The balmy air flowing over my naked body was deliciously cooling after the heat of the cabin. The diamond-bright stars were set in a black sky. Occasionally I shrank from the side of the cockpit when a wave broke over the counter but nothing came over the combing and I gave myself over to the romantic pleasure of sliding fast through the seas into the night in my slim, powerful craft.
He even rose to the challenge, pathos abounding, of knowing from day one that his attempt was doomed by his decision to start up a tidal estuary out of the trade wind zone, just to round up the Romantic Challenge to 4,000 miles. Why he didn’t start in the Canaries and throw in a Caribbean island dog-leg on the way to, say, Panama is a mystery that, writing later, he didn’t even attempt to answer:
I knew I had blundered badly in starting from Bissau. With at least twenty days and twenty nights of continuous hard racing ahead I had had the stupidity to lumber myself at the start with navigating a long, tricky estuary, with at best light tropical winds and at worst calms. But I had said that I was going to start from Bissau to make up the distance across the Atlantic to 4,000 miles and start from Bissau I would.
At the end of the first day he had only made 72 miles and then the 200-mile a day challenge was already 206 miles. By the end of third day it had risen to 210 miles per day for seventeen days. He didn’t enter into the trade wind belt until the sixth day, when he made over 200 miles for the first time – but by then it was too late to worry about the averages: ‘It was no use getting depressed; it was my own fault for letting myself be trapped by a romantic notion.’
On he sped, across the Atlantic. But on the tenth day, after another day’s run of over 200 miles and just as the first thought of succeeding after all was reviving, the spinnaker pole broke and shattered with it all hope of success: apart from the obvious loss of sail area, the time taken off flat-out sailing over the next two days while he was splicing up an alternative pole meant losing any chance of the record attempt.
Rather than mope about lost opportunities and bent spinnaker poles, Francis cracked on with breaking his original, pre-grandiose Romantic Challenge plan, of sailing 1,000 miles in five days. This remarkable achievement has these days been overshadowed by technology and design. Today’s solo adventurers sail carbon fibre multihulls, eat specially developed hybrid space food and are fit to levels that poor old – actually slowly dying – Francis could only imagine, and are guided along their routes by amazingly sophisticated weather-forecasting software. Two hundred miles a day now is for sissies: the likes of Thomas Coville and Francis Joyon regularly sail over 600 miles a day, the current record being held by Coville at 718 miles.
At the other end of the spectrum, when I’m passage-planning on Vasco da Gama, I reckon we cruise along at an average of 5 knots, so 120 miles a day. This puts Francis’s prowess into better perspective. The difference in effort on board between 120 and 200 miles a day is immense. Francis drove himself constantly, sleeping fitfully at best, always tweaking and trimming the sails for the last zephyr of a knot. We set sails, bung on the autopilot, kettle up a brew and watch the seas go by in their own time. At night, and only when it’s all quiet out there, we set the radar alarm to 12 miles, have a final stab at the autopilot and final trim of the sails, and turn in for a good night’s sleep. But don’t tell anyone: it’s really no more legal than Francis napping around the world.
Francis’s new lashed-up spinnaker pole was strong enough itself but it caused problems to all parts of the yacht to which it was connected. He rather enjoyed his fixing forays:
I am suffering from a complaint quite new to me tonight. My bottom is sore from sunburn. I was working for an hour or two on the clew of the big runner and I must have got burnt then. But I am not moaning about it because it is such a wonderful thing for a Briton to be able to get a burnt bottom in January.
There were always wildlife diversions on Francis’s voyages. In Africa a particularly aggressive-looking spider had stowed away. It was impervious to Francis’s spray-gun attacks. On another occasion he noticed that Gipsy Moth V suddenly felt draggy and had slowed by 2 knots. Leaning over the side, he saw that a detached fishing net had wrapped itself around the hull. Hauling it in with a grappling hook, he discovered a turtle caught in the net, its head through one square and its paddles through others. Francis carefully unravelled him, noticing how the ungrateful turtle kept trying to bite him for his kindness. Later he mused:
Finally I slid him back into the ocean where he flipped off gaily, as if he regularly made year-long voyages across the Atlantic imprisoned in a net.
