Solitaire Spirit: Three Times Around the World Single-Handed

by Les Powles

  Each day I rang my solicitor’s secretary (her boss had long since stopped talking to me). On June 10th, with less than £100 in my pocket and two weeks to Solitaire’s departure, he wrote me from his office in outer space and I stopped whistling Land of Hope and Glory.

  ‘Dear Mr Powles,’ he wrote. ‘I refer to my secretary’s recent call from which I gather that you are not minded to return the sails until the question of costs is resolved.’ Then came the body blow. ‘Unhappily I have to report that the other side have not been prepared to agree costs which will therefore have to be taxed by the court. This process will take at least three months and there is not the slightest prospect of resolving this matter before your intended departure this month.’

  I was no longer the angry husband slamming out of the house. Since I had been rejected I would look around for other attractive company with whom to have an affair. I remembered all my American friends and the kindnesses they had shown me on my first voyage. July 4th was their Day of Independence so it would be mine, too, mine and Solitaire’s, the day we would sail.

  Perhaps at this stage a normal individual would have considered finding a sponsor, but I was dead against it, my feelings stemming, perhaps, from my working-class background. With a sponsor’s money I could have a yacht built with electric self-reefing sails, sensors that would record any strain and reef the sails while I stayed below watching the latest video, relaxed in the knowledge that our satellite navigation aid was keeping us on course for Cape Horn. Without a commercial sponsor I would be cold, hungry and afraid, but I would be using the gifts given to me by the only sponsor I was responsible to.

  The closest I came to being caught in this rat race was when I met Dr Herbert Ochs, who came to see me about using a new antifouling he had invented. A chubby, jolly man, he must have been a bit older than me. I liked him on sight, a down-to-earth character I could have spent days talking to, a man I could trust to keep his word. When I told him my feelings about sponsors he said, ‘There’s no question of your considering me a backer. I simply want you to put a gallon of my concoction on Solitaire’s hull, take it round the world non-stop and let me inspect the results. Er, should you hit a reef, run aground or sink I’d be grateful for any last minute photos you manage to take.’

  While we talked in the cabin I worked on my old plastic sextant, which still had the handbag mirrors I had stuck on in Panama. The adjuster had been held together by elastic bands, now perished, and I was replacing them with the finest money could buy.

  Dr Ochs, or Herbert as he had become, grew more and more agitated. Unable to contain his curiosity any longer he asked what I was doing.

  ‘Getting my sextant ready for this trip,’ I replied, whereupon he turned a lovely shade of green.

  ‘Not with my ............ antifouling you’re not!’ he exclaimed. He promised to replace the sextant and a week later turned up with a beautiful Zeiss product. After much discussion I agreed to accept it on the understanding that when I returned, Solitaire would be taken out of the water to have her hull inspected but that I would not be required to express an opinion. I felt thoroughly ungrateful but I did not want to be obligated.

  Lymington Yacht Marina allowed me to haul Solitaire out of the water early on Saturday morning and leave her in slings until Monday. This kept down the costs and was far more efficient than rushing the antifouling on a six-hour tide at the Town Quay.

  Rex drove me to Birmingham to farewell my family and leave the duff sails with Tony and Irene Marshall. If they had heard nothing from me after a year the sails were to be sent to my solicitor, otherwise I’d deliver them myself when I returned and carry on with the court case.

  Driving back to Solitaire all I could remember was my father’s big, rough hands, my mother’s frightened eyes and her last words, ‘Keep warm and be sure to have plenty to eat.’ I would remember those words later!

  On my return to Solitaire I entered the half world that I knew well from past voyages. Normally the transition was made one or two days before sailing; this time I had been slipping in and out of it for two years. I badly wanted to hold on to what people said to me, record them on tapes in my mind to be taken out in the months ahead to be used, gone over slowly and to enjoy when I had more time to think. But life became more and more difficult as there seemed so much to do in so little time and questions merely served to trigger more problems.

