Blue Water, Green Skipper: A Memoir of Sailing Alone Across the Atlantic

by Stuart Woods

  We had a pleasant evening in Lymington, and next morning, after running a few local errands, we embarked on the car ferry to the Isle of Wight, which I had never visited. The purpose of the trip was to discuss the rigging of my boat with Ben Bradley of Spencer’s, the riggers, but we did some shopping in Cowes’s narrow High Street first. It was there I discovered one of the most comfortable of sailing garments, the Javlin Warm Suit, which is a sort of thermal underwear, retaining heat and preventing condensation under oilskins. This would prove to be a valuable purchase.

  At Spencer’s, Ben Bradley and I agreed on the size and composition of my boat’s rigging—Ron had suggested wire rope rather than the standard solid rod rigging, which was fine for offshore racing but didn’t last as long. We also went a size up on the standard, for extra strength.

  Next day, I rang Shirley Clifford in Poole, just to see how she was and to report on the progress of Golden Harp, and she reminded me of something I had forgotten. The Azores and Back single-handed race (AZAB), sponsored by the magazine Yachting Monthly, was starting on Saturday from the Royal Cornwall Yacht Club in Falmouth. She and Richard would be there, and so would Ewan Southby-Tailyour. Why didn’t I come down? Why not, indeed? I hired a car, and on Thursday afternoon took off for the West Country.

  I arrived at the Royal Cornwall to find fifty yachts preparing for the next day’s start. Almost immediately I bumped into Robert Hughes, the Hasler self-steering expert from Gibb, who had at his disposal a very fast speedboat, with which he could go from yacht to yacht, offering advice and helping to solve problems. Having never so much as seen a single-hander’s boat this was a marvelous opportunity for me, and I made mental notes on layout, control lines, etc.

  Richard and Shirley Clifford turned up with their children, and I met Frank Page, The Observer’s yachting correspondent, and his lovely wife, Sammie; Liz Balcon and Angela Green, also from the Observer staff; Angus Primrose, the yacht designer who was sailing one of his own designs, a Moody 33, in the race, and his wife and daughter, Murlo and Sally; Andrew Bray of Yachting Monthly, who was sailing his Pioneer 10 in the race; and briefly, Clare Francis, the girl who had already done a transatlantic crossing in a Nicholson 32, and now had an Olsen 38 at her disposal, courtesy of her sponsors, Robertson’s jams.

  I had dinner with Richard and Shirley, and the following day, Murlo and Sally Primrose and I joined Robert Hughes and his brother, Brian, on whose fast boat we would watch the start of the race. The wind was very light, so there was little drama before the start, but shortly after the start we all became very annoyed with a French spectator boat which was sailing behind Clare Francis flying a spinnaker, thus taking Clare’s wind and making it difficult for her to get her own spinnaker to fill. We roared up to the French yacht and, after a few loud words, they bore away and left her alone. It had been a rotten thing to do.

  The fleet slowly drifted toward open water, and after a final goodbye to Angus Primrose on Demon Demo, we roared across the bay to my favorite village in Cornwall, St. Mawes. Then, back to the Royal Cornwall, now strangely empty, and the drive to Fowey, farther up the coast, where I was meeting Richard Clifford and Ewan Southby-Tailyour at a Royal Cruising Club rally. I arrived in the pretty village and got a ferry out to Ewan’s yacht, Black Velvet, only to discover him drinking on another nearby boat. We passed a pleasant afternoon, and Richard arrived from Falmouth in Shamaal II, his Contessa 26, single-handed. There was then one of the nicest sights I have ever seen on the water. Three of the larger yachts at the rally were tied together in the river, and a very large and exuberant cocktail party took place in the lovely twilight. I added Fowey to my list of harbors to visit.

  Richard Clifford invited me for a Sunday morning sail in Shamaal, and I accepted with pleasure. We just went out of the river for a bit, then back to a mooring, but it was the first time I had ever sailed on a single-hander’s boat, and it was nice to see how expertly Richard handled her. We followed our sail with a lunch of fresh mackerel.

