All Piss and Wind

by David Salter

  Four pairs of eyes swivelled towards poor Max, who was leaning on the mast, innocently enjoying the late-afternoon view towards Neutral Bay. Vittoria – a classic Sparkman & Stephens 42-foot masthead sloop built in 1970 – is his pride and joy, and he keeps her in immaculate condition. Max is also a very generous man. ‘Lord Howe and back with you blokes sailing her? Can’t see why not. But I wouldn’t be coming with you. Don’t really enjoy the offshore stuff – and anyway, I’m getting a new knee around then.’

  The thought of poor Max enduring the agonies of orthopaedic surgery while we were enjoying his yacht 300 miles offshore made my suggestion seem all the more outrageous. But, in for a penny … ‘Well, whaddya reckon, guys? Jim? Norm? Col? You in?’ Three broad grins and rapid nods. ‘OK then, let’s bloody well do it!’

  I thanked Max and assured him that I was happy to do the work involved in preparing the boat. All we needed now was a couple of younger blokes to take on some of the hard stuff north of the mast. As it transpired we had no problem finding the ‘youngsters’. Max’s son Chris was keen to join us, along with one of his Etchell crew, Antony Elliott. The ship’s company was therefore: Sir James (Skipper and Duty Sommelier), Col (Naviguesser and Honorary Cockpit Philosopher), Norm (First Officer and Boat Mender), Chris (Owner’s Representative), Ant (Designated Deck Ape), and me (Bosun and Galley Slave).

  The ‘boys’ – both in their early forties – could only spare the time off work for the passage over to the island, so for the return journey the ‘Old & Bold’ quartet would have to manage by ourselves. No problems. Between us we had 72 Sydney–Hobarts, and this was just a cruise, wasn’t it? The only real complication for me was that I’d already committed to racing to Lord Howe the week before on Bright Morning Star. To be absolutely sure of making the BBQ at Ned’s Beach on the Tuesday of the following week, Vittoria would have to leave no later than lunchtime the previous Friday. I’d just have to pray that the weather didn’t close in and the small twin-prop plane which services the island would make it out on Thursday and get me back to Sydney the same afternoon. Things might get a little tight.

  Preparing Vittoria for the long passage turned out to involve rather more work and expense than we’d first imagined. Beautifully built by Cec Quilkey, the veteran IOR racer (nine Hobarts) was no longer an offshore yacht. Over the years Max had cleverly de-rigged her into a day boat that he could sail single-handed. Her big midship primary winches – a signature of S&S designs from that period – were long gone, along with the running backstays, inner forestay and second pair of cockpit winches.

  After overcoming the initial shock of me blithely announcing that we’d have to convert his floating work of art back into a practical sea boat, Max’s commitment to the project was unstinting. He had Vittoria hauled out and checked from stem to stern. We fitted a GPS navigation system, running backstays, an HF radio, new steering chains and quadrant (which had to be specially cast) and added or replaced scores of smaller items vital for the 1000-plus miles we were about to sail. I never dared ask about the cost, but knew it had quickly climbed into five figures. Hugh O’Neill generously lent us loads of safety gear from Mark Twain, including an eight-man life-raft. Norm then built a cunning system that allowed us to secure the raft without putting a single new hole or screw through Vittoria’s elegant S&S coach-house roof.

  I had no doubt the boat would easily make the distance in the traditional reaching conditions of a Lord Howe passage in November, but what about really dirty weather? The yacht had a big #2 jib permanently on the forestay furler, but no storm sails. An array of old turning blocks on the boom hinted at a previous single-line slab reefing system, but nothing was rigged. The reefing sheaves and in-boom jammers had all seized from lack of use and were quickly repaired. Showing our age, we voted to rig two traditional reefing lines to the boom with timber hitches and a simple tack line at the mast. That looked much more like a set-up we’d all know how to handle when we needed to shorten sail in 35 knots at 0200.

  But the problem up at the front of the boat was not so easily solved. Reducing the fore-triangle by simply rolling up some of the jib would only be effective up to 20 knots. Standing on the foredeck and gazing up at the two-spreader rig I spotted a small, unused tang just below the second crosstree. The spinnaker topping lift conveniently exited through a sturdy sheave box just a few inches further down the mast. Maybe that might be pressed into service as a halyard, and we could convert Vittoria into a cutter?

