The Mudskipper Cup

by Christopher Cummings

  “Like when we used to mud ski?” Graham asked. He remembered how a couple of years before they had propelled themselves around the mud flats at low tide, kneeling on planks and using their hands as paddles.

  “Yes,” Peter said. He sat on the starboard quarterdeck and washed off as much mud as he could, then swung his feet inboard. He took hold of the mainsheet and hauled it in till the sail was drawing on the gentle breeze. Then he took hold of the starboard tiller and adjusted the steering.

  “OK start pushing.”

  They began and at once made rapid progress. After a dozen paces they felt her unstick and lift to the tiny ripples which passed for waves.

  “OK, climb aboard. Roger, set the jib.”

  They slithered aboard, splattering the decks and hull with gobbets of mud.

  “Starboard side. We will do a starboard tack,” Peter ordered.

  Graham had no specific job so he just sat on the break of the focsle. He felt really pleased. The Old Cat was afloat! And she was slipping along nicely!

  “Lovely!” he cried. “Smooth as silk!”

  They grinned at each other. Graham admired the spreading bow wave, the gurgle of water at her bows and the inter-twining tumble where the two bow-waves met between the hulls. He began scraping off mud and washing his trousers and feet.

  “I like this!” Roger exclaimed. “She doesn’t feel like she is going to flip over at any moment.”

  Graham agreed. The Cat felt as steady as a rock. He stood up and stepped across to the other hull and checked all the standing rigging.

  Peter looked up at the sails. “It should take one hell of a gust of wind; and poor seamanship on our part to tip her over,” he said.

  “What if she does?” Roger asked. He was squatting on the focsle.

  “We don’t let her. If the wind gets so strong that the upwind hull lifts out of the water Max eases the mainsheet to take some of the pressure off; or I ease the helm to point her more into the wind.”

  “Yes, but what if we get caught by surprise and she does tip over?” Roger persisted.

  “Same as for a single hull, only a lot harder,” Peter replied. “In any case, whatever happens stay with the boat. She won’t sink.”

  “That’s what they said about the Titanic,” Max said.

  Graham ignored this. He wasn’t worried and he was very happy. He walked around testing all the knots. The rigging creaked and groaned as it moved. ‘Just like a real sailing ship,’ he thought. He stood holding a shroud, enjoying the breeze on his face. The hum of the wind in the rigging and feel the ropes vibrating made him fancy that the Old Cat was a live thing, purring with the joy of being afloat again.

  Graham fished out a ball of thin string and tied short lengths to the shrouds and backstays, snipping them off with his knife.

  “What are they for?” Max asked.

  “To help Pete estimate the wind direction,” Graham replied. “It’s only the Apparent Wind, but it helps.”

  “Apparent Wind?”

  “Yes. The real wind direction is different. You can judge it by the waves. They are at right angles to it. That’s the True Wind. But as we go forward we induce our own wind, the same as when you run in still air. The Apparent Wind is between the two as we can never sail directly upwind.”

  Max nodded and sniffed. Peter then told them to stand by to come about. Graham was amazed at how far they had come. Already they were several hundred metres out. The girls were only specks on the beach and the dark green wall of mangroves to port had receded to give them plenty of room to manoeuvre.

  As far as he could see they were the only boat on that part of the inlet. There was a ferry going down the main shipping channel on its way to Green Island or Fitzroy Island and a dinghy out off Bessie Point but they had several miles of open water to practice on.

  The Cat came around so smoothly, and with so little drama, that they all whooped with delight. They all scrambled easily from one hull to the other and even when they were all seated on one she had fifteen centimetres of freeboard and still trimmed fairly well.

  She gybed just as sweetly.

  “This is really good!” Graham cried, remembering what a combination of tension and controlled panic gybing the skiff had been.

  “Be a bit different in a strong wind,” Peter cautioned. He was smiling and began to sing. Graham joined in: ‘Shenandoah’, which their long suffering music teacher had drummed into them the year before.

  “...You rolling rivaaah!”