  The July 4th departure had to be postponed. Keith Parris became my unpaid, uncomplaining press agent. He and Anne were two people who sneaked up on me and I can’t now remember when I first met them. Both were schoolteachers who owned a boat in the marina, Keith with time on his hands. Without really being aware of it I began to rely on them more and more as my sailing date neared.

  A couple of nights before I sailed, Rome and Annegret threw a party for me at which were his mother Grace, his sister Terry and her husband Martin. All had presents for me which, since it was late, Rome would bring to Solitaire the next morning. Sure enough Rome and Annegret turned up and loaded an unending stream of parcels. I could not really appreciate it all, staggering over water containers and trying to store the presents on top of the bunks. Annegret excitedly tried to explain that for weeks Rome and she had been making ten of the parcels, which were to be opened at different stages of the voyage. One was marked ‘Crossing the Equator’, another ‘My birthday’, besides ‘Rounding the Five Southern Capes’, ‘Christmas’, and so on. Over the coming months I tried to log just what these parcels meant to me. At one stage tears of frustration streamed down my cheeks, unable to transcribe my feelings into words. In the end all that would be written was, ‘God bless them’.

  On my last day there was another rush of gifts, mostly paperbacks and food. A parcel from Peter and Fanny included a tin of salmon and a bottle of champagne for rounding Cape Horn, and two fruitcakes, ideal for the early days at sea. A Dutch friend had somehow obtained ten boxes of NATO army rations, each box supposed to last 24 hours. From the local bakery I had bought 70lb of flour housed in two 5-gallon sealed containers. Another container held 5 gallons of sugar! A last minute purchase of 30lb of onions, another of potatoes. Fanny gave me three dozen fresh farmhouse eggs. I had food enough for a six-month voyage. With help from my guardian angel I would be at sea for nine months... I was saying ten, by the end of which I would surely end up looking like Twiggy.

  The morning of July 9th, 1980, brought light northerlies and a few scattered clouds in an otherwise clear blue sky. I had been up since dawn, Solitaire becoming the stage for a farce I played every time we sailed. Before learning this game I would get into all kinds of trouble trying to do three things at once while carrying on as many conversations. The engine had been run and was still hot, but this did not prevent my remarking, ‘I hope the motor starts, otherwise you’ve come for nothing.’

  Rigging, halyards, sheets and sails had been checked a dozen times but I still walked the decks, pulling and kicking things as though seeing them for the first time, allowing me to concentrate on the things that really mattered. Will the wind push Solitaire onto the berth or away? How will the current affect her until she attains speed and can be steered? I wanted to say nothing that would leave behind a bad impression because the next day I would not be there to say I was sorry.

  In Tahiti I became close to an American family whose daughter would row over each day while I was at work and put a letter on the chart table for me to find when I arrived home. On the morning I sailed she was there with a garland of island flowers. As I put out to sea I turned for a last wave, the flowers still around my neck, and remembered that today was her seventh birthday. I had planned it for ages but at the last moment had forgotten. I could not turn back, too many people had come to see me off. The voyage to Australia lasted 69 days and that’s a long time to be sorry.

  After preparing Solitaire for her departure it was the crew’s turn, another ritual carried out before each voyage. My thinning ginger hair had given up the ghost the night before when Ann
egret had butchered it in (what else?) a crew cut. The pasty white body scaled a grossly overweight 14 stone – for the first time something to be pleased about since it could live off its own blubber during the early stages of the voyage. And it had delighted in its last soaking in fresh hot water, where pores had opened and been cleaned. From now on there would be showers direct from the sky but the pores would always contain salt. I dressed in clean clothes. The day before, my laundry had been done. I wore my oldest gear, keeping the best for the long months ahead.

  At 8.30am on July 9th, I walked down the pontoon to Solitaire. All I had in my pocket (in fact all I had in the world) was £60, of which £40 had been given by a TV company a few days before. They had promised £20 at first but after the recording had doubled the amount. With a few violins it might have been further increased. On my return I learned that they had interviewed another singlehander at the same time and put us both on the same show. The difference was that the other chappie was sponsored. His yacht had cost £350,000 and a further £40,000 a year to run but the funny thing was that after all the money and shouting he never even sailed!

