Then there was talking to oneself, always thought to be a sign of going barmy—because mad people do it, I suppose.
“I have spells of this and have now almost given up trying to suppress it. It usually starts with a difficult problem or an awkward situation. And I think it helps; when working a sun observation, for instance, it cuts down the blunders to say the figures aloud. When caught out badly, with everything going wrong in a squall, or with the boat out of control, it is much easier if I say aloud to myself what is the next thing to be done. It stops the panic due to the brain juggling with several things all needing to be done at once.”
I dug out my charts for the western approaches to the Channel. That night I moved on to the big-scaled chart, No. 1598, crossing the Continental Shelf into soundings, sailing in a few miles from a depth of over 2,000 fathoms to one of less than 100. I remembered that I usually seemed to run into a tunny fishing fleet thereabouts, so took care to service and rig my “Not-Under-Control” lights again.
There had been a big sea running for several days, spectacular enough for me to try for some photographs of it. (By the way, trying to photograph a big sea is the surest way of quietening it.) I waited for an hour, very uncomfortable, and nothing worthwhile came along. Then, as soon as I got below and my oilskins off, wham, wham, wham, three seas in succession bowled down Gipsy Moth and gave the deck a proper sluicing. They would have made a wonderful photograph! However, those seas seemed quite friendly, and I had had no fears of a 60-footer prowling in the background waiting to pounce.
Two Shackletons came and woke me again next morning about 06.00, when I lay doggo. I thought that they were practising their anti-submarine attacks, for which I cursed them. At noon, a BBC television launch turned up, and the wind died away. I tried to mend my starboard navigation light, but failed—of all the miserable designs that I have come across that thing took the prize! Gipsy Moth was nearly becalmed, with 210 miles to go. By 19.30 an Independent Television vessel, and another one, had joined the cavalcade. They seemed very much on their best manners; none spoke to me, and all left me alone. This was just as well, as there was plenty to do. An hour after midnight that night I logged: “Blast it, the wind has backed to the east, and, of course, is heading me.”
About 21.25 on May 27 an extraordinary event occurred. The wind was steadily backing while I was speaking on the R/T to a naval escort vessel which had turned up. I noticed that the heading had reached NNE, so I said I must sign off so that I could go and trim the sails. As I moved out of the cabin the yacht went aback. Then, for perhaps 20 minutes, she must have looked as if she had been stung by a wasp. As fast as I wore her round, or tacked her, or brought her to the wind, or paid off downwind, the wind changed completely. The sea looked odd, with waves leaping straight up into the air, like tongues. I think I must have been at the centre of an eddy of air being sucked up into an enormous black cloud, just like the start of a waterspout or whirlwind. Several times Gipsy Moth was bowled well over; then complete calms intervened. Some birds, which I took to be swallows (they had swallow tails but their necks were a burnished bronzy colour) got very agitated, and several flew right into the cabin. One perched on an electrical lead above the chart table, and had a snooze with his head under one wing. He stayed there all night and left some time in the morning after dropping his visiting card on the chart. During the night I might have sailed bang into a fishing boat which was stationary directly ahead. I just chanced to go up into the cockpit for a look round, and there it was.
On Sunday morning, May 28, I logged:
“Thunder showers. Too much trimming for too little distance. Wind wind wind, where art thou? This business is quite a strain. I wish I could get into port. It looks as if there is no chance today.”
At noon I counted thirteen ships around, including five naval vessels escorting me. I was in a quandary, with the light breeze blowing, interspersed with calms; I could improve the speed by poling out a big sail and it seemed that this would enable me to reach Plymouth before dark, but it would be at the price of considerable extra effort, and would result in my arriving even more tired than I was, with the likelihood of a terrific strain ahead of me. On the other hand, if I did not speed up, I was likely to be out at sea for another night, and that would be a great strain too, with all the ships and boats around me.
