Racundra's First Cruise

by Arthur Ransome

  At one o’clock we sighted a steamer astern, coming out of the Sound and going S. She passed us several miles to eastward, very much disquieting the Ancient, who had never really trusted our compass after we had had its natural errors adjusted at Helsingfors.

  “She’ll be setting her course straight, and with her leaving us to west like that, we shall be passing Runö on the wrong side and getting among those shoals.”

  I had a hard job to persuade him that the steamer might have her course and we might have ours and both of us be right. I showed him the English mine-chart, with its swept channel for big ships far to eastward, close by Kynö Island, and explained that I wanted to keep well away from Kynö and its rocks and in the middle of the Gulf, so as to have a freer choice in case the wind should shift again. Also, the steamer’s course would actually be longer than our own. He professed himself satisfied, but was not, until 6.15 in the afternoon, when, while he and the Cook were below and I was at the tiller, I saw something on the starboard bow that could not be a ship, that was ... no ... yes, actually was Runö Lighthouse. The lighthouse bore S.W. by W. I could not keep the triumph out of my voice as I shouted down the companion-way “Runö in sight”; but that unbelieving Ancient, when he came hurriedly up, stared over the port bow the moment his head was above the level of the deck, showing clearly what he had expected.

  “Starboard bow,” said I, “and pretty broad.”

  “By gum, you were right!” said the Ancient, and the quarrel ended. More serious matters were on hand. Racundra was moving much too fast. The men of Runö had been right about the coming gale, but had expected it a day too soon, and, even if we continued at the pace we were now going, racing in a bath of foam, we should, I calculated, be on the bar of Dvina about one in the morning. Now, leading lights are delightful things to steer by, and in most circumstances a well-lit harbour is easier for a stranger by night than by day. But the entrance to the Dvina, child’s play in ordinary weather, is a most tricky business with northerly winds. I quote from the Baltic Pilot: “On the shoals which are steep to, there is a heavy sea during northerly gales, and great difficulty would be experienced in clearing them.” Further, there is a strong current across the entrance and also a current from the river, the total result being a thoroughly unpleasant bit of work for a little ship. On going out we had noticed an unlucky schooner which had failed to clear those shoals and had been flung ashore on the western side of the river mouth. Today, I knew that the current would be setting the other way, but I had no sort of wish to see Racundra swept on either side of the entrance to her home port at the end of her first cruise, and preferred to have daylight so as to be better able to judge the sea and the current and to decide in time whether to keep the sea or run in.

  Accordingly, we brought Racundra to the wind and reefed her – reefed her relentlessly. It is a well-known fact that, while running before it, you do not feel the wind. It was not until we stopped there, a dozen miles off Runö, and brought Racundra up to face it, that we knew how strong the wind had grown. We took in both the deep reefs in the mainsail, turning it into a thing scarcely bigger than an afternoon tea cloth, and then stripped her of her mizen. We left the staysail standing, arguing that it would not do much pulling with the wind aft, and yet would perhaps hold a little wind in the troughs of the waves, even if the shortened mainsail should be wholly becalmed. Further, it would be of extreme usefulness if from some unpleasing accident we should happen to broach to. When all was done, I set a new course, S. by E., to bring us to the head of the Gulf, when we should sight the Riga lights a little on our port bow. That would give us something in hand for dealing with the current. Rough and ready navigation, you experts say, but it worked out admirably in practice. We then settled down for the night.

  “Settled down” is perhaps not quite the phrase to use, for nothing could be very settled in such a sea as had got up. The Cook, for the first time on the whole voyage, was in a state of collapse, due partly to the fumes of the raw tobacco drying over the cabin lamp. The waves were so steep that the actual pitching of the ship, the lift and fall, not the rolling, was too much for the Primus gimbals. Nothing would stay on them. And Racundra seemed to be moving almost as fast as before we reefed her. The Ancient munched cheese, I swallowed raw eggs, and Racundra rushed along over a dark sea with breaking waves, the last of a stormy sunset in the west, on a green metallic patch of which we could just see the Runö Lighthouse and the topmost trees of the island. Behind us in the north were patches of starlight, which, as we watched them, were swept into blackness, and then everything went dark in a sudden torrent of rain. Then again were patches of starlight with huge clouds chasing small ones, and then a great mass that seemed suddenly to swell out till the whole sky was gone and the hailstones rattled on the decks.

