We slept, of course. We were beyond tired, exhausted.
We dozed and grunted and snored and scratched ourselves through our heavy oilskins. The others told me that I always snored.
"Maybe I do," I said. "I never hear myself."
"You're lucky," said Kate bitterly.
She was 19 years old at that time.
I was nearly 60.
We couldn't read, because there was no light. We couldn't talk, because there were people round us in their hammocks, trying to sleep, people on different watches, with different obligations and duties.
Also, I am not sure we had anything new left to say to each other by that time. We had been at sea continuously for more than thirty days.
Suddenly I was called. I had to go up there, onto the deck. Something had gone wrong, one of my watchmates had been hurt - that's what I heard - I had to go up there. In a hurry, in an emergency - into sixty or seventy knots of wind, a big Southern Ocean storm, into a situation where the ship's officers wouldn't let all of the watch on deck simultaneously because it was too dangerous to be up there.
An interesting moment.
I went up onto the deck that night like a Spanish bull entering the arena, lumbering stupidly, looking side to side to find out what was necessary, to see what was happening. I was very determined and I thought it was an emergency. I was charged up.
The sight of the ocean made me sensible, made me consider.
A big storm at sea changes everything - the air fills with spume and spray - the shape of the waves changes - the way the boat moves is so sensational, so elemental, that you can't compare it with anything you've ever seen or experienced before. Big storms at sea remind you that you are very ordinary and extremely unimportant and small - a scrap of dust in a very large universe - you go out there on deck wanting to fight, wanting to confront the danger and do something and take control, but that is not how it works ........ a big storm at sea is something else.
You have to accept it.
The waves coming at us with the wind were immense - forty or more feet between peak and trough. Some of them were breaking beside us (which is when they get most dangerous). The whole world was grey and bitter and intense and severe and immensely beautiful. I will never forget how spectacularly beautiful it was. You could see nothing ahead, which didn't matter. We were several thousand miles from a shipping lane or anywhere you would expect to encounter a vessel. We were posting a lookout (just one, instead of the usual two) almost as a technicality. That night, we were on our own with the weather, with the storm.
It was, as I said, elemental.
That night, I went up and took over the helm in a hurry. JP had been steering and he had been hurt when his helm-mate had lost control for a minute. JP had been thrown right over the helm , the wheel, and off it. He was OK - shaken - but OK. The wheel on Endeavour is almost six foot in diameter. It had kicked back so savagely that JP had been thrown the whole way across the deck.
We were hove to, head to wind, trying not to go anywhere.
In that situation, all the helmsmen have to do is to point the ship's head against the direction of the sails. The ship is made to contradict herself, the rudder taking her in one direction the sails in another, which means she will stay locked head to wind, just drifting backwards. It should have been easy but that was a big, big storm, that night. Force Eleven, for anyone who know the Beaufort scale – that’s impressive, memorable. Just this side of a hurricane. About seventy knots of wind across the deck. Very dangerous indeed.
We were somewhere off the Western side of Chile, pitching through thirty or forty feet fore and aft, rolling at least 100 degrees from side to side. The cannons in the waist of the ship, the centre, were dipping in the water and nobody could walk down there even with the safety lines rigged - there was too much water coming on board. The lookout wasn't on the bow - he or she had to be up on the quarterdeck and it was still pretty wet and dangerous up there. You often had to duck.
In those conditions, the waves are grey and bright and white and utterly unpredictable; you can never tell which wave is going to come on board or when; and the spray on top of them will blow off , blow around all over the place; and it is pitch-black night as well. You couldn't see much at all, even the people beside you.
I could understand why the ship's officers wouldn't let the whole of the watch up on deck that night. The conditions were so fierce and thick that you could lose somebody over the side and not even realize they had gone until you called the roll at the end of the watch.
In the 36 hours it continued, that storm carried us nearly 200 miles to the North in exactly the direction we did not want to go. But we were lucky; none of the storms we encountered went on for more than 48 hours and, in that area, storms can go on for weeks rather than hours.
Then, once the storm had abated, we had to claw back down towards the Horn and out from the Chilean coast so that we wouldn't get embayed, pinned against that rocky coast by the prevailing wind and currents.
An old-fashioned square rigger like Endeavour simply will not sail upwind - it may manage to sail across the wind in reasonable conditions but, in a big wind the leeway is stupendous. The ship goes sideways very fast, probably into trouble.
If you get embayed there, pinned against the Chilean coast by the prevailing Westerlies, you are in danger even if you have big engines to help you.
We only had one useable engine, all the way across the Pacific from New Zealand, so we couldn't afford to get too close in to the coast.
An eighteenth or nineteenth century mariner, navigating just with a sextant and a compass, with no engines at all, needed to be very careful indeed if he approached Cape Horn from the West.