At 15.20 the huge aircraft carrier HMS Eagle passed close by, with her crew lining the deck and giving Gipsy Moth three cheers. I dipped my ensign in salute. This was a great honour, which I found most moving. It must surely be unique in the history of the British Navy for a warship with a complement as big as the population of a small town to salute so ceremoniously a ship with a crew of one!
Presently, when a minesweeper followed suit, I got a little nervous—I could picture myself dashing out to the stern and dipping the ensign, which is hoisted to the top of the mizzen mast, at frequent intervals for the rest of the day!
Late in the afternoon the breeze quickened a little, and at 16.40 by my ship’s time I was 13 miles off Plymouth Breakwater, and knew that I would get in that night.
At 20.56 I passed the breakwater, and Colonel Jack Odling Smee, the Rear-Commodore of the Royal Western Yacht Club, fired a finishing gun from his yacht anchored off the breakwater, a sign for a beacon to be lit on Drake’s Island.
Gipsy Moth had completed her passage home of 15,517 miles in 119 days, an average speed of 130 miles per day. The whole voyage of 29,630 miles had taken just 9 months and 1 day from Plymouth to Plymouth of which the sailing time was 226 days. Perhaps I might add that, with eight log books filled up, I had also written more than 200,000 words.
When at sea, for some reason which I cannot explain, I always think of the moon as being male.
Back to Text
An Epilogue
BY J. R. L. ANDERSON
For two days—Saturday and Sunday, May 27-28, 1967—people in thousands congregated on the grass and ramparts of Plymouth Hoe to greet Sir Francis Chichester on his return from Australia. Millions more sat watching television screens, expectant, and at last wildly excited to see a slight figure step into a tender to go ashore as light was fading, leaving his Gipsy Moth IV to other hands after nursing her alone from Plymouth to Plymouth round the world. It was a monarch’s welcome. Why?
Other men have sailed round the world in small boats, some much smaller than Gipsy Moth IV; other men have sailed alone; other men have gone on sailing far beyond Sir Francis’s 65 years. But few men in any walk or run of life have touched the world’s imagination as Chichester has. Lindbergh, perhaps; Hillary and Tensing—but such comparisons are meaningless. At these rare heights of human achievement each man stands alone, without peers. The salute for Chichester is for achievement, yes, for tenacity, courage, self-dedication, all that. But there is something more.
First, the achievement: what did Chichester achieve between August 27, 1966, when he sailed from Plymouth, and May 28, 1967, when he returned after circumnavigating the world, out by way of the Cape of Good Hope, back by way of the Horn? I asked him to set out what he himself felt that he had achieved, and here is his own assessment:
1. Fastest voyage round the world by any small vessel.
(Approximately twice as fast.)
2. Longest passage that has been made by a small sailing vessel
without a port of call (15,500 miles).
3. More than twice the distance of the previous longest passage
by a singlehander (15,500 compared with 7,400).
4. Twice broke the record for a singlehander’s week’s run by
more than 100 miles.
5. Established a record for singlehanded speed by sailing 1,400
miles from point to point in 8 days.
6. Twice exceeded the singlehanded speed record for a long
passage, Nance’s 122½ miles per day for 53 days (this however
was an extraordinarily fast passage for such a small boat).
Gipsy Moth’s speeds were 131½
miles per day for 107 days,
and 130¾ miles per day for 119 days.