  Once again, the solution came from cadging gear off another yacht I’d sailed many times. A quick test hoist confirmed my guess that an old hanked staysail from Nerida went almost all the way from a dead-eye on the centreline of Vittoria’s foredeck up to the first crosstree. That tough old sail would make a perfect storm jib, except there was nothing to hang it from. Headsails with hanks are ideal for short-handed sailing in heavy weather, but they depend on having a strong stay along which they can be raised and lowered. Yet again, Max came to the rescue, agreeing to commission a local rigger who installed a length of 1× 19 stainless as our temporary inner forestay. For backup, we took a virtually unused heavy #3 jib that had languished in Max’s garage for years. (We soon discovered why this sail had been thrown off the boat: four big vertical battens sewn into the leech made it impossible to flake, brick or bag the jib efficiently – but the cloth was so heavy it would be close to bullet-proof at sea.)

  A month before our scheduled departure on the Lord Howe cruise the whole crew assembled for an orientation sail. We had a terrific day in 10–15 knots of early summer breeze, and sorted out a host of minor details. The newcomers soon had their first taste of Bettsie’s dry-as-dust humour. Looking up from his waypoint calculations on the new GPS he declared ‘423 miles to the island. Should be there in 60 hours at this rate’. Then, a hearty chorus of the longstanding ‘Old & Bold’ rallying cry: ‘Never drink at sea!’ – immediately followed by Col handing up another round of frosty Victor Bravos from the fridge.

  The boys were beginning to get a feel for the self-mocking humour of seasoned offshore sailors. We worked our way out to four miles off Coogee, then brought the yacht back to North Head, tight reaching under the big Multi-Purpose Spinnaker. It was a glorious sail, with Vittoria smoothly cranking herself up to seven knots and holding that secure, steady track that only a genuine displacement yacht can deliver. The old girl was loving being offshore again. Jim, Norm, Col and I couldn’t contain our grins. This had all the makings of a great trip. Back at the dock I handed out the freshly-minted crew T-shirts with their special logo of a Sausage Rampant over a glass of red wine. Four hundred and twenty nautical miles across the Tasman is a long way to go for a snag, but you never really need a legitimate reason to go cruising.

  Luckily, the official Gosford–Lord Howe race was uneventful. Bright Morning Star came second in its division. The prevailing windward conditions were uncomfortable and hard work, but that had suited us in a big, powerful masthead sloop. During the flight home I couldn’t resist taking a few wary glances out the Dash 8 window. There was building swell in the Tasman and a strong nor’easter kicking up whitecaps all over the ocean. Certainly not what the doctor might have ordered for the first leg of our BBQ cruise, due to begin the following day. Surely I wasn’t in for another 500 miles of dead muzzler? It looked awfully like it. Oh well, it’s only a cruise.

  The relaxed nature of the trip was underlined by our rather generous approach to provisioning. Hardy had undertaken to bring the rehydration supplies (presumably because he can get the stuff wholesale). On Friday morning the Knight Bachelor proceeded to load so much liquid refreshment on board that he added at least six inches to our waterline length. We may well drown out there, but we were never going to die of thirst. Cases of booze we couldn’t store in lockers ended up on the floor of the head.

  Norm Hyett then weighed us down even further by arriving at the boat with six-dozen freshly shucked Manning River oysters. You can’t possibly take such delicate culinary delights to
sea, so there was nothing else for it but to settle down to the feast right there. ‘Hang on a moment,’ said Hardy, his voice coloured by a faint tinge of epicurean outrage. ‘We can’t possibly eat these without a good dry white. It’d be an insult to the oysters. Garçon, fetch me a bucket of ice!’ Three bottles of Clare Valley Riesling and a mountain of oysters later, we were finally ready to give the manner and timing of our departure serious consideration. By then the mid-NSW coast was being hammered by the severe low-pressure system I’d seen from the air the previous afternoon. We poked Vittoria’s nose out the Heads for a quick sniff of conditions but prudently decided to find a sheltered mooring and spend the night aboard. Charles MacLurcan, Commodore of the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club, spotted us lounging in the cockpit and kindly invited the whole crew ashore to join the Twilight Race crowd for dinner at the SASC. In the tradition of this most hospitable club, he even dispatched the club tender to ferry us back and forth from our mooring.

