by Peter Tonkin
‘You’re up next,’ he bellowed at Richard through the driving foam. ‘It’s easier than it looks and this is as easy as it’s likely to be until we berth in Plymouth. All you have to do is hold her head at 285 degrees. It’s there on the display right in front of you. You don’t need to pay any attention to anything else much. You won’t be able to do anything much about the speed. We’ll be doing any sail-handling necessary and Doc’ll be calling that when he gets up after Bob’s watch.
‘Don’t worry about anything,’ he continued as Richard squeezed in beside him and began to peer into the stormy darkness ahead. ‘There’s nothing out there but sea, and nothing in that direction except the Fastnet Rock, but that’s four hours away. If we come up with any other boats you’ll see their lights and if there’s any problem call down and Amy’ll give them a hail. Oh, and when you get used to it, you might want to try and vary the heading just a tiny bit...’
He suited the word with the action as he spoke and luffed up a couple of points to the wind. The result of this was that a particularly steep wave broke across Katapult’s three sharp bows instead of thumping straight into her side. ‘See? Like that,’ he called as the multihull fell off the wave into the trough and slid back to regain her original course under the pressure of the wind and the next smooth roller. ‘She’s all yours. And remember. You’re not alone.’
But, as he leaned against the incredibly intense vibrancy of the helm, Richard felt very much alone. Alone except for the overpowering vitality of the vessel all around him. Through the big circle of the helm he could feel the humming, straining, exultant power of every strut, line and panel of her. It was like every fishing line he had ever held with every big fish hooked and fighting in it, all rolled into one breathtakingly thrilling ride. But the responsibility was almost as awesome as the experience.
It was all very well for him to know that Amy was just a call away at the chart table behind the running weatherboards. It was all very well to feel the others coming and going, sitting and waiting, coming and going again, round the edge of the cockpit behind him. To realize in fact that Doc was tucked none too snugly in the bunk beneath the rearmost seats, closed in as though encoffined. Because he knew that one wrong move from him and Katapult would spin, wallow, lose her way, her sails, perhaps her very mast, as Goodman Richard had done way back at the start of this. It was enough to keep even him from going over the details of the case again.
As the hours passed, the feeling also passed, however - though the wild exultation remained. And by the time Bob Collingwood came to relieve Richard, he had thought through no more clues, but Katapult was riding smoothly and fairly easily, her head swinging those vital points into and out of the wind as Richard luffed up to the wind, fell off the waves and regained the original trusty heading of 285 degrees according to the readout from the Fluxgate compass as digitally displayed on the binnacle readout before him.
After Bob’s stint, Doc was back. And needfully so, for they were rapidly bearing down upon the Fastnet Rock, the halfway mark, and must prepare to come about. They had practised the manoeuvre and performed it countless times of course. But never in the pitch dark, without even the beam of the lighthouse to guide them, in weather that was rapidly deteriorating into a full gale. But almost magically, as Doc took the wheel, there was light. First, on the horizon away to starboard, a cluster of lights appeared on a steady headland and the scud of the clouds was high enough to let them linger, jewel bright, between the squalls. ‘That’s Baltimore,’ called Amy, who didn’t appear to have slept at all so far. ‘Cape Clear behind it but there’s no lights there.’
‘There!’ called Bob, echoing her word. Richard looked where the ghostly figure of his crew- mate was pointing and in the darkness ahead there came a white diamond of light. There for an indisputable instant, then gone. Then back again. ‘That’s it. The Fastnet.’
Katapult seemed to leap forward on the call, and as she did so, there came a gleam of brightness all across the sky from almost perfectly aft of her. Richard looked back and there was the dawn, heaving dully into the wolf-grey overcast somewhere over Wales.
They came under the rock itself at seven on the dot - nineteen hours into the race. One hour behind their schedule. And, in spite of Richard’s sense of isolation last night, they were not alone: dotted over the slate and spindrift waters at every possible point of the compass there were other boats. All of them heading for the cliff-faced, light-capped, shaggy little island that they all seemed to call The Rock.
