
Mayflower
, with the Pilgrim Fathers on board, put about when she came upon them and headed north, to found their settlement at Plymouth, New England, instead of proceeding to New Jersey as they had intended. Later, Captain Hudson was diverted by the shoals, put out to sea and sailed on to New York, where the Hudson River is named after him.

  A night of exciting navigation followed. I went to sleep an hour before midnight, headed for the middle of the shoals, and slept for two and a quarter hours, when I got up for a radio-beacon fix, then slept soundly again for an hour and a quarter. I woke with a start. The night was pitch black, and there were no lights to aid me. I could not get soundings, and radio-beacon bearings are unreliable at night. Yet I decided to get radio-beacon bearings at intervals; I thought I could see a way to make a safe passage, even if some of the bearings were inaccurate. None of the radio fixes I got agreed with one another, and the dead reckoning differed from them all. However, if one could rely on accurate information, navigation would be a simple science, whereas the art and great fascination of it lies in deducing correctly from uncertain clues. I passed over one shoal, but I knew that there was enough depth and sailed on into a squall, which turned out to be a thunderstorm with a deluge of rain. My track should have taken me, by my reckoning, within 2 miles of a Texas radar tower built on legs on the shoals, but I never saw it, for as soon as I was near the middle of the shoals a thick fog rolled up. I did hear the tower foghorn from the direction where it ought to have been; giving two deep moos like a sick bull, but I could not tell how far off it was. Then it fell dead calm. I was not happy; I could not get a radio-beacon fix because the three usable beacons (Nantucket Light Vessel, Cape Cod and Pollock's Rip) were all in a line with
Gipsy Moth
. However, I kept on taking bearings from them and formed an impression of where I was. I set the ghosting genoa and tended it with great care all morning, trying to edge westwards, but there was seldom enough wind to move smoke. We were just moving, however, sailing slowly westwards at the edge of a tide-rip like a field of earthed-up potato rows. The forward half of
Gipsy
Moth
was in smooth water, humping up as if about to break; the aft half was in the tide-rip, which advanced at exactly the same pace as the ship for what seemed a long time. The danger of these shoals is that a sea may break and dump the ship on the bottom, to be overwhelmed by the next comber. Since we were moving, I hoisted the mainsail, and our speed went up to 2 knots, but at the same time we were being carried northwards towards the shoals at 2 knots. Three-quarters of an hour later we were still moving, but still had 20 miles of the shoals to cross. I could not think of anything else I could do, so I went below and turned in for a siesta. When I woke it was 9.10 and I found the ship going well at 5 knots. I felt that I had been lucky.