  Richard, as I have mentioned, is a captain in the Royal Marines, and takes great pride in his fitness. He climbs the mast of Shamaal without benefit of bosun’s chair or steps, just right up it like a monkey. He also takes pride in sailing Shamaal without an engine of any kind, and handles her with great flair and confidence.

  He gave me something to think about when he said that during the last OSTAR, he had been swept overboard by a wave, saved only by an arm which caught a guardrail. He said that, after struggling back on board, he sat down in the cockpit and wept. I thought, if this hard, tough, superbly fit Marine officer, trained to endure the worst of hardship, had been reduced to that state by exhaustion and terror, what the hell would happen to me under similar circumstances? I could only hope that I would never have to find out.

  Back in Cork, the launch was set for June 28. I wrote out a launch invitation and a press release. I had them both printed, and I mailed about fifty invitations to friends and people who had contributed equipment or help on the boat, and I sent press releases to all the Irish newspapers, plus the television service, RTE, along with an invitation which also invited everybody to a post-launch celebration at the Royal Cork. I also gave invitations to half a dozen of the foremen and workmen in the yard who had been particularly helpful, and to the office staff, all of whom had been very nice. Then I placed an invitation in the hands of Pat Hickey, a director of the yard, and handed one to Barry Burke.

  Twelve

  Launching

  Normally I sleep like a stone, but for the rest of June prior to the launching, I slept badly. Nor could I read. Even absorbing books like Adlard Coles’s Heavy Weather Sailing couldn’t hold my attention. Every time I read of some heavy weather maneuver I began thinking about how Golden Harp would react under the circumstances.

  But there were bright spots. Vincent Dolan of J. B. Roche, a Cork chandlery, donated a twenty-five-pound CQR anchor and eight fathoms of chain to the project. Alan Best of Croxon & Cobbs, a Dublin chandlery, gave me a trade discount on any gear I wished to purchase from him—they were particularly good on charts—and Western Marine, in Dalkey, gave me a generous discount on the four very expensive Beaufort life jackets I wanted for the boat. Cotter Electronics, a Cork instrument installation company, came and did a first-class job of fitting the Brookes & Gatehouse equipment and the other electrical gear, and gave me a very low price for a great deal of highly skilled work. And George Hayde and his people at Lucas came through on their promise of technical help, doing all the wiring on the batteries and alternators. They also contributed the splitting diodes and isolating switches for the batteries, a generous contribution, indeed, coupled with the expensive, marinized alternator.

  There were disappointments, too. A Dublin sailmaker who had, three months before, agreed to send a man down to measure the boat for its very important spray hood now doubled his price in a transparent effort to get out of doing the job. He succeeded. Then a west coast sailmaker agreed to do the job and never showed up for the appointment, after keeping us waiting an entire afternoon. He didn’t even bother to phone to say he couldn’t make it. John McWilliam, from the heights of the international racing sailmaker, would not stoop to such mundane work, either, but at least he had made it clear months before that he wouldn’t touch the job with a fork, and he didn’t waste my time the way the others had. Before the summer was over, I would suffer from the lack of that spray hood.

  I drove up to Tralee and spent an intensive two days with Len Breewood, studying celestial navigation and trying to cram two weekends into one. Len very kindly made me a gift of a light meon anchor which he had made himself. I had been unable to find one like it in Ireland.

  Then I drove to Galway and spent an enlightening morning learning how to make a diesel engine behave itself. I had never seen one up close before, but even I understood and came away with a large donation of expensive engine spares. (A few days later, an extremely heavy parcel arrived in the post. Hydromarine had sent me a spare propeller, a
very expensive chunk of brass!)

  Back in Cork, visible progress was being made on the boat. The keel had been fitted, as had the stainless-steel brackets for the self-steering, and I watched as the deck was dropped onto the hull and fastened in place. At last, it looked like a boat!

  Acceptances and regrets began to come in for the launching. Sadly, Ann would be working (she designs sets and costumes for films) and could not be in Cork. But other people were coming from all over the country.

  At McWilliam Sailmakers, another last-minute flap. I had designed a “Betsy Ross” (the lady who designed and sewed the first American flag) spinnaker, in honor of the 1976 Bicentennial Celebrations in the States, and this called for a circle of thirteen stars on a field of blue. The problem was that John had, instead of making five-pointed American stars, made six-pointed Israeli stars. Wrong celebration. I had to spend an hour soothing him and telling him how easy it was to make five-pointed stars, and he still charged me three quid apiece for them.