Doc elected to take the inmost line possible. Katapult had very little draught, though her beam was nearly sixty feet, and she could skim safely over rocks less than a metre below the surface - if that surface were steady and calm. Rounding the Fastnet Rock in a westerly storm, of course, was something very different. But, as many of the others in the race were equally well aware, the closer you cut it, the faster you got round.
‘Stand by to gybe,’ called Doc as the great black cliffs heaved past, seemingly so close to the port outrigger that they would have taken Richard’s head off if he had been out on his trapeze. Doc’s voice echoed the booming of the wind and the screaming of the gulls that were being tossed about the sky like handfuls of crushed white tissue paper. They all tensed, all too well aware that if Doc called this right they would come about with one large manoeuvre and a few fine adjustments. If he called it wrong they could be fiddling about here for ages.
‘Gybe-ho!’ Richard flung himself to work, thankful that he was up here on the foresail - with the nets and the outrigger wing behind to catch him if wind or water tore him loose - and no big boom swinging over to behead him if he was unwary. Even under her severely shortened sails, Katapult slammed round with astonishing force and speed. The island - just large enough to contain the lighthouse - danced across the sea, simply seeming to leap from Richard’s left vision to his right. The wind that had been numbing his left cheek all night and roaring spray - salt and sweet - into his left ear, now assaulted his newly sensitive right. His hair whipped almost painfully from one temple to the other. His left eye stopped streaming. His right eye started. What had been a view largely of sail became a view of distances and horizons. What had been the gloomy aspect of reluctantly departing darkness ahead, became the milky glimmer of stormy morning.
And, outlined against the sudden brightness, were the hulls of two other competitors, seemingly quite close in front. An outer vessel, powering past a slightly slighter, slower, inner. The impression - the action - was so swift and overwhelming, that Richard remained uncertain for the rest of his life exactly what it was that he had seen. For, as the outer vessel bore on, rigidly - intractably - along her new racing line, so the inner seemed to be forced harder and harder up against the forbidding rocks.
It was not a drawn-out process. It was instantaneous. An impression there and gone within the winking of an eye, so swift that Richard alone could see it, though he glanced around automatically, seeking a second witness. The inner vessel jumped high, half out of the water. She faltered, span. Her mast vanished. Her leaping hull settled back down in a terrible welter of foam, slid sideways and began to bob helplessly. And the other boat was gone, leaving the wreck behind. Long black multihulls riding low in the dark grey water. Nothing much of her visible at all, except a gleam of jade-green sails in the wan sunlight.
Chapter 32: The Rock
During the next ten hours the wind continued to strengthen. During that time, the eye of the storm that had brought the foul weather in from the Atlantic swept in over Ireland, the Isle of Man and away up into Scotland. Amy traced it almost mile for mile across her charts. And she warned them about the conditions it was bringing down on them. But, with Tin Hau in their sights, they never thought of giving up. Or slackening pace. They hardly even thought of shortening sail as they chased her south-east again.
The storm winds Amy’s depression brought with it blew across the Western Approaches, the Celtic Sea and Biscay at a steady 70 knots and gusted t
owards 100 in the squalls. They varied from south-westerly to southerly and back again. The seas the storm brought with it varied according to direction, depth, state of seabed and particularly state of tide. Sensible skippers in safety-conscious boats shortened sail, sat under bare poles, put out sea-anchors and hove to if they could not run for safe haven.
Tin Hau ran straight and true south-east, from the Fastnet Rock to the Bishop’s Rock. She ran under all the green sail she dared to carry. And Katapult went after her, like a cheetah hunting a gazelle through the heart of a monsoon.
Richard had never worked so hard in all his life. The gathering force of the relentless wind made sail-handling enormously wearing - even though everything was shortening, shortening, shortening until they were forced to break the storm-sails out. They lost the number three jib altogether trying to get it down and replace it with the storm jib; an adventure that gave Richard bruised knuckles and a cut palm. And an enduring memory of several hundred square feet of reputedly indestructible material being flogged to shreds in an instant. They were able to free the lashing remnants before they broke the forestay only by a miracle.