I wondered what the cumulative odds must be against his being released. First of all there were the odds against his being caught in the net; then the longer odds against the net breaking away. Then there were the further odds against the net being swept out to sea, even further odds against it entering the Guinea current and being carried out into the Atlantic.
Now add incredibly long odds against the net being caught in the keel of a yacht 2,300 miles out in the Atlantic, almost as long odds against the net been hauled on board – and finally I would think it was a pretty lone chance that the skipper of said yacht would be vegetarian by preference.
Francis approached the coast of Nicaragua on 3 February 1971. It had never been his intention to land at San Juan del Norte but to cross an imaginary line 8 miles offshore, 4,000 miles from the estuary at Bissau. From there he was planning to sail 250 miles down to Panama in order to affect the inevitable repairs that a hard-driving transatlantic crossing will demand. However, unbeknownst to him, while he was scudding across the Mid-Atlantic, a flurry of Anglo-Nicaraguan diplomatic activity was scudding across the North Atlantic.
Nicaragua then was a classic banana republic, a hereditary military dictatorship ruled by the Somoza family.19 The Director-General of Tourism was the President’s first cousin, a Dr Luis Correa, who saw Francis’s arrival as a wonderful opportunity to bring his country to the world’s attention. (He later suggested to Francis that he should organise the 4,000-mile crossing as a yearly race; Francis, who warmed to Dr Correa for his enthusiasm, made his excuses.) The Somoza family’s more distant relative, the Nicaraguan Ambassador to the Court of St James’s, petitioned the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary, the Rt. Hon. Sir Alec Douglas-Home, that Francis should not only be a guest of honour in his country but the personal guest of President Anastasio Somoza DeBayle in the capital, Managua.
Despatches flew back and forth between Whitehall and the embassy in Managua:
Very substantial efforts have been made here to look after Chichester … His non-arrival at the Presidential Palace in Managua could have serious consequences … If the embassy does not do everything in their power to get Chichester to do this … Anglo-Nicaraguan relations, for what they are worth, would suffer.
The Ambassador, Ivor Vincent, added wryly: ‘I studied such of Chichester’s books as were available, and began to realise what we were letting ourselves in for, in trying to bring him ashore.’
In the meantime the Ambassador Ivor had to humour the Director-General of Tourism. He reported to the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary:
Dr Correa was obviously indulging in dreams of glory, a ceremonial landing at San Juan del Norte, presentation of the keys of the town and of a gold medal commemorating the Indian Chief Nicarao after whom the country is named, a flight by helicopter to Managua and a reception by President Somoza. I should explain that San Juan del Norte, which had been a prosperous township of 20,000 inhabitants in the 19th and early 20th century in Gold Rush times, has by now dwindled into a marshy, ruined and hopeless village of three hundred families completely cut off from the outer world.
Realising that San Juan was a non-starter, Dr Correa then arrived at a much more sensible suggestion, the fishing-fleet port of El Bluff, only 60 miles north of Francis’s self-imposed finishing line. The first Francis heard of it was when an ungainly fishing boat came out to greet him. On board were the British Ambassador and his wife Patrici
a, Christopher Doll and his BBC film crew, and Dr Correa.
The Ambassador did his best to make a speech; Francis felt sorry for him, and even sorrier for his wife as the top-heavy boat rolled around in the swell. Dr Correa then suggested his better plan than Panama: why not head 60 miles north to El Bluff? El Bluff? Yes, El Bluff, there a gringo capitan runs a yard with eighty-five shrimp trawlers under his care; he can fix your boat, easy.
Francis had already heard the gringo capitan over the radio – and had liked what he had heard. Captain Bartlett, ‘Bart’, or ‘El Capitan de Connecticut’, was as sound in person as he was on the airwaves. Francis and Bart were instant soul buddies, fixing buddies, yarning buddies and drinking buddies. Francis reckoned that Bart ‘would have needed no make-up at all to play the part of a pirate captain of two centuries or more ago. His tremendous personality alone would, surely have made him the most successful – and certainly the most efficient – privateer on the Spanish Main.’ He never did find out Bart’s age – ‘whenever I asked him, he dodged the question’ – and reckoned he could be anywhere between fifty and seventy.
