Solitaire Spirit: Three Times Around the World Single-Handed (29 page)

I started to pick up Perth radio station, including their weather forecasts, but they gave little help. Their temperature was in the mid-60s, whereas ours dropped as
Solitaire
was about to enter the Roaring Forties again.

Then we began to pass through areas sown with nine per cent gales on the chart. They were right about the storms if not about their direction (as when we were about to round the Cape of Good Hope), for we had gale force winds from the wrong direction, this time the south-east, at the wrong time.

We were still about 360 miles from Cape Leeuwin, which lay to our north-east. For the last three days we had sailed in rain without sun sights, relying on dead reckoning. At one time I thought the wind was veering and reduced to storm jib and headed directly towards Cape Leeuwin, the best course
Solitaire
could hold. It was a bad storm and we took on a good deal of water from starboard. The cockpit started filling again for the first time since leaving South African waters. There was no panic as only the odd wave broke over us and it was far from freezing. Indeed, on deck I did not even bother to wear sea boots. It was more a case of annoyance than fear.

Weeks earlier I had traced a course to sail under Australia, to
re-enter the Forties, and since the middle of the Indian Ocean we had made good this track. Now, at the last minute, we were being pushed north towards land. After two days the storm dropped and we were becalmed 250 miles below the Australian coast with 80 miles to go before I could open my Cape Leeuwin parcel.

Week 21 started with a good heart, Force 2 to 3 winds coming back from the north-west. A warm day with a flat sea – ideal for fibreglassing the cockpit lockers and the bottom board in the main hatch. It was a job I had put off for a variety of reasons. The first and deciding factor was that all across the Indian Ocean I had only to pump out the bilges once or twice in good weather, perhaps three or four times in storms. When I had glassed-in the rear locker permanently it would be difficult to open the exhaust seacock. True, it could be reached from inside the boat, but only with a tight squeeze and wasted time.

The main locker that ran down the side of the cockpit was immediately below where the bilge pump was fitted. To clean the pump the locker cover had to be removed in order to hold a spanner on the inside nuts and turn the screws on the outside at the same time. The pump had jammed often – even a piece of matchstick would do the trick! It could be serviced through a small door by the engine compartment but then you had to clamp vice grips onto the nuts and make your way back to the cockpit, with screwdriver, at least three times. Not something I wanted to try on a roller-coaster. I was thankful it had not jammed during the Cape of Good Hope storm. The hatch bottom board could have been screwed in place and then fibreglassed. With a following sea both boards had to be left in place but one of my pleasures was that on a good day I could remove the two boards and watch the birds perform – in fresh air.

On Thursday, November 27th, I started to turn
Solitaire
into a submarine by spending the day fibreglassing-in the cockpit locker. In future it would be hard to repair the bilge pump, but with the mouth of the bigger in-taker of seawater closed there would be less cause to use it.

At 1am GMT that Friday we were scheduled to be due south of Cape Leeuwin in 38°39´S, 260 miles below the cape and 81 miles above the Roaring Forties. 12,656 miles and 142 days out of Lymington: time to open my next parcel and enjoy a special treat of steak and kidney pie, peas and powdered potato. My friend's letter was ceremoniously pinned above the chart table, replacing the birthday card, which went into the ship's log. The final entry in the log that day read: ‘Rome, Annegret. Thank you – God bless.'

Solitaire
now dropped south to sail under our next cape, off Tasmania. I wanted to pass approximately 120 miles below the island at latitude 46°S, putting us 360 miles into the Roaring Forties. If yachtsmen had been surprised to see
Solitaire
rounding the Cape of Good Hope on a piece of writing paper they would have been even more confused to see her sailing past a red ink drawing of Australia set in the middle of the Indian Ocean!

My pilot charts were unsuitable for navigation, as a notice at the top of each stated, and a further few words stopped my putting too much trust in them: ‘Founded upon the researches made in the early part of the 19th century by Matthew Fontaine Maury, while serving as a lieutenant in the United States Navy.' I felt I owed Matthew an apology for thinking he was a Member of Parliament. I must have had him turning in his grave even if he had been buried for a century or more.