  We slipped out of Sydney Harbour at 0530 the following morning but my heart sank just a little as I realised the breeze was a light nor’easter. ‘Here we go again,’ I thought. ‘Another bloody dead muzzler!’ The race the week before had been sailed entirely to windward. Now it looked like this trip would also be on the nose all the way. And that’s how it turned out. When it blew hard it was from the NE. When it went light it was from the NE. Even when there was no wind at all it was still from the *!&#@$! north-east. The cumulative effect was that we were slowly pushed south of the rhumbline – the most direct path to the island – and would eventually have to sail almost 100 miles more than the shortest distance.

  Never mind, it’s not a race. Plenty of time to initiate our two offshore novices into the rituals and unique pleasures of passage-making. To witness their wide-eyed joy at our first sighting of a whale or sailing among hundreds of skylarking dolphins refreshed our own tastes for the natural world. Competition between watches for the most miles covered (with its associated provocations) was soon intense, and the newcomers were compulsorily bored to sobs by our endless war stories from the America’s Cup, Admiral’s Cup and Clipper Cup. But the one cup they couldn’t quite understand was our loyalty to Vittoria’s trusty Piss-a-Phone.

  ‘Listen, you blokes. This boat’s got a perfectly good toilet. Why don’t you use it, instead of pissing into that plastic thing?’

  Knowing smiles from the oldies. ‘Just wait, boys. You’ll see.’

  Inevitably we ran into some fresh stuff near the Sea Mounts and conditions turned nasty. We took a reef and a couple of turns on the jib furler but the boat was now heeled hard over. ‘Ah, that’s why you use the bottle.’

  First victim of the blow was Bettsie, who was dumped out of his bunk when a plastic hook on the retaining lee cloth parted. Our precious guesser hit the cabin sole with a terrible thump but – praise the Lord! – was back at his nav station after a few rounds of painkillers.

  And then it rained. Buckets. Soaking straight through our wet-weather gear and seeping down the mast to deposit neat, steady streams of water onto every bunk and sleeping bag. Sir James railed at the heavens. ‘This is all wasted! Bugger off and rain on the land where it’s needed!’ Yet still it came down, and the deluge only stopped when Ball’s Pyramid and Lord Howe drifted into view through the scudding dark clouds low on the eastern horizon.

  The slow, conservative trip had taken Vittoria 75 hours. Clive Wilson, the veteran Port Operations Manager, talked us in through Man o’ War Passage and onto our mooring with precise compass headings given over the VHF radio. It was late Tuesday morning – we’d made it with just five hours to spare before the BBQ. Ashore, we learned that some yachts had turned back to Sydney during the severe blow of the first night. Seven crews eventually made it to the island by that evening as we all headed off to Ned’s Beach for the BBQ that gives this annual cruise-in-company its nominal purpose. A certain amount of liquid refreshment had already been consumed before the locals turned up with their welcome lashings of food and Lord Howe goodwill. Those few of our company who claimed to remember the rest of the celebrations that night have made the highly defamatory allegation that most of the celebrating yachties were returned to their accommodation laid out on the back trays of the locals’ utes. For us, there was barely time to clear our hangovers before we had to begin reprovisioning the boat, collecting fuel and settling our various mooring fees and visitor levies. It had, indeed, been a long way to come for a sausage, but the trip home turned out to be even longer.

  Vittoria’s generous owner, Max Whitnall, had escaped from hospital and flew straight over to the island just to see his beloved wooden sloop gently bobbing in the lagoon directly below the cliffs of Mount Gower. He and the ‘boys’ ventured out in a tinny to take some snaps and wish we four veterans fair winds and good sailing for the passage back to Sydney. Max can manage most things, but the weather is beyond even his sphere of influence. The breeze was SW – yet another dead muzzler – and after no more than ten hours of reasonably pleasant windward work the barometer began to drop sharply and the skies darkened.