There were more blessings in store: Donata, Bart’s head maid, was a terrific cook and with the bounty of the sea at her disposal, every lunch turned into a magnificent seafood extravaganza. Every lunch also turned into a kind of meeting of the local meros merors, the big bosses who plied their various trades around Bart’s enormous dining table. On one occasion Francis counted no fewer than five ambassadors from neighbouring countries, which he recorded as a useful geography lesson, if nothing else.
It went without saying that the lunches were liquid and that every afternoon Francis went troppo with the others, enjoying a good siesta to sleep things off. An early evening work spurt on the boats was followed by a visit by Bart to Gipsy Moth V:
At nightfall he used to come back and have supper with me on board. We would settle down to yarning, but towards the end of a bottle of brandy or gin, the talking would give way to Bart’s stentorian sea songs. When he was in full song he made the welkin ring and it felt as if Gipsy Moth’s hull were quivering, the warehouses along the wharf shaking as if in an earthquake.
All the while the Ambassador was in full swing arranging Francis’s VIP visit to President Somoza in Managua. A special gold medal had been struck in his honour and the Ambassador suggested that Frances should give the President a gift in return. All he had on board to spare was his Royal Cork Yacht Club burgee, of significance to sailors as the Royal Cork is the oldest yacht club in the world, older even than the Royal Yacht Squadron (albeit a gift of less significance to banana republic dictators). A small plane was sent to pick Francis up and that night the Vincents threw a cocktail party at the Embassy in his honour. He remarked he had never seen so many ambassadors in one place at a time; well, he wouldn’t have. Ambassador Vincent reported back to London that ‘Over 300 people attended this reception, though less than 24 hours’ notice had been possible. Chichester made a very favourable impression indeed, talking to well over half the guests personally.’
Later that evening Vincent and Francis were presented to the President. Francis handed over the burgee but noticed that the gold medal was not forthcoming; maybe later. They chatted and drank Flor de Caña, the local rum. Somoza was ‘most amiable and said he would hang the burgee on his bedroom wall’. They repaired to the enormous balcony, where Francis noted Cerro Negro, an active volcano that was spreading its pall of dust 50 miles in all directions. Somoza revisited the subject of Correa’s transatlantic yacht race idea; Francis promised to mention it to the Duke of Edinburgh, with whom he was in touch. Suitably sozzled, he and Somoza hugged and slapped their farewells. Francis never did get his gold medal and Somoza never did get his yacht race.
I do believe that the twelve days Francis spent in El Bluff and Managua, surrounded by boats and boatmen – proper hands-on boatmen with not a blazer in sight – lunching with ambassadors and eccentrics, being hosted by his own embassy and a president, repairing Gipsy Moth V by day and rekindling her captain with his soul chum Bart by night were among the happiest of Francis’s life.
And diplomatic honour was satisfied too. Ambassador Vincent reported back to Sir Alec Douglas-Home: ‘From a local point of view the visit was a great boon for Anglo-Nicaraguan relations, and I am sure we shall benefit for some time to come. Chichester proved himself a flexible and friendly person, quite unlike the dour, misanthropic portrait painted for us by the BBC. The whole comedy was in the best film tradition, and I think that everybody who took part or watched it would have enjoyed it.’
The Nicaraguan press certainly did, dubbing Francis ‘El Viejo Lobo del Mar’; Francis rather liked being ‘The Old Wolf of the Sea’.
Inspired by his sojourn in El Bluff, he then began what would become his swansong, what he himself called ‘The Great Amble Eastwards’, his own kind of ‘No Direction Home’: three months in which to sail as he liked it best – alone – in his favourite ocean, the North Atlantic.
After freeing himself from the contrary winds and tides of the Caribbean, he escaped into the Atlantic between Cuba and Haiti. A few days later he wrote:
I am lying in my berth, relaxed. It seems an age since I could rest or let go the tension and allow myself to have a deep sleep. Caribbean sailing woes were in the past; I was at large on the edge of the ocean, in calm seas under the sunshine, and with a light, pleasant breeze. I stood looking at the clumps of Sargasso weed, pale yellowy brown, the size of a lily pond, drifting past and let me briefly cut a straight path for Gipsy Moth to pass through. There followed a delightful sail such as yachtsmen all hope for but in most cases only experience in their dreams. Smooth seas, moderate winds, sunshine and mostly fine weather.
