by Peter Carey
I designed a very fine bow, but I also gave her a fine stern. So the boat would be able to go in both directions. She would go through the water with the minimum of resistance and she would have a very fine sailing rig in her. She'd have a fully battened mainsail so when you saw her against the light, the ribs would show like a dragonfly wing. She'd have no centreboard or keel but leeboards to stop her being pushed sidewards by the wind. That would permit you to sneak up into the shallow creeks and estuaries, and because there would be no centreboard two of you would be able to sleep in the bottom of the boat, watch the birds early in the morning, and so forth.
It took seven weeks for my mate Stumpy to build her and it took me a year and a half to finish her off. She was made of three eighth-of-an-inch-thick skins of Australian red cedar, cross-laminated, epoxy glued and unbelievably strong. I named her Dorothy, after my mother.
Dorothy was light, built like an eggshell, and she sailed wonderfully, but the way you kept her up was with your bodyweight. So she was dangerous, not by accident, but by design.
At the time of this story, friends of mine had built this beautiful small house up the reaches of the Hawkesbury about fifteen miles up from Lion Island. And I sailed up there one January afternoon. Beautiful weather. Nor'-easterly wind. I went up like a bloody flash. I passed the little waterfront village of Bar Point and everybody saw me going hurtling past and gave a great wave. That's a nice-looking little boat. They knew what they were looking at.
About nightfall I finally got up this tiny little creek where my friends live and I thought, I won't go ashore now, I'll sleep in the boat.
I had a great night's sleep and went on to have a wonderful day with my friends. But from the moment I opened my eyes next morning I saw we were in for a southerly change. In Sydney you always get twenty-four hours' notice of a southerly. You'll have what looks like a very clear day, but high up you might notice those mare's tails of cirrus clouds. These are the top part of a wedge of cold air being driven up by the front. These clouds will stretch for about six hundred miles, which equates to about twenty-four hours. What I'm saying is, the southerly was not a surprise to me. When I saw those mare's tails I knew it was coming. And I also knew, even then, lying in my boat, there was the real possibility of it being severe. It had been so hot and muggy.
These storms always begin from the southwest. Then they slowly shift around to the south, then to the south-east and then over the next few days they break to the east and the north-east. And when, finally, the wind shifts to the northwest you know the cycle is setting itself up again. That's the summer pattern in Sydney.
So the first stage of the cycle began on my second night upriver. A south-westerly.
When I woke next morning there was a strong southerly blowing. I looked up and saw these grey clouds moving like a conveyor belt and they were fast. Looked like thirty knots to me.
Oh, fuck, well 1'11 probably be OK.
I had expected it would be fast, but as I got out on to the river proper, I saw it was really piping. Thirty knots in the tropics is nothing, but thirty knots in a southerly is something different. Southerly air is polar maritime. It's thicker, colder, wetter. It's got more grunt.
So I flew down that bloody river. I had a hairraising ride. I went planing through the waterfront village of Brooklyn and through Bar Point again. The same people who had waved to me going up now saw this joker flying fucking past them. I barely had hands to wave.
I went under the Brooklyn Bridge at a rate of fucking knots. I went haring around the point at bloody Brooklyn and this is an open boat so it takes a bit of water and when you're going that fast there's a lot of spray around.
All the time the wind is across the river. That's OK, I'm not going into the wind. And the wind is not going against the tide. But this boat is a handful to sail at the best of times, so what you've got to do to pump it, you have to hold the mainsheet (which is the rope that holds the mainsail) in your teeth. You've got your feet under the straps. You're out over the side. You're steering with this hand and you've got your pumps hooked up so you can work them with your left hand. So you're like one of these jokers on the street corner with five musical instruments. With your right foot you're beating drums. With your left foot you're cracking walnuts. And you're flying down the river.
As I come down towards the opening, the river is getting much wider. There's been a lot of rain in the storm so there's a lot of brown water travelling towards the sea. There's also a high tide that's moving out, and the wind is moving to the south, and I know that the fucking southerly swell must be starting to come round Barrenjoey.
And I think, oh shit.
At the same time I think, so far so good.
And I go around Juno Point which is maybe two or three miles before the entry to the estuary. The tide rips around it and I am flying. The tide is doing four knots, easy, so that's an extra four knots added to my speed. What a sail this is.