But it was not the wind that really made the third leg so dreadful - it was the seas. All the way up from Land’s End to the Fastnet Rock, Katapult had been heading into the westerly set of the sea, able to take the waves on her bow - even under Richard’s relatively inexperienced hands. Even though, after Force 5, the waves had been breaking more and more powerfully into destructive walls of foam. For, as any swimmer, bodyboarder or surfer knows, even before he has set foot in a boat - it is the breaking waves that have the power. The simple crushing weight.
Coming back down on the south-easterly leg along Tin Hau’s wake, the waves were all tumbling in from the west behind them. Of course this affected the way the multihull rode the water. The easy, powerful swoops of motion were replaced by lumps and thumps as the waves beat against her square stern instead of her sleek bows. And having three square sterns made matters worse. Even though the outriggers each had rudders, the thin, strong sheets of metal in no way broke the force of waves coming crashing in behind them. Time and again a comber would break to one side or the other, smashing that outrigger forward, while the central hull sought to ride the smooth crest beside it. Wrenching the whole of Katapult’s frame almost painfully. And the frames of those within her.
Only a sailor of Doc’s genius could have held the whole thing together. Now Richard saw the true importance of his apparently fussy search for steady airs and smooth waters. Seemingly by the force of his will, Doc held the vessel in the least destructive places between the winds and the waters, allowing the gale - even in the beam reach of the near southerly - to push Katapult on just a little faster than the seas.
Faster but not too fast. They wanted no great waves collapsing in on them from behind - and yet they could not fly too much more swiftly than the raging waters or they would find themselves leaping off the crest of a liquid cliff and pitch-poling down the rushing face, hurling head-over-heels to destruction. Just as Charles Lee had once done in his Katapult IV, and lucky to survive the destruction. Lucky for him; not for the rest of them.
But this perfect place between the howling winds and the raging waters was no certain, stable thing. Nor was it the work of just one man to keep Katapult within it. They needed to be constantly adjusting even the little storm sails, risking tacks this way and that as Doc sought the clear black way amongst the tumbling white teeth that would do the damage. Chilled and exhausted by noon, they debated the wisdom of a sea-anchor, screaming like drooling banshees in the wind and rain. But the mocking gleam of Tin Hau’s sails leaning across the near horizon ahead, drove them on to take one risk after another - as little by little and inch by inch they began to claw up towards her.
The Bishop’s Rock Light heaved up out of the stormy sea, dead ahead at 5 p.m. precisely, twenty-nine hours exactly into the race. The two vessels came hurling down upon it neck and neck. ‘Right,’ bellowed Doc. ‘I’m going on the inside of him as we go past. Then get ready to come round hard. The instant we’re clear of the rocks we’ll be coming on to new heading due east, straight past Wolf Rock and into Portsmouth before midnight, with this sorry green-sailed bastard bobbing in our wake!’
‘You’ll want to come round to 85 degrees,’ called Amy, still wide awake and on top of things.
‘It’ll be time for a little something when we’ve settled on to our nice new course,’ called up Joan.
Richard stood hunched at his place, watching Tin Hau racing along beside them. There were yellow-wrapped, full-hooded figures sitting up on the windward side, even in this - something that Doc had decided against, thank God. He looked slit-eyes amongst them for Charles’s distinctive red.
But he wasn’t there, so Richard turned his thoughts back aboard again. Doc had the variable outriggers to play with, he thought. Tin Hau didn’t seem to. But what had she got? Other than a brutally ruthless crew. He glanced ahead. They were coming down upon the Bishop’s Rock Light incredibly quickly. It was heaving the massive stone length of itself out of the raging seas like some gigantic dinosaur extending its neck above water in front of them. And no sooner had the image occurred to him than the dinosaur’s black rock shoulders were there among the wilderness of foam as though it were about to rear out of the Western Approaches altogether like a prancing horse. ‘Ready...’ bellowed Doc.