  One of the first sailing books I’d devoured as a child was Joshua Slocum’s 1900 classic, Sailing Alone Around the World. (I still reread it every five years or so.) One of the greatest pieces of advice Slocum gives to seafarers in that book is the importance of understanding weather: ‘To know the laws that govern the winds, and to know that you know them, will give you an easy mind on your voyage round the world; otherwise you may tremble at the appearance of every cloud.’ Well, I looked at those angry, gunmetal-grey clouds and knew we were in for a serious pizzling.

  For the next two days Vittoria battled up to 45 knots true wind on the nose and big, battering seas. At times we sailed ‘cat rigged’ with just a reefed main, then set the little staysail from Nerida hanked onto the inner forestay as a storm jib. It was not quite survival conditions, but damn close. We couldn’t cook or even boil the kettle for 36 hours. The electrical bilge-pump system soon went on strike, then the autopilot. Next, the engine choked itself on sludge stirred up from the bottom of the fuel tank by our violent motion. After three heroic attempts to flush the injectors, Norm Hyett declared the donk dead. We’d have to do the last 180 miles on sail-power alone, and conserve what was left of our 12-volt batteries for the radio and navigation lights. There was no way we could make the rhumbline to Sydney and at one stage our best heading gave us a landfall north of Port Stephens. We were all cold, wet, hungry and exhausted, but none of us was about to concede defeat. The grim resignation of the sailor’s life prevailed. This was our lot; we just had to make the best of it.

  With his natural good humour, Norm made our predicament personal. ‘The next time any of you bastards rings me to go ocean sailing, I’m gonna tell you all to get stuffed, OK? And the minute we get home I’m going to burn my wet-weather gear so I can’t go, even if I bloody well wanted to!’ Meanwhile, the unflappable Hardy – at 72 years of age – kept nursing the boat along through long, exhausting tricks at the helm. Col drew on his five decades of offshore experience (and sodden charts) to provide us with the kind of solid navigational information that helps create confidence in difficult conditions. It was inspiring to be at sea with these blokes again.

  When the blow finally abated we were 35 miles off Norah Head and facing a long, slow work down the coast. But for two glorious hours the breeze actually came abeam and we could set the spinnaker for the only time in almost ten days of sailing. Spinnaker? What’s that? It was 0400 when we finally dropped sails and ghosted alongside the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron pontoon. The trip had taken 86 hours. It was time to just sit in the cockpit together and share a round or two of Mr Boag’s best beer. I couldn’t help myself. ‘Nice sail, fellas. Everyone set to do it again next year?’

  I’m lucky they didn’t chuck me in the tide.

  VITTORIA WINE LIST – 2004 LORD HOWE ISLAND BBQ CRUISE

  6

  Leasingham Bin 7 Clare Valley Riesling

  6

&nb
sp; Leasingham Bastion Shiraz Cabernet

  6

  Brookland Valley (Margaret River) Cabernet Merlot

  3

  Brookland Valley Semillon Sauvignon Blanc

  4

  Hardy’s Oomoo McLaren Vale Shiraz

  2

  Hardy’s Tintara Shiraz

  3

  Stonehaven Padthaway Chardonnay

  6

  Stonehaven Coonawarra Padthaway Cabernet Sauvignon

  4

  Hardy’s Show Port

  2

  Hardy’s Black Bottle Brandy

  3

  Sir James Cuvee Brut (Sparkling)

  3

  Sir James Pinot Shiraz (Sparkling)

  2 doz.

  James Boag

  2 doz.

  Victoria Bitter

  Be not the first by whom the new are tried,

  Nor yet the last to lay the old aside.

  Alexander Pope, An Essay on Criticism

  THE INESCAPABLE DISADVANTAGE of writing regularly about yachting is that people feel free to bend your ear with their opinions. At mind-numbing length. ‘Got a moment? Good, now here’s something you ought to put in that magazine of yours …’ Yachties tend to be a talkative lot at the best of times; at the worst of times they unburden themselves with such sustained verbosity that they’re often still holding forth long after their command of the English language has wilted under the onslaught. This can be bearable if the conversationalist happens to be buying the drinks and vaguely agrees with the sentiments of my last column, but it’s close to torture when they’ve decided to take issue with some contentious position I’ve recently proposed. One must always be polite to one’s public, but there are limits.