Using such charts is like playing a game of chess with a crooked gambler while blindfolded. They are made up of little squares similar to those on a chessboard, each square containing the percentage of gales and calms, and the force and direction of winds to be expected. Although you know full well there's not a hope in hell of winning the game it's the only one in town to play, jumping from square to square trying to avoid the storms and areas of calm. We started to pick up local radio stations and became part of small communities, sharing their pleasures and tragedies. We sneaked into towns like ghosts, unheard and unseen, and leaving without the occupants ever knowing that we had visited.

Sunday, November 30th
.
No sights, wind increased last night and moved to south bloody east, right on our course. Finished up with the storm jib and three reefs in the main, slamming into rough seas. Albany Radio, 300 miles to the north, reported winds of 30–40 knots but at sea the gusts are much higher than that. A man and a woman have been swept off a yacht and lost during a race from Perth.
Solitaire
and I felt their sorrow but our bowed heads went unnoticed.

On the morning of Tuesday, December 2nd, we had our first visitor. People often ask me how I keep my mind occupied at sea. ‘Do you talk to yourself? What is there to think about?' In fact mind and brain work harder as a storm can present a dozen problems at once. Even a small incident can set you thinking for days. Ideas shoot in all directions like an egg splattering on concrete. On this particular morning I was reading in my bunk when there was a crash at the top of the mast, followed by a squawking and clattering as something fell inside the rigging. The largest and most confused albatross I had ever seen filled the cockpit. We eyed one another cautiously until I realised the bird's wing was caught in the mainsheet.

‘Me friend,' I said as I released it. Then I remembered that Christmas was only 23 days away and this bird was ten times larger than any turkey I had ever seen. But there was no way I could kill it. In any case, as every seaman knows, it is bad luck to kill an albatross, and seamen have starved rather than harm one feather of their heads. The creatures of the sea were part of my family. We lived and died together. They entertained me with their beauty and grace. There was nothing on God's earth that would make me kill this bird and eat it. But if it was injured I could make a lead for it and turn it into a pet, taking it for walkies around the deck every morning. Should it die of its injuries I could then eat it for there's nothing in the rules that says you can't eat an albatross that dies from natural causes. Suddenly I became aware how lovely this bird was, with its half-frightened eyes and panting chest. I remembered then how many months it was since I had last seen, let alone spoken
to, a woman. If it was bad luck to kill an albatross what would happen if you merely tried to seduce one? Was it a criminal offence? I could see the headline, ‘Round-the-world yachtsman accused of screwing albatross'. I would make millions. Newspapers would queue up to buy my story and I might even be able to afford some decent charts. This line of thinking came to an abrupt end when I realised that I hadn't the foggiest idea whether this particular albatross was male or female. A seducer of birds, maybe, gay never.

I went to get a piece of rope so that I could prevent it hurting itself further but he must have misunderstood my intentions and shot over the stern like Concorde. As I watched him circling over
Solitaire
I noticed the yellow superstructure of a ship dropping below the horizon, my first sighting since leaving the Atlantic.

Week 21 saw off 596 miles, my Christmas dinner and what might have turned out to be a long and lasting friendship.

Week 22 went by with old Matthew the crooked gambler up to his tricks. We logged 590 miles through storms where there were supposed to be no storms and calms that should not have been there either. The former did not worry me but the latter did as we were making less than 600 miles a week in areas noted for their constant following winds and where I anticipated covering between 700 and 800 miles.

Week 22 started with
Solitaire
entering the Roaring Forties and ended 240 miles deep into them in latitude 44°S. With a number two genoa we could have made more use of favourable winds. Instead we were running out of time and the voyage was taking much too long. Week 22 ended on December 10th, after five months at sea. We were holding a good course with winds gusting from the north-west around Force 6 under clear blue skies and with a cabin temperature of 66°F. But the crew was worried, very worried.

The day before I had made the first check of food stock since leaving England. Until then I had imagined we were reasonably well off for supplies. True, I had exceeded my ration from time to time, not because I was hungry, for hunger was nothing more than an ache in the tummy. It was the side effects that caused concern,
the loss of body weight, of sailing instincts and the will to survive. After five months at sea things were starting to go wrong, thanks to an ill-planned diet. Because I was spending long hours on my bunk, I was developing bedsores which I would bathe with salt water. My teeth and gums had given no trouble in the past; now when I cleaned them the gums bled.