Something popped into Richard’s head then; something born of his experiences almost exactly a year ago when he had been sailing these exact waters in precisely these conditions in the SuperCat Lionheart. He could see the chart Tom had used to get them up to Wolf Rock as swiftly as possible. Standing out from the Bishop, according to that chart, there were reefs and islands stretching to the south-west almost like a wall lying just beneath the surface. He hoped most forcefully that Doc would remember it as well - or that Amy would remind him if he didn’t. For as they came round the corner, turning 50 full degrees on to course 85 degrees, it would be standing there in front of them if they weren’t very careful indeed.
And that thought made him remember what he had seen at the Fastnet Rock, just after they reversed their course. ‘Watch it, Doc,’ he said to himself - at the very instant that Doc yelled, ‘Coming round fifty degrees ... NOW!’ and they came round.
Katapult’s starboard outrigger lifted dangerously and Richard found himself looking down a considerable slope as he worked. The port outrigger disappeared deep beneath the foam-laced surface. There was no green there, he was surprised to see. Only storm-darkened grey and black.
The very instant he had secured his sheet, Richard looked back across at Tin Hau. She was coming on to the new course too and Richard, his seaman’s eye alert, watched as she leaned even further across the wind. There wasn’t much of a wake left in the wrack behind her but Richard was seawise enough to be able to carry the line of her original course in his head. And he watched her come round thirty, forty and fifty degrees - like Katapult had. Then sixty and seventy and more. ‘DOC! LOOK OUT!’ he bellowed, unconsciously using his quarterdeck voice. ‘Tin Hau’s coming round on top of you!’
He looked ahead as Doc was doing, and saw the wall of the reef hurling up towards them, a simple standing ridge of white foam in the water under Katapult’s bows. ‘LET GO ALL,’ bellowed Doc. And put the wheel hard over. For a dizzying moment they were on a full collision course with Tin Hau, then the black boat readjusted its course and beat back to windward, coming on to the 85-degree course, due east past the Bishop’s Rock, then on past Wolf Rock for Plymouth and home.
Katapult scraped past Tin Hau’s departing stern, the way coming off her, her sails flapping, tossing one way and then the other. She dug her port outrigger deep, and began to spin, turning her square back to the huge seas as she wallowed. A massive roller broke in over the stern at once and slammed into the cockpit like Niagara. The whole rear end of the central hull disappeared beneath the boiling water. A wall of white water more than knee high r
olled forward and Richard found himself taking giant steps just to overcome it as he rushed back to help. ‘Get her underway again,’ he bellowed at the others. He had no idea of the correct sail drill or orders and prayed that they did.
The cockpit was a dreadful mess. Everything that could be washed out of it had been - seats, equipment, the lot. Mercifully, there had been no crew there for they had all been sail-handling. Or they too would have gone by the board. Doc was hanging crucified against the wheel, and there was no sign of life about him at all. As Richard stepped down into the sole, he saw that the weatherboards also were gone. Much of what had come in here had gone straight on down into the cabin. ‘All right down below?’ he bellowed. His words were answered by a string of foul female invective, which seemed positive at least. Except that it included the destruction of the radio with the inundation of almost everything else.
Mercifully most of the equipment on the binnacle was still working - including the readout from the Fluxgate compass - and so he pulled Doc away from the wheel and swung it round until the digital display read 85 degrees. Only then, holding the wheel and praying that Katapult would get some way upon her before the next big sea caught up with her, did he notice how strange the wheel felt. Where Doc had been thrown against it, the whole steel curve of the thing was bent well out of true. ‘Joan,’ he bellowed. ‘First aid here.’ He looked up along the length of the central hull, just in time to see the storm jib snap full. The sight of it made him duck automatically, so when the boom whipped over as the storm mainsail filled an instant later, it did not knock his head off after all.
‘If you’ve finished with the sails,’ he bellowed down the length of the deck, ‘you’d better man the pumps. Who’s best to help me sail this thing?’ It was one of those moments that sorts out entire lives. There were others aboard trained for the emergency. There was an agreed pecking order; responsibilities awarded and accepted for an eventuality even as dreadful as this. But only Richard was quick-thinking enough, controlled enough and self-confident enough to take command in the instant. And the crew were individually and collectively so excellent that his unthinking - inexperienced - leadership was good enough for them.