Blue Water

by Lindsay Wright

  We weren’t, however, out of duty-free grog, but did our best to correct that situation while waiting for the customs launch to arrive from town and grant us inward clearance. By the time the customs men clambered aboard in their combat gear, Granny Apple’s crew were in high spirits. The Australian officialdom regarded us with wary eyes and world-weary sighs as they settled down to fill out the paperwork.

  Later, arriving at the Cruising Yacht Club of Australia’s Rush cutters Bay Marina, we were directed to a berth among the yachting greats who had gathered for the Southern Cross Cup. As we approached the dock, I leapt from the foredeck to fasten our first line on to Australia, but Granny Apple, the lightweight flier, had one last dig at me. As I leapt, pushing hard with my feet, her bow skipped out from under me. I completed half the 1.6-metre distance to the wharf by air and the rest by water, after hitting the harbour with a loud splash followed by a louder cheer from my ship-mates. I’m not sure which attracted the most interest, the splash or the cheer, but Granny Apple had definitely arrived.

  The Rushcutters Bay wharves were thronged by sailing’s ‘rock stars’, and Granny’s regular racing crew began to arrive so I moved across the dock to Sequoia II, a 12.2-metre plywood John Spencer design, skippered by the irrepressible John Clark from Mana, north of Wellington. John, a former ship’s engineer turned car salesman, was a wonderful raconteur and hardened boat-driver. One of his early instructions to me was, ‘We don’t reef downwind.’ I cringe now when I think of how we hammered that boat. John and crew were subsequently lost at sea on a delivery trip home from Hamilton Island Race Week in Queensland many years later; and years after that, Sequoia’s wreckage was picked up by a Korean trawler south-west of Cape Egmont.

  Everything, up to and including bathtubs, was out on the water for the start of the Sydney to Hobart race, and Sequoia II rounded the buoy at Sydney Harbour entrance with about eight boats abreast of us. We drove her hard down the New South Wales coast, across Bass Strait and past Cape Pillar at the corner of Tasmania and into Storm Bay. The wind died in the Derwent River and Sequoia II, rigged for Wellington weather, was overhauled by much of the competition, including Granny Apple, as we ghosted upstream to Hobart. Our overall placing was 125th out of 148 entrants, and Granny Apple scored a meritable 107th. But Sequoia II crossed the line at 54th in class, about halfway through the fleet.

  The race yachts were all crammed into Constitution Dock and, no matter what the hour of arrival was, a representative of Hobart’s Cascade Brewery climbed aboard with a complimentary case or two of the local brew. With 148 boats there, from maxiboats to 26-footers — almost every one of them in party mode — the festivities went on for a week or more. The dock soon became known as ‘Constipation Dock’.

  Ten days after the finish, we headed Sequoia back towards Cook Strait, and home. The maxi Condor and brilliant Auckland yacht designer Paul Whiting in Smackwater Jack, a lightweight flyer of his own creation, left at the same time and shaped a course for Cape Reinga and Auckland. The first few days of the trip went well until a big swell began making up from the north-east, the barometer began to plummet and the sky turned an ugly, leaden grey. Within hours we were battling the perimeter of a full-blown cyclone. When we’d run out of storm sails to reduce down to, we laid Sequoia II’s slim plywood form ahull to the monstrous seas and hoped for the best.

  About 18 hours into the storm, there was a momentary stillness from the screeching wind outside; then all hell broke loose as Sequoia II was smashed down on her side, again on her deck, and rolled right over — or maybe just through 180 degrees, I’m not sure. The noise inside was incredible; drawers and lockers flew open and disgorged their clattering contents all over the boat’s interior. I heard one of my seven crew-mates sobbing softly, and others were yelling — mostly just that all-purpose four-letter Anglo-Saxon expletive starting with ‘F’. Fortunately, we were all below-decks; anyone on deck would have been lost for sure.

  We cautiously slid the hatch open and checked outside; Sequoia II’s mast was still intact and standing. The storm jib we’d been flying was in tatters and the steering wheel, which had had the starboard side lashed hard a-starboard, had its port side bent back inboard. Otherwise the damage was limited to a few bent stanchions and several rattled sailors.

  As the weather eased over the next few days, we progressively got more sail onto Sequoia II and began nursing her homewards. We found that one of her chines had been split open so the harder we sailed her, the more she leaked. But with seven people aboard to man the buckets and pumps, it was kept at manageable levels.