Annegret had given me a bottle of multivitamins from which I was taking one a day. Whether it helped I did not know, nor whether washing my back in seawater and cleaning my teeth twice a day did more harm than good. These were small problems that, ashore, would take only a few days to clear up, a few good meals with fresh vegetables, fruit, eggs and milk. A few hot baths. Nevertheless they were problems that gave me a good deal of concern as the log shows:

0000 GMT, Tuesday, December 9th, 1980
.
Once more becalmed for 24 hours and concerned by slow progress. Either it is blowing so hard that I have to take down the main to prevent weather helm overriding the self-steering, or there's insufficient wind. Since the Cape of Good Hope I have only been able to use the working and storm jibs. The old number two genoa is far too weak for these gusty, squally seas. We are 600 miles due west of Tasmania with the Australian coast about the same distance north. Have logged 13,601 miles. If we were 1,000 miles further on I should have considered us halfway.

Five months at sea with the worst to come and at our present rate of progress we could be at sea for a further six months. My food list shows that two-thirds of our supplies have been used.

Stews, 15.3 oz tins

Chicken, 12 to start, now 6
Beef, 12, now 4
Steak and kidney, 12, now 1
Minced beef, 12, now 8
Savoury mince, 12, now 6
Started with 60, now 25

Greens, 10 oz tins

String beans, 12, now 4
Peas, 12, now 5
Mixed vegetables, 12, now 5
Started with 36, now 14

Baked beans, 8oz, 48, now 34
Spam, 24, now 6
Sardines, 12, now 6
Marmite, 1lb jars, 2, now 1
Bovril, 1lb jars, 2 now 1
Jam, small jars, 12, now 2

Fruit, small tins

Fruit Salad, 12, now 9
Grapefruit, 12, now 5
Started with 24, now 14

Flour, 70lbs, now 15lbs
Rice, 60lbs, now 50lbs
Water, 80 gallons, now 30 gallons
Eggs, onions, fresh vegetables and yeast: finished
Tea, coffee, sugar, milk: no problems. I still have six of the ten
parcels Rome and Annegret gave me.

I'm well into the second time round with my books. Oh well, it will soon be Christmas, with another parcel to open.

Apart from the food I was concerned about my parents, having told them I would be away ten months, fully expecting to take no longer than nine. Over the years I'd caused them quite a few sleepless nights, what with my broken marriages and forever chasing off to strange lands. For the first time at sea I wished I had a transmitter aboard.

Week 23 saw the start of some of the voyage's hardest time en route to Tasmania. Christmas was approaching and every time I turned on the radio they were singing about it, the first Christmas I had ever spent alone. And not just alone, but ignored. The log reveals some of the problems of sailing close to a friendly shore, hearing a woman's voice and longing to be in the same room with her sharing the same music, breathing the same air, to be close to another human being.

Thursday, December 11th
.
No sights possible, sea very rough. A good run of 120 miles in 24 hours on a broad reach under storm jib in westerly winds.

Friday, December 12th
.
Latitude 46°19'S. Storms dropped during the night and the day now bright with a few scattered clouds. Swell large and winds light with mini gusts still from the
west, was soaked when a wave smashed through the main hatch boards to find me without storm gear on, about to eat my only meal of the day (rice with two squares of melted chocolate on top). We both got soaked and meal was ruined. Bilge pump packed up so spent the morning repairing it with some difficulty as main locker cover was now glassed-in. Lucky it isn't Friday the 13th!

Saturday, December 13th
.
Rain squalls so no sights. Little wind during night. The lights of two ships sighted on horizon. Could have been fishing as they stayed in sight for a long time. Winds from north-east this morning, anything from Force 3 to 7, ending with one hell of a squall. After which they started gusting from south-west. Good show. Now on course with working jib only as gusts too strong for main. Temperature still in the low 50s. Nights are a bit cold and seas chilly. Able to go on deck without sea boots and socks but feet slowly turning blue.