  The Cat slipped sweetly along. They tried her on all points of sailing and were delighted. Graham was even more content in that she had deck space to move around in and had lockers to stow things in. He could imagine her doing a real voyage. She felt strong and safe.

  Peter kept an eye on the time and after two hours had them back near the beach. By then the tide was well on the ebb and they slid to a standstill at least fifty-metres out. This produced their first crisis. The boat stopped but the wind kept its pressure on the sails. The mast and rigging began to creak and groan.

  “Let the sheets fly!” Peter cried.

  They did. The jib began to flap noisily but the mainsail swung out until the boom was stopped almost at right angles by the starboard backstay: Graham heard the mast groaning and jumped up in alarm, looking at the rigging.

  “Lower the mainsail. Quick!” Peter called. “Roger! Lower the jib!”

  Graham sprang to the knot. He had to haul down with all his strength on the vibrating halyard before he could loosen it. When it was free he let it go and the sail came down with a rush, flapping noisily. He began to grab at it.

  “Hey! Look out!” Max cried angrily. The boom had begun to swing.

  “Help me! Roll the sail up,” Graham cried.

  “There’s nothing to tie it with,” Max shouted. With difficulty they got the sails under control.

  “OK. Roger and Max keep holding the sail. Graham, hop off and help me push her in.”

  Reluctantly Graham did so. They skimmed in for twenty-metres before the mud stopped them. Roger and Max had to hop off as well. It took ten-minutes of slipping and floundering to get the Cat back onto the beach. By then all four were plastered with mud as were the hulls of the Cat and most of her fittings. Even the sails were spattered.

  Kylie put her hands top her mouth. “Heavens! You boys are a sight!” she cried. “Mum will have a fit when she sees how dirty you are Graham.”

  “His mum will have a fit! What about mine,” Roger groaned.

  “We need to organise this better,” Peter said. “It is going to be an ongoing problem. First let’s see if we can wash the hull before we put her back on the trailer.”

  Margaret came and stood beside Graham. “How was it?” she asked.

  “Wonderful! Really great!” Graham cried. He felt so happy he almost hugged her.

  “Don’t you dare!” squealed Margaret delightedly as Graham put out his muddy arms. She ran back behind Kylie, eyes shining.

  Graham and Peter floundered back and forth through the mud with the ice-cream buckets full of water to wash the hull. They then stood her on her side to drain the muddy water sloshing in the hulls.

  “Don’t! You’ll ruin the paintwork,” Kylie cried. “Bail it out and mop up the last bit.”

  The boys then tried to clean themselves, not very successfully.

  “We need a hose,” Peter said. “Come on, let’s go home.”

  They carried the boat up to the trailer and wheeled it back to Peter’s. As they pulled it in the gate they heard a shriek of dismay from upstairs. Mrs Bronsky appeared on the front steps.

  “Stop! Don’t you dare bring that mud into the yard!”

  “But Mum! We need to wash everything,” Peter replied.

  “I can see that, you grubby children. Wash it on the driveway so it goes down the gutter. Don’t get it all over the lawn. It’s salty and will kill the grass,” Mrs Bronsky snapped.

  They all felt foolish. They hadn’t thought of that. So they
stood on the concrete driveway and proceeded to carefully wash themselves, and what seemed like every other item they had taken.

  It took over half an hour. Then it took another fifteen minutes to dismantle the rigging and hang the sails up. Graham inspected them critically and fingered several small tears. The Cat was then wheeled into her shed and they sat on the back lawn to have afternoon tea. They were tired but happy.

  “When do we practise again?” Graham asked.

  “If we have a race on Friday afternoon we need all the practise we can get,” Peter replied.

  “Tomorrow then?” Graham asked eagerly.

  Peter nodded. “Yes. For sure. What about you others?”

  So it was agreed. An early start to launch on the morning tide, practise all morning, have lunch afloat; then come in on the afternoon tide. The girls admitted they would not be over as they were also practising the next day.

  CHAPTER 20

  ‘ALL GOOD PRACTICE’

  The sun was just climbing over the horizon as the four boys carried the Cat down to the water the next morning. The sea was like a silver mirror with just a few shadows to indicate movement. Thin wavelets lapped the sand with a gentle ‘swoosh’.