  The perpetually overcast skies made sextant sights either unobtainable or dodgy; so, as we approached Cook Strait 10 days or so later, we dragged ‘Captain Sanyo’ — a transistor radio — out of its secure stowage. Tuning into Radio 2ZB in Wellington, we got a compass bearing on its transmitter and bowled on towards New Zealand.

  Just on dusk, in a building nor’wester, we made a landfall on Farewell Spit. Its light beamed reassuringly over Sequoia’s starboard quarter as we charged into the strait, like the fabled horse towards the stable door, under a full press of sail. Not long beforehand, I’d been shipwrecked in the Galapagos Islands by rashly charging through the night close to a landfall. I looked at the chart, laid off some courses, thought about leeway in the building sea, and realized that sleep was out of the question. ‘I’ll go and keep a watch in the bow,’ I told Clarky as I climbed into my wet-weather gear. ‘Nah — don’t worry about it, mate,’ he replied, ‘we’ll be there in the morning.’

  The crew on watch were hunched in the cockpit, spray lashing over their heads, so I told them what I was up to and groped my way forward, harnessing myself to the forestay and leaning against the pulpit. Sequoia II charged on through the night, cleaving through the backs of waves and charging through their crests. For a start it was exhilarating; the taut headsail thrummed at my back and I soared above the tumbling sea. I wasn’t getting too wet and, looking aft, I could see the guys huddled in the cockpit, their faces dimly lit by the soft red glow of the compass light.

  A few hours later, just as I was beginning to think that Clarky had been right and I’d be better off in my bunk, I spotted a ragged line of white, broken water ahead of us where the horizon should have been. I looked … waited … looked again and it was still there — and getting closer. Then, above it, I began to make out the dark outline of a cliff.

  ‘HARD A-PORT, FOR FUCK’S SAKE — HARD A-PORT!’ I yelled back to the cockpit; then, realizing that I was at the first point of impact, I began scuttling frantically down the deck. I forget who was at the helm, but he heard my yell and threw Sequoia’s wheel to windward. At about the same time I came to the limit of my harness line — which I had forgotten about — and was jerked to a standstill, landing spreadeagled face down on the foredeck. Sequoia answered the helm, brought her head to windward and backed the genoa. For a few minutes she sat wallowing, shovelling up each successive wave with her bow so they could wash over me, a metre deep, where I lay cast on the foredeck. I coughed and spluttered, nearly drowning, while I struggled to unclip myself, crawl aft and escape.

  Men didn’t hug each other in those days, but I got a round of slaps on the back from the guys in the cockpit and a few ‘good on yer mate’s from the rest of the crew who were crowding out of the hatch to see what was going on. In a reaction that would have had the Russian behavioural scientist Ivan Pavlov clapping his hands with joy, I have not worn a harness since, except when required to by skippers in whose boat I am racing. If you bear in mind that to fall over the side at sea is to die, I think you are probably wearing the best safety harness in existence. In today’s society, besides, we do not get many opportunities to live dangerously, and we ought to grab whatever chances we do get.

  Next morning, after we’d tacked out to sea for several hours then back again to pass Stephens Island, we could see where we would have charged full speed into the cliff face just west of the lighthouse. All the crew were appreciat
ive of my decision to watch out from the bow, but now we had other plans to hatch.

  In the 1970s, import duties on electrical componentry to New Zealand were high. The televisions and stereos available in Australia were far cheaper and much more technologically advanced than those on offer in New Zealand. We’d taken four televisions and six of the ultra-modern, ground-breaking, mini-stereo systems aboard, carefully wrapped them in plastic and padding and stowed them securely in a quarter-berth. Once we’d smuggled them into the country and raffled them at the yacht club or pub, they’d pay most of Sequoia’s expenses for the trip.

  The brother of one of the crew was monitoring a pre-arranged VHF radio channel in Wellington; once we’d made contact and told him our ETA, he was to call a mutual friend in the Marlborough Sounds. This friend would motor out in his launch, meet us as we headed up Queen Charlotte Sound to clear customs in Picton, and take the goods off our hands. That first part of the plan went exactly to schedule — but the launch skipper who trans-shipped the electronics warned us that the customs had overheard our radio call, and the rumour in Picton was that we had drugs on board and customs was going to give us a hard time.

  Taking turns at pumping Sequoia’s flooding bilge, we motored on into Picton. We’d also run out of most foodstuffs a day or so beforehand, and had been living on tinned-baked-bean-and-flour pancakes. Flying the yellow quarantine flag, we tied up to Picton’s town wharf. Feeling somewhat guilty I snuck ashore, withdrew some cash from the Post Office Savings Bank beside the wharf, bought a huge pack of fish and chips and a case of beer from the pub to wash them down with, and staggered back to the boat.