By this time I have been going for two hours and I am getting tired and I see, in the lee of the shore on the south side of the river, that boats are sheltering. And I see a mate of mine, a mooring-lifter, and I know I've still got this dangerous estuary to negotiate and I think, I better pull out now. I'll get a tow back with him.
But I am getting closer and closer to home territory. So far so good.
I am heading towards West Head by this time and I can see Lion Island ahead of me. There's a big sea. The waves are breaking on the 'bow' of the island, and they are exploding on the rocks and cascading up the cliffs.
So I think, it's OK, I can sneak in close to the shore . . .
The water is disturbed by the wind blowing against the tide. It's turned a really nasty colour, a filthy grey-green. The sky is leaden. And as I come past Flint and Steel Beach in the driving rain I begin to have second thoughts. I might just whip in there and wait it out.
But no, I could fucking beat the world by this time. And I had a date with Brigit that night in the city.
Until this time I have been 'reaching', with the wind across the boat. But as I come into the opening of Pittwater, the wind is coming out like the mouth of a fucking trumpet. It is blowing forty knots and it is increasing.
I think, fuck, but it is too late. I can't turn around now even if I want to. I'm to the south of Lion Island and the wind is blowing from the south, so if I stop I'll be blown on to the rocks.
So, my only choice is get across the mouth of Pittwater, and I can tack under Barrenjoey headland and then I plan to sneak around the Joey and perhaps, with luck, on to the beach there. There are rain squalls and there isn't a bugger around anywhere. My big ambition now is to just make it to that beach in one piece.
I am pumping the bloody boat all the time and I get all the way across the mouth of Pittwater. I get under Barrenjoey. I tack. I start to work out under the Joey when I see this gust coming. It is blowing so hard it takes the spray right off the top of the water. As it comes it turns and it twists.
Holy shit.
It picks me up and just dumps me straight in the drink.
My boat filled straight away. I was awash. Completely fucked. My sleeping bag started to drift off, my kit bag, my sketchbooks. The boat tipped upside down. The rudder fell out.
Well I can't swim, and besides, the golden rule of sailing boats is stay with the boat. So I hung on.
Slowly, of course, the wind pushed me out of the shelter of Barrenjoey and then I began to be carried out by the tide. And these great southerly seas were running around Barrenjoey. Ten, maybe twelve-foot waves. And naturally the bottom of the boat had been rubbed back to a racing finish. And as my mate Beetle said to me afterwards, I could see the fingernail marks on the bottom of the boat. Finally I was hanging on to one of the leeboards, but I got further and further out and the seas got bigger and bigger. By now it was about three in the afternoon. I was getting colder and tireder and I began getting washed off the boat. The waves were like surf waves. And I'd be washed off and I'd get back on board again and I'd be
washed off. And the only thing I can remember, as I realised how serious this was, is anger, absolute fucking anger. It was almost the only thing that kept me warm.
I could occasionally see Pittwater appearing through the weather and I knew my mother's little place was down there and she, my boat's namesake, was quietly watching the television with a Scotch beside her.
But I'd blown it. I'd fucking blown it through absolute stupidity. And the tide was dragging me further and further out and I was starting to head for the mincer. I mean, Lion Island, where me and my boat would be smashed to pieces on the rocks.
And I thought, that's it.
And: you're a fuckwit.
So I just hung on, hoping for a miracle. Then I began to think I could see something. There was a great rain squall coming out of Pittwater and through it I could see something. Whatever it was, it was disappearing, then appearing, then disappearing. I thought it couldn't be a boat, but it was, a motor-boat, not heading up the river, but out to sea. I thought, what sort of an idiot would come out in this sort of weather?
But it came closer, and closer, and closer. And finally I could see it clearly - a 35-footer - and you know I never liked those hot-water boats, but here it was, Jennifer, with this tiny little fellow up there on the flying bridge. And he was towing a dinghy which proved he was insane. You never ever tow a dinghy in high seas, because the dinghy will swamp and then you are in real strife.
So here am I, about to drown, and I'm thinking, oh Jesus, this bloke's mad.
But also he's going to save me.