  “There’s no bloody wind!” Max grumbled.

  “Soon will be,” Peter replied. “As the sun gets up. We can paddle out.” He indicated four single ended canoe paddles.

  This time all discarded their footwear before attempting to launch the Cat. The precaution was unnecessary as the tide was higher and they got her afloat almost at once and could step aboard off sand. Graham decided to leave his shoes off and Max hadn’t worn any anyway.

  They quickly rigged the Cat and tested her gear. Then they pushed off, one sitting in each quarter with a paddle. Graham sat in the bows opposite Roger. He felt very happy and enjoyed the physical exercise of paddling. Max didn’t and grumbled all the time.

  A couple of hundred metres out the boys stowed the paddles in the hulls and sat waiting for the wind. Several times large fish leapt clear to land with a ‘plop’. A distant yacht motored down channel. Several fisherman’s dinghies dotted the inlet.

  The Cairns Harbour is a large semi-circle, open to the sea to the North East. It is about two nautical miles across in each direction. The northern shore is fringed by a belt of mangrove swamps, beyond which lay the airport. To the West and South West lay the Esplanade with the city behind it. Jungle covered mountains provide a picturesque backdrop. To the South, Trinity Inlet empties into the bay. The city wharves are on the West side of the upper inlet, with mangroves on the East side. Further east are more jungle covered mountains in a jumble of ridges which lead to False Cape. These shelter the bay from the prevailing South-East Trade winds.

  Graham sat and looked around. He loved it all. Happily he sniffed, enjoying the smell of the fresh sea air. His eyes roamed the distant mountains.

  “I can see Walsh’s Pyramid,” he said, pointing to a triangular mountain twenty-five kilometres to the south. They all looked, then reminisced about the day when their Scout troop had climbed it the year before.

  Graham then pointed west. “What’s that mountain I wonder?” he asked. “That big rocky knob thing on the second range of mountains back?”

  “That’s the Lamb Range,” Peter replied. “The big rock’s got a funny name. Starts with a K.”

  “We must climb it one day,” Graham said. Suddenly he was filled with the desire to do another hike. He sat remembering the one they had done the previous month to Kuranda.

  “Here comes some wind,” Peter warned.

  A gentle catspaw ruffled the surface.

  “Wind!” Max sneered. But it was enough to fill their sails and start them slowly moving. The day’s practice had begun.

  They began to creep across the water. The Cat slid along with barely a ripple.

  “This is pathetic!” Max snorted. “I could swim faster than this!”

  “Bull!” Roger replied.

  “Could so!” Max retorted. Before any of them realised what he was doing Max had dived over the side. Graham wasn’t looking and was startled by the splash. He spun round and gaped at the sight of Max swimming alongside.

  Peter cried out in alarm. “Max you silly bugger! Get back aboard before you get bitten by something.” He snatched at the mainsheet which Max had looped around the cross-beam and undid it. The Cat slowed and turned into the wind.

  Max splashed alongside and hauled himself aboard, spluttering and dripping. He laughed. “Whew! That was colder than I expected.”

  “You mad bastard! Don’t do that again,” Peter snapped.

  They got under way again and began a series of tacks across the harbour. Graham stood to check a tear in the sail which he thought was larger than the day before. Then he checked the tension of the shrouds.

  Peter cried, “Stand by to come about! Ready! About!” Graham hopped nimbly across, ducking under the boom.

  Splash!

  For a moment Graham thought it was Max. Then he realised it was Roger. He had slipped and fallen between the hulls. Even as Graham looked Roger surfaced - to be struck on the head by the third cross-beam. He went down and bumped under the stern cross-beam. Peter grabbed at him and missed. “Heave to! That means let the bloody sail run loose Max!” Peter yelled.

  Graham looked around for a rope to throw. There was one but it was buried under a pile of paddles, sandshoes, socks and a lifejacket and bailer. By the time he had dug it out Roger had swum to them and was hauled aboard.

  “We need a lifebuoy on a line,” Graham said as he looped the rope ready.