  It was a weird, exciting night, but not a happy one, for we knew that the worst was before us, that we were running for a lee-shore, that any mistakes would be disastrous, and that instead of comfortably getting our difficulties behind us, we were approaching them with every yard of Racundra’s foaming path. I caught myself unashamedly regretting that we had tried this game so late in the autumn. “Especially during the autumn,” the words of that pessimist Baltic Pilot glowed dully before me, and I asked myself, half angrily, why on earth I had not been content to fish for pike in England and to leave the Baltic to better men. And then, as always, Racundra comforted me. She ran so steadily, steered so easily, was so much less flustered than her “master and owner” when, glancing back, he saw the horizon, apparently only a few yards off, rise astern like a white-topped mountain, up and up and up, and nearer and nearer, till it seemed that it must overwhelm her in its majestic rush. But Racundra kept quietly on her path, rose as the huge wave reached her, dropped down its mighty back, and was running still while the horizon heaved itself again behind her for another effort.

  Racundra, I say, comforted me. She seemed to have no doubt at all about what she could do or couldn’t, and I found myself slowly coming to share her confidence. I sat with the tiller wedged between my left arm and my body, the hands thrust each into the opposite sleeve of my oilskins, on account of the exceeding cold. The Ancient crouched half-way down the companion-way and disliked talking. At regular intervals we changed places, and he who was off duty sheltered in the companion-way and tried to smoke the raw tobacco of the Werder lighthouse-keeper, a kindly gift, but a poor substitute for cut plug.

  The lamps, of course, refused to burn, so we had the riding light in the companion-way and warmed our frozen hands on it when we left the tiller. As the night went on we began taking more and more frequent glances over the side with an electric torch on the foaming water, to see how fast Racundra was going. She was going much too fast. We began to feel a special hatred of the dark. It was as if someone had maliciously put the light out, and, with finger ready, was keeping it out for our annoyance. The night seemed unending. And then, at three o’clock, we saw unmistakably the glow of Riga lights on our port bow. That, of course, was just where they should have been, but we should have preferred to see them an hour or two later. Then they disappeared, leaving us to suppose that we were running into thick weather, when they would not be seen at all and we should be in worse case. Half an hour later we saw them again, and after that never wholly lost them. They are supposed to be visible twenty-five miles.

  We held on, with redoubled impatience, watching the eastern sky for the faintest promise of light. Imperceptibly, even to us watchers, there came a difference in the darkness. The horizon on the port side was farther away. On that side one could actually see the waves, and the water, that had been black as the night except for its white splashes, was now the colour of a pewter mug.

  Some time before that we had sighted the light-buoy ten miles out from Riga, and had had a pretty sharp demonstration of the strength of the current near the coast. We had, a little foolishly, made our course slightly more easterly on seeing the Riga high light. When we sighted the buoy, the Anci
ent was at the tiller. I asked him how it bore. “South by east.” He steered straight for it, keeping the boat’s nose on it whenever the waves let us see it. Before we reached it, I asked him again how it was bearing. He replied, “Southwest by west.” It is what is known in these parts as a howling-buoy, and announces its opinion of its uncomfortable position by a long-drawn cry, between a groan and a whistle, as it lifts and falls in the waves. As we passed it after thus learning what sort of a current we had to contend with, this melancholy noise expressed our own feelings so perfectly that we had no need for words.