  Solitaire waited for me to step aboard, her old red ensign now a faded orange, her spray dodgers dirty and rust-streaked, her new golden boom with an unused mainsail, her old number two genoa hanked on to one forestay, the new working jib on the other.

  These I could see as the visitors saw them, perhaps shaking their heads, believing me foolish to set out on such a voyage so ill-equipped. It was what they could not see that would have convinced them I was mad, the equipment I lacked that most sane yachtsmen would require for a voyage across the Channel, let alone around the world: liferaft, radio transmitter, barometer, flares, charts, wind speed indicator. The list was endless. A sane person would work out stores he needed, then double them. I had worked it out and halved it, not from choice, but because I had stopped being rational after depending on others for justice and fair play.

  Aboard Solitaire things speeded up. A quick interview with a TV crew, Keith Parris saying they would follow me downriver in the marina launch for last pictures, them asking if I would put full sails up to leave the mooring, and I explaining that I would have a following wind and could not. Once clear of the berth I would put up the genoa, leaving down the mainsail until we reached the Solent.

  I looked for people I could trust to let go and spotted Peter Tolputt and Margaret Brown. A shout to Peter, ‘Will you take in my fenders?’ then to Margaret, ‘Please take in our springs.’ A dash to start the motor. Back on deck, collect the fenders, drop them below. ‘Peter, the motor’s on slow ahead. Will you let go our bow line then come back for the stern?’

  At 9.15 Solitaire severed her links with land for 329 days. A quick wave to Rex and Grace. ‘Tell Rome I’ll see him in ten months’ time.’ (He had a flying detail that morning and could not be present.) Hard over with the rudder to pass between the other row of berths, then heave up the genoa which, with my excess weight, went up easily without need of a winch handle. A quick chase up deck when its sheet snagged. Waving to friends on other yachts then into the river, pursued by the Yarmouth Ferry and the TV crowd, trying to take instructions from one while not being sucked into the other.

  Then my own request to Keith, the last for 329 days: ‘Phone Mom and Dad and say I’m on TV tonight.’ Their shouts of ‘Good luck’, before they turned back to their safe homes.

  Chapter Six

  Feeling the old Freedom

  Lymington – South Atlantic

  July – September 1980

  Solitaire cleared Lymington River into a surprisingly empty Solent and headed for the Needles. Her new self-steering gear had its bright red wind vane set for the first time, already proving it was more sensitive than its predecessor. The trailing log’s spinner was put over the side, registering more miles to add to the 34,000 already recorded. Our new mainsail was hauled up, the reefing ropes passing through eyes on the leech of the sail then back through the boom to a block on the foot of the mast, thence to a winch in the cockpit, all designed to make reefing easy. It snagged but needed only a small adjustment. Nevertheless I was glad I hadn’t tried to be too clever while friends were around. With the main up more contrasts: pure white against patched grey.

  The lines that had tied Solitaire to shore now secured me to her, as a priority on leaving harbour was to run them from cleats in the stern along the deck to a bollard in the bow. In the old days I would step into the cockpit and secure my lifeline, but for this trip I had taken another precaution: a large U-bolt had been put within reach of the main hatch so that I could fasten on to this in rough weather before leaving the cabin.

  Approaching Hurst Castle there was time to nip below to check for leaks, grab my wet weather gear and get back to the cockpit with a few minutes to relax and catch my breath. Broad reaching up the Needles Channel to the Fairway buoy, I eased Solitaire onto 254° by adjusting the self-steering vane and hauling in the sails as we came onto a spanking reach, day and wind both perfect. I should have stopped the motor and used the large genoa but decided to leave well alone. Maybe I was lazy, but the number one genoa would have restricted my forward vision, and anyway it was best kept for future use. There was a good reason for running the engine: I needed a fully-charged battery to power my navigation lights and give me a better chance of dodging shipping. But the main reason was to reach the open sea. Already I was feeling the old freedom and no longer responsible to the laws of the land. There were no courts of law out here, and if I made mistakes they would be mine with no one else to sit in judgement. Just God, Solitaire and me.