It’s a funny thing, but all yachtsmen sailing in the Bounty advertisement seas of the tropical islands experience what is known as ‘paradise fatigue’. So there they are, off yet another swaying palm tree-fringed, grass-skirted, potentially topless island, just back up on deck after the early morning wake-up swim, scooping out the last of the local papaya, fresh coffee aroma wafting up from the galley, and they look all around and say to themselves: ‘Not another effing day in Paradise’.
After a week of the Great Amble, Francis reverted to type and set himself a challenge. I can almost see the thought bubble: ‘I have an ocean greyhound and well found one too. I’m on the edge of the north-east trades. I’m fit and relaxed. Let’s set a fresh speed record.’ He then spent two days down below on another favourite pastime, plotting himself a course. The finishing line would be the Equator, the starting gate a point 1,600 miles upwind of it, Point X, a notional islet in the mid-Atlantic.
Calculations behind him, he was in fine spirits as he sailed towards Point X:
At a meeting of the Ship’s Company this morning, the Medical Officer and Chaplain in attendance, Captain presiding, it was unanimously agreed to sail down the 40th Meridian from 20° North to the Equator. The Medical Officer said he was very relieved the Captain had come out of his mental purdah, and finished his cerebral ordeal with some result, whatever it may be, and apparently without loosing his sanity. Some of the less understanding of the crew had wondered if the master was doing his nut or, in scientific medical language, going crackers. The captain ordered an extra round of brandy for all hands and grunted his way below to the security of his cabin.
Truth to tell, it wasn’t one of his more successful dashes across the oceans blue. The trade winds were playing up, and not just wimpishly. They breezed rather than blew, this way and that, stopping only for the occasional deluge. After 1,200 miles Francis gave up the hopeless quest and at 1420 on 27 March, he logged: ‘Tacked for home and loved ones (I hope)’.
Reading all this now, I think it was during the unfulfilled record run to the Equator that his cancer returned, noticeably. He wrote of pains in his legs, jolts from his remaining kidney, lethargy and exhaustion. He became morose and maudlin in his reflections:
I do not know if all kinds of solitary l
iving have the same affect. Solitary sea life makes me think and feel more than is comfortable for my peace of mind. I have dreadful attacks of remorse. My chief remorse is for unkind acts to friends in the past. Maybe something deeply wounding that I have said or done. Then I find myself stuck with such things forever: they cannot be undone and the awful thing is that often they did not mean that much to me, or were even seriously believed.
This life makes one so sympathetic with others in trouble with their conscience, or unable to cope with the overwhelming difficulties of their lives.
I often think of Donald Crowhurst with great sympathy. For me, to be nine months alone without aim, project, objective, challenge, would mean exposing myself far too much. I can understand his soul being damaged or destroyed by continuous considering of it, relentless probing of it. I can only stand a very little peep of it now and then. Thank God for activity of body and mind to keep you away from my soul.
On Sheila’s birthday, 11 April, south of the Azores, he opened a bottle of champagne and toasted her and
Edward and Belinda Montagu, who were married on the same date. We four have a tradition of holding a party together. It was wonderful thinking of them and Gipsy Moth’s home in Edward’s Beaulieu River.
This is the most lovely part of the ocean that I know: it has a peaceful, happy, relaxed atmosphere which is unique and would be an ideal place for one soul to take off if it wished to leave the earth.
And on he sailed to Horta in the Azores for his final pit stop there.
Francis saved his best storm until last. He also saved his greatest act of heroism until last. Three hundred miles north of the Azores, en route to Plymouth, at just after midnight on a moonless night he was hit by what to him seemed like a mini-hurricane from out of the blue. Just when he needed all his strength to clamber up onto the gale-swept deck, crawl through the stinging spray and lower the sails, as he had done dozens of times before, time caught up with his old body and its remaining strength would not let him leave his bunk.
Never Fear Page 33