  “There’s one at home somewhere,” Peter said.

  “Grandad’s?” Max asked.

  “Yes. Probably the one he used when the Lusitania was torpedoed. Now haul in.”

  Graham let them sail the Cat while he got to work and tidied up. He stowed all the loose items neatly in the lockers, then tied the safety rope to the aft cross-beam and placed the line, neatly coiled, at Peter’s feet.

  As he straightened up he noticed an aluminium dinghy powered by an outboard heading to cross their bows. It was coming from up the Inlet and had three people in it. He was about to dismiss them as fishermen, when he noticed a familiar face.

  Burford! And with him were Harvey and Macnamara. Graham turned his head away and moved behind the mainsail but was too late. They had seen him. The ‘tinnie’ turned towards them and Burford’s voice reached him.

  “There’s that sook Kirk! Don’t hide Kirk, you gutless turd! We can see you!”

  The tinnie zoomed past close astern and the gang jeered and made obscene gestures. The wash of their wake burst in a welter of foam on the transoms and between the hulls. This caused hoots of laughter from the trio.

  For a moment Graham feared they would circle and annoy them but to his relief he saw the tinnie resume its previous course heading for Ellie Point. He noted a jumble of fishing rods and crab pots in the boat.

  “Don’t you have to have a licence to drive a power boat?” Graham asked.

  “Yes. But maybe they have one,” Peter replied.

  “But they’re only at school.”

  “So? I think sixteen is the age and I know the people in Year Twelve who do Marine Studies do that as part of their course,” Peter replied.

  Graham pulled a face as he watched his enemies dwindling into the distance. They probably did Marine Studies. They were certainly keen fishermen.

  The boys resumed their practice, beating back and forth until they reached the main Channel Beacon near the Marina. It was 8am by then and the breeze had picked up so that a slight chop had developed. This gave them enough wind to skim nicely along.

  “Where to now?” Roger asked.

  “Right up the Inlet to Smiths Creek,” Graham suggested.

  “Righto! Ready - About!”

  They spent the next hour beating up the Inlet, crossing and recrossing the channel. They had to avoid several small boats and a trawler on its way upstream but by now
they were becoming familiar with the Cat and had no problems.

  The wind continued to increase in strength. With a fetch the whole length of the Inlet it built up a fair lop and they began to buffet into this. The Old Cat started to throw up spray. Graham anxiously checked all the rigging and got to work with the bailer as more water came in board.

  There was a moment of alarm when the bow failed to rise and green water cascaded over the focsles and into the hulls, soaking Roger and Graham on the way. Graham cast a nervous glance to see how far to the nearest shore and was not reassured. It was at least a hundred metres of dark, deep, murky green water to the mangroves. With the tide still on the make they would be an insecure refuge. He began to bail furiously.

  More water came aboard on the next wave but not as much. Peter laughed and whooped with delight.

  “Relax Graham. She won’t sink, even if she fills right up,” he called.

  Graham kept bailing, ashamed that his fear had been so obvious. To his relief the third wave only threw a light drenching of spray on board. ‘The seventh wave!’ he thought, trying to tell himself it was just silly superstition. Even so he counted them as he bailed. But it wasn’t any bigger and he soon had the water cleared out. He stopped, panting for breath and wiped spray from his eyes.

  Then another big wave burst on board. He began to bail frantically as water filled the hulls almost to the brim. Peter’s response was to turn beam on and order Max to harden the sheet. Graham was in the windward hull and could feel the Cat was sluggish but she picked up speed, rode up the next wave and her windward hull rose clear of the water. He cried out in fright.

  “Ease the sheet a bit Max,” Peter ordered.

  For a second it seemed they would tip right over. But the manoeuvre worked. No more water came aboard and half of the water swilling in the hull poured out.

  When Graham had freed the windward hull he called on Peter to ease her down and scrambled across to the leeward hull. He started to empty it with rapid strokes. His arms began to tire and he found he was panting from the exertion.

  Suddenly he lost his grip on the bailer. He cried out as the white plastic container was left bobbing in their wake.