  I decided to keep Racundra heading in such a way that a line between the howling-buoy’s flashlight and the light from Riga should be to east of us, and to abandon the idea of getting in the moment we should find ourselves unable to keep on the right side of this imaginary line. After half an hour’s rather anxious watching we were pretty well assured that we could do it, and when at last it grew light, just before we reached the second buoy, which is two miles out from the mouth of the river, we were confident of being able to stern the current and get in if it should not be reinforced by some particular malice of the waves. These, of course, were much steeper as we approached the bar, and we saw with some trepidation that three steamships were waiting outside, the pilot having evidently refused to come out during the night. Land was, of course, visible now alike to east and west. We could see Riga town and the white tower of the lighthouse, like a stick covered with hoar-frost in the grey, cold morning. Then there was the beacon on the eastern mole, and, as we came nearer, we saw the wrecked schooner that we had noticed on our way out and the furious white breakers storming the moles and charging angrily up the shores on either side of the entrance.

  Still, just as we passed the second buoy, with its green light already blinking palely in the new daylight, we saw smoke in the mouth of the river and then the pilot tug coming out. We saw her and lost her, saw her and lost her in the waves as we approached. We passed her close by as she went to meet the steamers. She was sometimes literally half out of the water, and then, smashing down into a meeting wave, ceased to be a black tug, but became a single splash, higher than her own funnel-top, like the splash of a huge shell hitting the water horizontally. From her we got some sort of idea of what Racundra must be looking like, though that stout little ship, running with the wind, was making much better weather of it than the tug. Racundra was steering easily, and took only a few slight splashes of water over her stern (I do verily believe that there is nothing to beat the sharp-ended Scandinavian stern for running in a seaway) as she raced one huge wave after another towards the river mouth. One mountain after another came up behind her, seemed for a moment to carry her upon its grinding, foaming crest, and left her to be carried forward by the next, while she, good little thing, was doing her best herself.

  “RACUNDRA” HAULED OUT.

  CLYDE COOKER, FITTED 1923.

  And now we were already in the narrow lane of spar-buoys leading over the bar. Could she keep in it? Why, certainly she could, though the rollers were now disturbed by ugly, pyramidal angry waves that rushed across them as if to beat her from her course. But Racundra, demure, determined, shouldered them good-temperedly aside and held on. Almost before we knew it we were across the bar and in the entrance, watching with open mouths the tiny boats of the fishermen, labouring with their nets in the huge swell that came in from the sea. A northerly storm brings the fish to the Dvina, and next day the market was full of big salmon, so that the fishermen were well rewarded for their work. But Racundra is a lucky little ship. The night before, another boat, bigger than she, had tried to make the entrance, had failed, and been smashed to pieces in a few minutes on the eastern side of the river mouth. This we learnt from the Customs officials who, while congratulating us on getting in, now set about making our home-coming unpleasant.

  Perhaps if we had been less tired and hungry their red-tape cobwebs, from which on going out we had been so happily excused, would not have annoyed us so much. And afterwards I felt inclined to forgive them, when I learnt that they had reason to believe that during the summer people had made use for smuggling of the privileges given by a yacht flag. Still, we were not smugglers, and, at the time, were very angry indeed. We had intended to sail straight up the river to be cleared in the Mühlgraben at the same Customs station where we had been cleared when outward bound. This, however, did not suit the officials at the Dvina mouth, and they behaved as if they had been told to make things difficult for little ships. They made us turn aside and anchor in the Winter Harbour. Then they nearly smashed our sides with a big Customs House tug. Then they made me row back to their office, and I was near being swamped in Racundra’s cockleshell dinghy after Racundra herself had carried me so well. Then they said that, after all, we might proceed directly to the Yacht Club with an exciseman in charge on board, and wait there until they had sent an official from Riga. I rowed back very sulkily to the Winter Harbour, where we had breakfast, serving out a tot of rum to the elderly man who was now our gaoler.

  Then, under the mainsail, we tacked out of the harbour and had a glorious run up the river, where were many sailing vessels, schooners, ketches and a fine barquentine, waiting for better weather and a favourable wind. We reached through the Mühlgraben past the little yellow Customs Office, past the now vacant berth where the Baltabor had been when we borrowed the lead, and carefully through the narrow channel into the Stint See. In smooth water and with the wind aft, Racundra slid easily homewards past the well-known landmarks, the old white boat high up on the eastern shore, the promontory of dark pine-trees on the western; and, at half past twelve on September 26th, rounded into the little sheltered harbour where, five weeks earlier, the dallying carpenters had been expelled from her and she had taken in stores before starting on her cruise.