Jennifer was now almost on top of me. She was raising up on these huge waves and crashing back down again but she came alongside me and as she came down on a wave I grabbed hold of the bow and it swung back up into the air and Jennifer lifted me up off Dorothy like a bloody crane.
I had hypothermia. I was exhausted but I lifted myself up bodily on to the bow of his boat. And I staggered down towards my rescuer.
Why? I asked him. Why did you come out here?
I was up in the bloody estuary, he says, and this storm come through and I thought somebody might be in trouble so I come out to take a look.
My saviour's name was Stratmore Garside. He was a real character, the smallest of all God's angels. He gave me his clothes to put on. His pants came up to here on me. And a little tiny sweater. He saved my life. Then he got the water police on the radio so they could save my boat.
Of course the water police are local people. And they came out like a flash. They were just brilliant. But when they saw little Stratmore with his hot-water boat and his dinghy they must have recognised a disaster waiting to unfold.
For Christsake get the fucking hell out of here.
Stratmore was offended by this message on the radio. What's the matter, can't they see how I'm handling it?
What a wonderful character. As soon as I got home, or the next morning - because that's when you draw best - I did a drawing for him of the scene. Really rough charcoal, but the sense of a storm and the boat coming out of the mist. He was just terrific, this guy, although the cops were right - he should have just turned around and come in, but he was fearless and he stayed with Dorothy until the police arrived.
For Christsake get the fucking hell out of here.
He was offended but he obeyed, although not before I had witnessed my great mate Bowsey jump off the police launch into those screaming seas. He got a rope around my boat and then they towed her. Side on! At twelve knots! By God, you should see the photograph - the entire boat is out of the water.
My boat survived the rescue and my life was saved, so you'd think I'd be content, but I soon began to dwell upon that missing rudder. Such a lot of time and care had gone into its manufacture. And I began to think, if the tide was running out and the southerly wind was blowing in, and if the tide was about to change, then my rudder might have been taken out to sea and it might have been carried north and gotten washed up on the beaches north near Ettalong.
Of course, it might just as easily have been smashed on the rocks on Lion Island, but I phoned my mate Fisho who lives at Woy Woy. I asked him if he would put an advertisement in the local rag.
In less than a week he was back on the phone. A bloke's rung me, he's got your rudder.
You got to be joking.
Fisho explained how this bloke was fishing at low tide, way up the coast, near Gosford, and he slipped on something under the weeds.
As it happened, he was also a member of a local crafts movement. He was a woodworker and when he saw the red mahogany, he knew its worth. What he now had in his hands was a laminated centre rudder blade - spotted gum in the centre part of the rudder head, cedar cheeks, laminated Australian beech tiller curve. My lucky day, he thought. He took it home and put it on his mantelpiece.
Then the poor bugger read Fisho's ad in the local newspaper. That was a cruel test of character, which he passed with flying colours. Just the same he was not exactly delighted to hear from me.
Describe the rudder to me.
And I did.
Just my luck.
I can't tell you how grateful I am.
I bet you can't.
Do you mind if I come and pick it up?
No.
What can I bring you?
A bottle of Inner Circle rum.
So I found a bottle of Inner Circle rum, and went to a warehouse in Gosford where this bloke worked as a storeman and packer.
And he handed over the rudder.
And I paid in the oldest currency of all.
And that's the end of the story.
A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR
Peter Carey received the Booker Prize for
Oscar and Lucinda and again for True
History of the Kelly Gang. His other awards
include the Commonwealth Writers' Prize
and the Miles Franklin Literary Award. His
most recent novel His Illegal Self was published
in 2008. Born in Australia in 1943, he now
lives in New York, where he is the director of
the Hunter College MFA program in creative
writing.
A NOTE ON THE TYPE
The text of this book is set in Linotype Sabon, named
after the type founder, Jacques Sabon. It was designed
by Jan Tschichold and jointly developed by Linotype,
Monotype and Stempel, in response to a need for a
typeface to be available in identical form for
mechanical hot metal composition and hand
composition using foundry type. Tschichold based his
design for Sabon roman on a fount engraved by
Garamond, and Sabon italic on a fount by Granjon. It
was first used in 1966 and has proved an enduring
modern classic.