  Every voyage consists of steps. A year before, when I believed we would be making the voyage fairly well equipped, there had been only two: England to Cape Horn, then an easy step home. Now the steps had become more of a drunken stagger to provide for possible trouble. First, clear the English Channel, then cross the Equator to Ascension Island where, if the rigging broke, the Americans would help. On to Cape Town and the Royal Cape Yacht Club where I could carry out repairs. In Australia, if I had to, I could buy more food and still round Cape Horn. The Falkland Islands, even if I arrived under jury-rig, would allow me to fix up something to get us home. All vague thoughts. Privately I intended sailing around Cape Horn non-stop even if I finished up eating stewed boots and barnacles. Solitaire might have to give up if the rigging broke, but as long as she kept going I would not be the first to throw in the towel. Not that she had any thoughts of giving up: romping along, throwing spray in all directions, alive for the first time in months, her joy was infectious.

  I started to straighten up the cabin. The two bunks looked like a double bed, singles joined by the water containers, so I completed the picture by spreading my sleeping bags across them. At the back of the containers was about a yard-and-a-half of floor space, enough for a bit of disco dancing but a tango was surely out. For a moment I was taken back to South Africa and my first thoughts about sailing when I had told people I wanted a boat to carry me, my suitcase and a set of golf clubs around the world, although then I had not meant non-stop. Here I was setting up another record: the first round-the-world non-stop yachtsman to carry golf clubs.

  Back in the cockpit with tea and cake I watched a coastal steamer change direction to head towards us, the crew lining the decks and cheering. After waving back with the tattered remains of my red ensign I decided to stow it away and bring it out only for important occasions. The day stayed warm and pleasant, the land standing out clearly but in my wet weather gear I became tired, hot and happy, and to the slow beat of Solitaire’s motor drifted in and out of sleep. By early afternoon we were 6 miles south of Portland Bill, 34 miles in five hours, not bad going considering the weighty stores on board. Start Point light came in view at 12.10 Thursday morning, July 10th, our last view of England for nearly 11 months.

  In the first 24 hours we knocked off 125 miles en route to Ushant; it was 75 miles away and took another 12 hours. At first I thought our navigation had been sp
ot on. I had intended passing no closer than 5 miles then to bring Solitaire hard on the wind to cut through the shipping lanes out into the Atlantic before coming onto our southerly course, but the land drew closer and buildings, including the lighthouse, came into sight. Blast, I thought, annoyed with myself. This was downright lazy sailing, dozing when one should have been taking RDF bearings. Ushant was sighted at 9.15pm that Thursday, 36 hours out of Lymington, the last land I would see for 326 days. As darkness fell, coded flashing lights from the lighthouse slowly worked their way to Solitaire’s stern, then became just a loom on the clouds as man-made lights disappeared, to be replaced by nature’s.

  Heavy shipping cut off our retreat from the possible storms in Biscay to the open Atlantic, their steady stream of lights making our sail more like a quick dash across a motorway than a safe withdrawal from danger. A ledge runs around the Bay of Biscay and when seas hit it terrifying waves can build up. The quickest way to get off this ledge was to cut straight across. With constant winds from the present westerly direction we would have them just forward of the mast, making for a fast passage, but it meant staying inside the shipping lanes. Even so I could still snatch a few hours’ sleep in reasonable safety. I set Solitaire’s self-steering to head us 50 miles west of Cape Finisterre, 360 miles across the Bay, and slowly the lights of the ocean-going ships dropped below the horizon. After seeing nothing for an hour I went below to eat, and then to lie on my bunk to think of family and friends.