  Three hours later a Customs officer and a policeman arrived, and (crowning idiocy) they were the very same men who had passed us out, and had now had to walk the whole way from the Mühlgraben here, when I had myself proposed to anchor at their door and be cleared on the spot. They were no less full of wrath than I, and, as our papers were in order and we had drunk and eaten and smoked everything on board and so had nothing to declare, formalities were quickly over, the ensign hauled down, and Racundra was officially at home to lay up for the winter.

  APPENDIX:

  A DESCRIPTION

  OF RACUNDRA

  “RACUNDRA” is nine metres over all – something under thirty feet long. She is three and a half metres in beam – nearly twelve feet. She draws three feet six inches without her centreboard, and seven feet six inches when the centreboard is lowered. Her enormous beam is balanced by her shallowness, and though for a yacht it seems excessive, thoroughly justified itself in her comfort and stiffness. She has a staysail, mainsail and mizen, and for special occasions a storm staysail, a balloon staysail, a small squaresail (much too small), a trysail and a mizen staysail. She could easily carry a very much greater area of canvas, but, for convenience in single-handed sailing, she has no bowsprit, and the end of the mizen boom can be reached from the deck.

  She is very heavily built and carries no inside ballast. Her centreboard is of oak. She has a three-and-a-half ton iron keel, so broad that she will rest comfortably upon it when taking the mud, and deep enough to enable us to do without the centreboard altogether except when squeezing her up against the wind. Give her a point or two free and a good wind and her drift, though more than that of a deep-keel yacht, is much less than that of the coasting schooners common in the Baltic. With the centreboard down she is extremely handy, and proved herself so by coming successfully through the narrow Nukke Channel with the wind in her face, a feat which the local vessels do not attempt.

  But the chief glory of Racundra is her cabin. The local yachtsmen accustomed to the slim figures of racing boats, jeered at Racundra’s beam and weight, but one and all, when they came aboard her ducked through the companion-way and stood up again inside that spacious cabin, agreed
that there was something to be said for such a boat. And as for their wives, they said frankly that such a cabin made a boat worth having, and their own boats, which had seemed comfortable enough hitherto, turned into mere uncomfortable rabbit-hutches. Racundra’s cabin is a place where a man can live and work as comfortably and twice as pleasantly as in any room ashore. I lived in it for two months on end, and, if this were a temperate climate, and the harbour were not a solid block of ice in winter, so that all yachts are hauled out and kept in a shed for half the year, I should be living in it still. Not only can one stand up in Racundra’s cabin, but one can walk about there, and that without interfering with anyone who may be sitting at the writing-table, which is a yard square. In the middle of the cabin is a folding table, four feet by three, supported by the centreboard-case; and so broad is the floor that you can sit at that table and never find the case in the way of your toes. The bunks are wider than is usual, yet behind and above each bunk are two deep cupboards, with between them a deep open space divided by a shelf, used on the port side for books and on the starboard side for crockery. Under the bunks is storage for bottles. Under the flooring on the wide flat keel is storage for condensed milk and tinned food. Behind the bunks, between them and the planking, below the cupboards and bookshelves, is further storage room.

  Racundra was designed as a boat in which it should be possible to work, and, as a floating study or office, I think it would be difficult to improve upon her. The writing-table is forward of the port bunk, and a Lettish workman made me an admirable little three-legged stool, which, when the ship is under way, stows under the table. Above and behind the ample field of the table is a deep cupboard and a bookcase, of a height to take the Nautical Almanac, the Admiralty Pilots, Dixon Kemp and Norie’s inevitable Epitome and Tables. Another long shelf is to be put up along the bulkhead that divides the cabin from the forecastle. Under the shelf for nautical books is a shallow drawer where I keep a set of pocket tools, nails, screws and such things. Under the writing-table is a big chart drawer, where I keep the charts immediately in use, writing and drawing materials, parallel rulers, protractors, surveying compass, stopwatch and other small gear. By the side of this is a long narrow drawer, used for odds and ends, and underneath that is a special cupboard made to take my portable typewriter.