  Launch day dawned. Nick and I were at the yard early to find the boat now hauled out onto the quay. The gathering for the launching was scheduled for eight in the evening, and the boat would be open to visitors for an hour before launching at nine, on the high tide.

  At about eight-thirty, people began to arrive and, suddenly, it all came together. By a quarter-to-nine Golden Harp bore every resemblance to a finished boat, her loose wires tucked away and the floorboards and dining table suddenly in place. She was nothing if not a fine actress.

  John Smullen, my insurance agent, arrived from Dublin with a lovely young lady and the gift from himself and Alec Hinson of a handsome visitors book, embossed with the yacht’s name. It was a psychic thing, for I had not been able to find one in Cork.

  Rapidly, its pages began to fill. Ron Holland and John McWilliam were the first signators; George Kennefick, admiral, and Raymound Fielding and Harry Deane, vice-admiral and secretary, respectively, represented the Royal Cork Yacht Club, now Harp’s home club; Ferdia O’Riordan and Michael Healy turned up to represent the Galway club, while Harry McMahon, though we did not know it at the time, was at Dublin Airport, having come from a medical conference in Edinburgh, trying to persuade Hertz to hire him a car without a driver’s license, which he had forgotten; Worth and Pasha Newenham came, so did Len and Margaret Breewood; friends from all over were suddenly there, admiring my boat. Nick had miraculously got the tape player going, and the music added to the festivities. Tom Barker from the Cork Examiner was there, and although RTE had had to divert its one Cork camera to a fire, or something, Irish radio was represented in person of Donna O’Sullivan, a redhead of whom I would see more.

  Now all my anger and frustration vanished under a wave of euphoria. It was just as though the boat was actually finished. This moment, which I had dreamed about, but of which I had begun to despair, had finally come. It was all exactly like a real boat launching.

  Finally, George mounted the crane, swung the yacht over the quayside, where she paused, her decks level with the stone. Barry Burke, who was not able to be present for the launching, had provided a bottle of champagne, cleverly scored several times so that it would break at the first blow. It is supposed to be terribly bad luck if the bottle doesn’t break the first time. Laurel Holland, terribly conscious of her responsibility, said, “I christen this ship Golden Harp. God bless her and all who sail in her!” and swung mightily at the bow, missing the boat completely. She hadn’t actually touched the boat, though, so no harm done. On her next swing the bottle smashed just the way champagne bottles are supposed to at yacht launchings, and Golden Harp dropped into the Douglas River with a fat splash.

  It was all so perfect: the water of the river turned to shimmering gold by a huge setting sun, the crowd gathered to wish the boat well, the lovely weather. I made a short speech, thanking Ron and other people who had contributed to the effort thus far, and we adjourned to the upper deck of the Royal Cork for a bit of champagne.

  Toward the end of the evening George Kennefick made a few kind remarks, and in my response I was able to thank George Bush, whom I had stupidly forgotten to thank at the launching. George had been in charge of the most difficult of all the work, the modifications, and his work would prove to have been done well.

  An hour before the launching.

  Ron is first to sign Harp’s visitors book.

  I hit the bed that night like a felled tree. I don’t think I’ve ever had a better evening.

  The following morning, Nick and I drove to the yard with as much equipment as we could manage, and we began to load the boat. George persuaded me to wait for the afternoon tide, to give him time to do a few more things, and I agreed.

  As we were preparing to cast off and the last workman was hastily gathering his tools to avoid a trip down Cork Harbor, I glanced into the shallow bilges and noticed water there. “Where did that come from?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” he replied, shaking his head. “I’ve mopped her out every morning since she was launched, and there’s still water coming in.”

  Golden Harp, four days after her launching, was leaking.

  “God bless this ship and all who sail in her!” Laurel Holland christens Golden Harp on her second swing.

  Thirteen

  The Race Before the Race

  The next three weeks were a whirling potpourri of rage, outrage, relief, elation, depression, and exhaustion.