His ship was extremely vulnerable to navigational errors and it was almost impossible to know his position accurately a century or more before GPS became available.
When we reached Cape Horn, we had been 39 days out of sight of land and we had not seen the sun or any star for more than 18 days.
Also, I am not sure we had anything new left to say to each other by that time. We had been at sea continuously for more than thirty days.
Suddenly I was called. I had to go up there, onto the deck. Something had gone wrong, one of my watchmates had been hurt - that's what I heard - I had to go up there. In a hurry, in an emergency - into sixty or seventy knots of wind, a big Southern Ocean storm, into a situation where the ship's officers wouldn't let all of the watch on deck simultaneously because it was too dangerous to be up there.
An interesting moment.
I went up onto the deck that night like a Spanish bull entering the arena, lumbering stupidly, looking side to side to find out what was necessary, to see what was happening. I was very determined and I thought it was an emergency. I was charged up.
The sight of the ocean made me sensible, made me consider.
A big storm at sea changes everything - the air fills with spume and spray - the shape of the waves changes - the way the boat moves is so sensational, so elemental, that you can't compare it with anything you've ever seen or experienced before. Big storms at sea remind you that you are very ordinary and extremely unimportant and small - a scrap of dust in a very large universe - you go out there on deck wanting to fight, wanting to confront the danger and do something and take control, but that is not how it works ........ a big storm at sea is something else.
You have to accept it.
The waves coming at us with the wind were immense - forty or more feet between peak and trough. Some of them were breaking beside us (which is when they get most dangerous). The whole world was grey and bitter and intense and severe and immensely beautiful. I will never forget how spectacularly beautiful it was. You could see nothing ahead, which didn't matter. We were several thousand miles from a shipping lane or anywhere you would expect to encounter a vessel. We were posting a lookout (just one, instead of the usual two) almost as a technicality. That night, we were on our own with the weather, with the storm.
It was, as I said, elemental.
That night, I went up and took over the helm in a hurry. JP had been steering and he had been hurt when his helm-mate had lost control for a minute. JP had been thrown right over the helm , the wheel, and off it. He was OK - shaken - but OK. The wheel on Endeavour is almost six foot in diameter. It had kicked back so savagely that JP had been thrown the whole way across the deck.
We were hove to, head to wind, trying not to go anywhere.
In that situation, all the helmsmen have to do is to point the ship's head against the direction of the sails. The ship is made to contradict herself, the rudder taking her in one direction the sails in another, which means she will stay locked head to wind, just drifting backwards. It should have been easy but that was a big, big storm, that night. Force Eleven, for anyone who know the Beaufort scale – that’s impressive, memorable. Just this side of a hurricane. About seventy knots of wind across the deck. Very dangerous indeed.
We were somewhere off the Western side of Chile, pitching through thirty or forty feet fore and aft, rolling at least 100 degrees from side to side. The cannons in the waist of the ship, the centre, were dipping in the water and nobody could walk down there even with the safety lines rigged - there was too much water coming on board. The lookout wasn't on the bow - he or she had to be up on the quarterdeck and it was still pretty wet and dangerous up there. You often had to duck.
In those conditions, the waves are grey and bright and white and utterly unpredictable; you can never tell which wave is going to come on board or when; and the spray on top of them will blow off , blow around all over the place; and it is pitch-black night as well. You couldn't see much at all, even the people beside you.
I could understand why the ship's officers wouldn't let the whole of the watch up on deck that night. The conditions were so fierce and thick that you could lose somebody over the side and not even realize they had gone until you called the roll at the end of the watch.
In the 36 hours it continued, that storm carried us nearly 200 miles to the North in exactly the direction we did not want to go. But we were lucky; none of the storms we encountered went on for more than 48 hours and, in that area, storms can go on for weeks rather than hours.
Then, once the storm had abated, we had to claw back down towards the Horn and out from the Chilean coast so that we wouldn't get embayed, pinned against that rocky coast by the prevailing wind and currents.
An old-fashioned square rigger like Endeavour simply will not sail upwind - it may manage to sail across the wind in reasonable conditions but, in a big wind the leeway is stupendous. The ship goes sideways very fast, probably into trouble.
If you get embayed there, pinned against the Chilean coast by the prevailing Westerlies, you are in danger even if you have big engines to help you.
We only had one useable engine, all the way across the Pacific from New Zealand, so we couldn't afford to get too close in to the coast.
An eighteenth or nineteenth century mariner, navigating just with a sextant and a compass, with no engines at all, needed to be very careful indeed if he approached Cape Horn from the West.
His ship was extremely vulnerable to navigational errors and it was almost impossible to know his position accurately a century or more before GPS became available.
When we reached Cape Horn, we had been 39 days out of sight of land and we had not seen the sun or any star for more than 18 days.
No comments:
Post a Comment