  Clarky, meanwhile, had been ashore to a phone booth and called Customs and Immigration at their office in Blenheim. ‘They’ll be here shortly,’ he reported. Pumping duties were temporarily forgotten as we dug into the hot fish and chips and toasted each other with bottles of beer. Clarky dug a box of cigars out from somewhere and, as the water crept up around our ankles, we lit up, laughed and relaxed.

  A muffled knock echoed through the hull and Clarky climbed on deck. Two men in uniform clambered aboard, sat down in the cockpit and passed a fistful of forms down for us to sign while Clarky worked through the ship’s papers.

  ‘Anything to declare?’ they asked. ‘No sir,’ we chorused. Then, just as they rose to leave, one of the men said: ‘Ahh, by the way, we’ve got the rummage squad down from Wellington on a training exercise — do you mind if they look on board?’

  The response was a chorus of cheers and a salute of raised beer bottles from below-decks. Within seconds, the pounding of heavy combat boots landing on deck resounded through the saloon. The water level inside the boat had crept to about mid-calf by now. Seven men had sailed the Tasman twice in Sequoia, raced hard in Sydney Harbour and to Hobart, partied hard in Tasmania with no shower and a finite fresh water supply on board, lived on beer and takeaways (and baked-bean pancakes for 48 hours), and were eating fish and chips and smoking cigars. Sequoia’s saloon must have been about as inviting as a party in an aluminium smelter smokestack.

  A clean-shaven face, with a black beret lopsided on top, peered through the hatch. ‘Anybody been ashore?’ he barked. ‘Yeah, me,’ I volunteered meekly. ‘I got some money out at the Post Office, bought the beer and some fish and chips.’ ‘Yeah, we know — we were following you,’ he grunted. I couldn’t recall anybody in combat boots, black trousers, polo-neck jersey and beret following me around the main street of Picton — but it had been a couple of weeks since I’d had more than about four consecutive hours of sleep.

  Next, the shiny black combat boats and black trousers swung vigorously down through the hatch and halted when they hit the bilge water. He stooped to peer into the smoky blue fug of the saloon and six pairs of red-rimmed eyes stared back. ‘Harrumph,’ he spluttered and splashed his way forward, brushing past our legs.

  He made a few desultory prods at the sail bags in the forepeak with his fingers, then minced back to the companionway ladder, turned and said, ‘D’you mind if we bring the dog on board?’ We responded with another round of cheers, followed by cries of ‘Here Fido, here boy’, and a cackle of maniacal laughter.

  There was a thump, thump as the heavy quadruped landed on deck and a flurry of scratching paw sounds around the cockpit. A huge Alsatian thrust his head through the hatch. Another cheer went up with whistles and cries of ‘Here boy, good dog…’ The dog-handler stood behind the dog, pushing on its collar and kneeing its hindquarters, trying to force it down into the yacht. But the dog dug its paws into the hatch coaming and backed up, equally determinedly, whimpering and twisting its head away from the blast of fetid air and cigar smoke billowing out the hatch. We hooted encouragement.

  Finally, the handler relented. ‘Thanks,’ he said and flipped a quick wave through the hatch. We cheered loudly, and he was gone.

  A friend of Clarky’s owned a house nearby and graciously asked us all up to shower and do laundry, and then threw a party for us. The Dominion newspaper sent a reporter/photographer team from Wellington to interview us after we flew a large Japanese flag that we’d acquired from a Japanese fishing boat in Hobart and people called them to say a Japanese yacht had arrived at Picton. We also heard that the search was on for Smackwater Jack. She had been about 85 miles north of us during the cyclone. Neither the boat, nor her four crew — Paul Whiting, his wife Alison, Paul Sugden and Scott Coombes — were ever seen again.

  Left to her own devices at the wharf, Sequoia II quietly filled with water and settled on the bottom. But next day, the fire brigade pumped her out and she was towed to a nearby boat yard for repairs. She still had the rest of a season’s hard sailing in Cook Strait to complete.