  Ron came down to Drake’s Pool and shouted from shore that he was leaving for Norway the following morning to compete in the World Three-quarter-ton Championships in his design, the Nicholson 33, Golden Delicious. The delays in finishing the boat had robbed me of one of the most important elements of my plan, the presence and advice of Ron, helping me to learn to understand and sail the yacht. Before we sailed for Portsmouth and the MOCRA Azores Race, he would be able to spend only three hours on the boat.

  That evening Ron, John McWilliam, Nick, and I took Harp out into Cork Harbor. Ron did some tuning on the rigging, and John flung up the spinnakers for the people in the clubhouse to see. It was immensely satisfying and a bit unreal finally to see the boat under sail, even if the only headsail we could set was the light genoa, because the headsail reefing system had not yet been rigged. I would not see much of John on the boat, either. His earlier enthusiasm for the project had now been overtaken by a busy sailing season and a full order book for sails.

  Harp returned to her mooring in Drake’s Pool, where she would spend most of her time until the Azores trip. Killian, George Bush’s son, turned up to work on the boat as a freelancer, and things began to pick up. He and Nick began working their way through a list of a hundred jobs. In the rare moments when she was not being worked on, I tried to sail Harp. Finally, on a Sunday afternoon, we left Cork Harbor for the first time, even if only for Oysterhaven, a few miles down the coast. I tried my first single-handed maneuvers, jibing and tacking. On the way back up the river we stuck on the mud once and had to swing the boom out and heel the boat to get off. The passage to Drake’s Pool was a bit dicey at low water. There was a lot of water in the bilges when we got home.

  Nick was ill for two or three days, but Killian made progress. He had made up with the yard now, and occasionally George dropped by with a forgotten bit of gear or to do some small job. He investigated the leaking and said the boat would have to go back to the yard for a haulout to be repaired. He also casually mentioned that the nuts on the keelbolts were not the specified stainless-steel ones; the yard had been out of those when Harp’s keel was fitted. It was depressing to contemplate delivering the boat into the hands of the yard again, but there seemed no other way.

  Two weeks to go. Bill King and Harry McMahon came down on Saturday night for a day’s sail on Sunday. We had dinner at the Royal Cork and met a Dutchman, Eilco Kasemien, who was about to set off for Iceland on his wishbone ketch for his OSTAR qualifying cruise.

  The day of Bill’s and Harry’s arrival had not been without incident. Killian didn’t
turn up to work on the boat, as it was raining. It was spring tide and there was a southeasterly wind blowing, which pushed Harp’s stern in toward shore. As the tide receded, her rudder grounded on the last bit of a shelf, which was usually underwater. Nick and I rowed out and got as much weight forward as we could to see if she could be floated off. She was stuck fast. We sat in the pulpit with the life raft and the anchor for three hours waiting for the tide to turn. The rudder moved freely when she floated, and we breathed a sigh of relief that no apparent damage had been done.

  Sunday morning dawned chill and foggy. Bill, Harry, and I motored down as far as the yacht club and picked up a mooring to wait for the weather to clear. Later in the afternoon we poked a nose into the harbor to find three hundred yards of visibility and foghorns everywhere. We repaired again to Drake’s Pool, having never set a sail. Bill felt, though, that he had at least had a good look at the boat and would not feel quite so much a stranger when we left for England. He and his son, Tarka, a Guards officer in London, would arrive on the twenty-third to help prepare the boat for sailing on the twenty-fifth.

  On Monday George came by and we arranged that I would take Harp to the yard on the morning tide on Thursday (it is possible to get over a bar to the quay at the yard only two hours before or after high water). Killian did more work one day and didn’t show on another. A man came and examined me for my radio-telephone license and very helpfully searched out some additional information on billing for telephone calls and telegrams via shore stations. On Wednesday a brief letter arrived from Eve Palmer. She and her husband, Alan, had been among my closest friends in London. Alan and I had worked together as co-creative directors at an advertising agency, and had remained close after we had both left the agency. The letter said, “Dear Stuart, my dear Alan died of a heart attack on Monday, the 7th. Love, Eve.” Alan was a year older than I. I sat in the car in front of the post office and reread the letter for half an hour. Its meaning would not change. I would have difficulty thinking about anything else for days.