7. Third true circumnavigation of the world rounding the
Horn by a small vessel where the track passed over 2 points
antipodean to each other1
The interesting thing about this list is that it is wholly technical. The longest singlehanded passage, the fastest runs, the true antipodean circumnavigation—these things will stand in any book of records, but they are not, I think, what brought the crowds to Plymouth Hoe. The essential Chichester achievement is something more deeply personal—and personal not alone to him, but embedded in the hearts of every one of us. He has succeeded in making dreams come true, his own private dreams, and the dreams that most men have from time to time as they fare on that “long fool’s errand to the grave”. For 99.999 (recurring) per cent of mankind, dreams remain locked up in the secret compartments of the soul. Not for Chichester. For him, to dream is to determine, and to determine, to achieve. People will say, “Oh yes, but he has been lucky. He has made money, he has found rich backers. He does not have to travel daily on the 8.15.” But surely this is part of the achievement! No one has to travel daily on the 8.15. We get caught in the ruts of life because we let ourselves get caught. It may be a good thing for the social organisation of the world that we do—a community of Chichesters would be impossible. But the individual who refuses to accept those ruts is good for all of us. And Chichester is that individual carried to the nth degree. Not once, but several times in his life, he has set himself some task of incredible skill and endurance in the air and at sea, and then not rested until he has brought it off—or, as with the flying accident that ended his first attempt to circumnavigate the world, been brought to a halt by events that not even he can control. Even that flying accident, final as it would have been for most men, for him brought only temporary failure. He took out that dream thirty-five years later, adapted it to sailing instead of flying, and made it come true. This is the Chichester we salute. He has lived not alone his own dreams, but ours, too.
Chichester landed at Plymouth late on Sunday evening, May 28, expecting to sail on to London in a day or two. After his great reception by the Lord Mayor and people of Plymouth, two other historic events awaited him in London—the accolade of knighthood to be conferred on him by Her Majesty the Queen with the very sword given by Queen Elizabeth I to Sir Francis Drake after that first circumnavigation of the world by sail close on four centuries ago, and a luncheon at the Mansion House given in his honour by the Lord Mayor of London. Provisional dates for these occasions were arranged while Chichester was still at sea; they were to take place early in June.
It needs little reading between the lines of Chichester’s factual narrative to understand something of the physical ordeal he sustained on his voyage. With a courage and self discipline that defy description he drove himself to the limits of human endurance. And he had to pay. A week after landing at Plymouth he collapsed with a duodenal ulcer, and he spent the next month in the Royal Naval Hospital there. Being Chichester, and with his voyage to his starting point on the Thames in London still unfinished, he was on his feet again quickly. At the beginning of July he sailed Gipsy Moth IV to London, accompanied by Sheila and Giles Chichester, and his friend Commander Erroll Bruce, RN.
On July 7, 1967, the Queen received Chichester at Greenwich, and knighted him with Drake’s sword in public, in the Grand Quadrangle of the Royal Naval College. Near by, in her permanent berth at Greenwich, Cutty Sark, among the most famous of the clippers whose way Chichester had followed round the world, was dressed overall for the occasion.
After the Queen had visited Gipsy Moth IV at Greenwich, Chichester sailed on to Tower Pier, where he was met by the Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress of London, Sir Robert and Lady Bellinger. Then followed a drive through the City to the Mansion House, a triumphal procession rather, in which the people of London took Chichester to their heart. He and his Gipsy Moth IV had done their job—the smallest wool clipper ever to leave Australia, sailed by the smallest crew, had faithfully delivered her token cargo of miniature bales of wool across the world.
Chichester cannot write this epilogue, because he could not see himself as the crowd of cheering Londoners saw him. I did. Slight (until you caught a glimpse of the muscle in wrist and forearm), weatherbeaten, wearing thick glasses, Chichester gave himself no airs, and when he acknowledged the Lord Mayor’s address of welcome, the crowd’s cheers, he spoke more of Sheila his wife and Giles his son than of himself. He was the nation’s hero, but to me he seemed to epitomise not scarlet and lace, but that incredible endurance that the people of England have shown when it was needed of them, the endurance of the men who sailed with Drake, Anson, Cook and Nelson, for England. And that, I think, is what everybody felt. And that is why we cheered.
A WIFE’S PART IN HIGH ADVENTURE
BY SHEILA CHICHESTER
“Why weren’t you worried?”
Over and over again, all round the world, I was asked this question, by individuals, press and television. I find it hard to answer. To attempt an answer now I must go back a bit in time.