  RIDING A MERMAID ROUND THE HORN

  We worked through the steadily lightening days of late winter in Auckland, preparing the yacht for the Southern Ocean and Cape Horn. She was, ironically enough for the voyage we planned to make, a Southern Ocean 75, designed by EG Van de Stadt and built in fibreglass at the Southern Ocean Shipyard at Poole in the United Kingdom. The yard also built a 71-foot version, and Ocean Mermaid was one of just a few built, in a classic piece of one-upmanship, with an extra bit added to the stern. The finer transom certainly made her look more graceful but, we would learn later, it had serious shortcomings in the big breaking seas of the Southern Ocean.

  As we worked our way through the job list, we seven crew got to know each other. Graham came from an old Auckland boating family and had spent a lifetime afloat, mostly in fishing boats and coastal motor vessels. He’d also been Ocean Mermaid’s caretaker during her 18-month lay-up in Auckland, and knew most of the boat’s systems intimately.

  His mate, Murray, an electrician with heaps of boating experience, was easy-going and knowledgeable. Mike, an ex-pat English doctor from Dunedin, was short of boating experience but more than made up for it with medical know-how and his bright, cheery attitude. Amy, my girlfriend, was a Californian biologist and long-distance swimmer; and the cook, Pam, was also from the United States. I’d recently returned from a double crossing of the Tasman and a Sydney to Hobart race when Amy and I answered the newspaper ad and attended the interviews that brought us all together.

  Ocean Mermaid’s owner, the honourable Quentin Gerard Carew Wallop, had sailed her to New Zealand with a variety of professional crew and had a deadline to remove her from New Zealand before he was charged import duty. He railed bitterly against the former colonial government which had forced him into the Southern Ocean early in the season — forgetting that he’d opted for the Cape Horn route himself for the kudos of skippering his own boat around the notorious landmark. Ocean Mermaid had been Quentin’s 21st birthday present, and he recalled accompanying a Southern Ocean Shipyard’s craftsman joiner to select the single teak log her interior joinery had been crafted from at a wood yard which specialized in exotic lumber imports.

  By early October, Ocean Mermaid was ready. We hired the local fire brigade for a morning and battened down the hatches
alongside the wharf at Westhaven Marina. The firefighters had a ball blasting the deck with high-pressure jets of water while we checked anxiously for leaks, but not a drop got through and Ocean Mermaid was pronounced fit for the Southern Ocean.

  We would hand-steer Ocean Mermaid every inch of the 10,500-nautical-mile route from Auckland to the Caribbean island of Antigua, and navigation was all to be by sextant and tables. One reassuring thought was that, once past the Chatham Islands, there was no land to run into until Cape Horn, 5000 miles away. The great southern seas sweep unimpeded eastwards around the bottom part of the planet, with nothing in their path until they tumble and crash into the relatively shallow water of the Cape Horn shelf and squeeze through the Beagle Channel between there and Antarctica.

  Sail changes were also all done by hand, hauling hefty sail bags to the foredeck and laboriously fastening their contents to the forestay with small, bronze piston hanks; often knee-deep — or neck-deep — in freezing sea water. We counted our blessings that we wouldn’t be wrapped in leaky oilskins, though, charging through the Southern Ocean clinging to a square-rigger’s yardarm and furling heavy canvas, then retiring to a soggy bunk in a forepeak where water cascaded through the deck planking — as our predecessors on the Cape Horn route had done.

  Modern sailors soar through the Southern Ocean, snug in their pilot-houses with an electronic readout updating their position every few seconds; roller-furling to make or reduce sail in seconds; electronic weather routeing and a satellite phone to call home. There is one constant, though — the Southern Ocean stays the same. The roughest ocean on Earth doesn’t tolerate fools and takes no prisoners, no matter what their mode of transport is.

  Our farewell, in early October, was fairly quiet and we slipped away from Auckland with just a handful of relatives to wave goodbye. A few hours later, the last land we’d see for almost a month slipped under a fiery sunset and out of sight. A few days out we encountered strong south-easterlies, rare in those waters, and Ocean Mermaid made slow, jerky progress to windward. Graham became so dehydrated by seasickness that he collapsed behind the wheel during his watch and had to be carried below. Mike administered a Dramamine injection and started rehydrating him. It was a worry, though — our most experienced crew member going down so early in the voyage. Mike and I rationalized that although Graham had been at sea all his adult life, it had mostly been in motorboats and rarely out of sight of land. He was also a meat-and-three-veg man, so Pam’s delicious, spicy cooking hadn’t agreed with him. Either way, a pale and washed-out Graham was soon back watchkeeping, and as we made more southing, the easterlies abated and we began to head south into the big westerly seas and grey skies of the Southern Ocean.