In 1960, during the first solo Transatlantic race, I prayed daily for the five yachtsmen who took part. I had some cards sent to me by an unknown man in Scotland, who said he always prayed for yachtsmen at sea. When I arrived in America on that occasion, I found other people interested in this form of prayer. Always I have believed firmly in the power of prayer; it is a great output of strength, and few people realise that they have got such strength. It takes time to learn how to control the power of prayer, but once you have faith the power is there. Think of turning on an electric light—you may not know where the power comes from, but the light comes. In America, I made friends with people who had similar beliefs, and later they were to help me in the other ventures which Francis undertook.
In 1962 our new yacht Gipsy Moth III was dedicated by “Tubby” Clayton in a short service of blessing. At the same time, I got together a few personal prayer cards for Francis. On the back was the beautiful drawing of Albrecht Dürer’s praying hands, and on the other side I had the prayer of Sir Francis Drake and a special grace which “Tubby” Clayton suggested for him. I should think that not more than ten people used this card every day on that occasion.
In 1964 I had a similar card. This again had Sir Francis Drake’s prayer, but with a different passage from St Augustine. I gave these cards to friends of mine who were experienced in the power of prayer, and when Francis started on that new venture, I felt quite confident that he would make it. I am not trying to say that prayer alone helps you, but the spiritual side in any venture is of immense importance. In a way, it is far more so than the material side. But one must also make one’s plans, and be properly prepared as well.
In 1966 we had the new yacht Gipsy Moth IV, which I launched in March. After agonising financial worries, frustrations, and many things going wrong, we managed to get her ready for sea, and brought her up to Tower Pier, London, where the voyage was to start from. “Tubby” Clayton again came on board, and we had a short service of dedication. The boat was not really ready, and I knew this. I also knew that she was badly balanced, and very uncomfortable to sail in, but I hoped, and prayed with faith, that divine providence would watch over Francis and that he himself, being very clever at these things, would be able to adjust her as she went along. So when I said goodbye to him at Plymouth I felt quite calm, although physically exhausted.
From then on, wherever I went, I was asked the same questions:
“Why? Where? When?”
“Why does he do it?” To which I replied, “He likes doing it, and it’s the sort of life that suits him.”
“Where?” Well, this question was to be answered by the positions which gradually became famous as people took to looking for them in the newspapers which helped to sponsor the voyage, and as schools obtained maps and charts.
“When?” was always “When will he get there?” This was
marked by certain big landmarks, such as passing the Cape of Good Hope, Cape Leeuwin, Bass Strait, and later the Horn.
Months before Francis left I had booked myself a passage to Australia on Oriana, which sailed at the end of October, 1966, and we made plans to speak to each other on the radio telephone, as we knew that we should pass within five hundred miles of each other, if everything went according to plan, and I had no reason to think it wouldn’t. Perhaps I should add that, contrary to many people’s idea, I did not often speak to Francis on the radio telephone—I think about twice after he left England during the first two or three days, once from Oriana, and a few times coming into Sydney, out of Sydney, and coming into Plymouth. For the rest, with other people, I depended on the newspapers which gave reports from Francis twice a week. These reports were always read over to me before they appeared. I did not want to speak to Francis myself, because I knew the immense amount of work it took to keep up batteries and to prepare his dispatches, and I did not want to distract him, or to remind him of any responsibilities at home.
At this time I had a big circle of prayer cards—that is to say, I gave about twenty-five cards to friends who asked for them, some in America and later some in Australia, and this “circle” must have grown in a fantastic manner, because by the time Francis came home to Plymouth, I think undoubtedly that there were millions of people praying for him. Many were children, and many more were in religious groups and communities. The rectors of our own church, St. James’s, Piccadilly, and of the sister church, St. Anne’s, Soho, who use the little chapel of the House of St Barnabas, prayed regularly for him at services.
Gipsy Moth Circles the World Page 27
