All Piss and Wind (25 page)

But who would bear witness to this magic moment? Even TMH felt the need for our flawless gybe to somehow be acknowledged for posterity. He turned to his nubile guest, who was still nonchalantly rearranging herself to catch the last of the afternoon sun on the new tack.

‘Did you see that?'

‘See what?'

‘That gybe. Absolutely bloody
beautiful
!' She paused in her languorous application of coconut oil. ‘What's a gybe?' The spell is broken. Crew collapses into helpless laughter.

But the skipper still can't bear to let this precious moment pass. He rattles his brain for some appropriate aphorism to mark the occasion. Then, like storm clouds parting, his congenital grumpiness gives way to one brief flight of quasi-biblical oratory. ‘Oh
Lord forgive her, for she knoweth not what wonders she gazeth upon!'

The beguiling young lass rises demurely onto one elegant elbow, lowers her sunglasses and makes meaningful eye-contact with the skipper. She flashes him her most winning smile.

‘So, have you done it yet?'

ON MATTERS OF STYLE …

Offshore yachties, as fashionistas, tend towards the casually dishevelled look. The procession of salt-encrusted crews staggering down the dock towards the club bar after a long passage race will rarely pause to change from their bizarre collection of mismatched clothing, headgear and footwear. In defiance of all the latest style indicators from Paris and Milan the battered sailing shorts teamed with thermal long-johns remains a favourite mix-and-match ensemble.

To be fair, this talent for improvised couture is usually more a matter of necessity than choice. After a few days at sea most of us are lucky to find two dry socks, let alone a true pair. As always, I blame The Bloke Up the Back Who Pays the Bills. A man of advancing years and fastidious personal habits, he treasures his rack time. The Mighty Helmsman likes to keep a tidy berth. On those rare occasions when we race with a full complement and he's required to join in the ritual of hot-bunking, our skipper is utterly ruthless. Completely without ruth of any kind. If he happens to find something that isn't his in the cot at the change of watch, then it's hurled away without a backward glance.

‘What's all this stuff doing in
my
bunk?'

Already snug beneath his faithful old sleeping bag, our resident jokester, Dal, can't resist a Goldilocks impersonation.

‘“Ooh,” cried Mummy Bear, “Who's been sleeping in
my
rack?”.'

Meanwhile it's raining T-shirts, thermals, socks, gloves, beanies and assorted undergarments of unknown age or provenance as
TMH burrows like an enraged wombat through the normal detritus of a shared living space after three days of hard racing.

If you're lucky, a treasured polar-fleece jacket might land among the folds of the last spinnaker that came down in a hurry and is yet to be packed. But most of these vestments will inevitably find their way into inaccessible crevices beneath the cabin sole, there to pickle away in the finest bilge water the Tasman can provide. A slowly suppurating fuel line can be relied on to add that piquant extra whiff of diesel.

This endemic slovenliness always reminds me of a joyfully slanderous nineteenth century shanty sung by the street urchins of New Bedford, then the world's most prosperous whaling town:

At least The Mighty Helmsman tries to ensure that any diseases
we
might bring home are entirely our own work.

ON SAFETY …

Working into 25 knots on the way to Lord Howe Island, we changed down to the #4 jib but were sloppy securing the #3 to the rail. It was night, with a fair swell running over the Sea Mounts and The Mighty Helmsman was driving. After a short pause in the cockpit to gather some energy I told him two of us would have to go forward again to add a few extra sail ties to the doused jib.

‘Stay where you are! No bloody way I'm letting you blokes back on the foredeck in these conditions.'

‘What about the #3? It might work itself free.'

‘Don't worry, it'll be OK. Just too dangerous.'

I couldn't let this unprecedented moment of compassion pass without acknowledgement. ‘Well, skipper. Let me just say we're all very touched by your concern for our safety.'

‘Safety be buggered,' he snorted. ‘If any of you turkeys went over the side I couldn't face the bloody paperwork!'

F
OR REASONS THAT
most probably have something to do with deep-seated impulses of macho self-regard, offshore sailors love to regale their families and friends with tales of horror and woe. The more uncomfortable and dangerous they can make their latest race or passage sound, the better. ‘It was hell out there. Blowing dogs off chains. Waves bigger than a block of flats. Pitch dark. Rain pissing down. We were all wet through for days. Water up to our knees below. Sails shot to bits. Ran out of food. Steering busted. Radio on the blink. Wrong charts. Engine wouldn't start. Blah, blah, blah …'

To which comes the inevitable response: ‘
So why the hell do you keep doing it?
'

Ah, if only it were that simple! Just swallow the anchor, give away your wet-weather gear and sit under a shady gum tree (the traditional surefire cure for seasickness). But the sport of offshore racing has an extraordinary pull. We yachties have a special talent for treasuring fleeting moments of profound enjoyment and burying the memory of our protracted agonies. We willingly subject ourselves
to levels of physical privation and stress that we'd find quite unacceptable on shore. The extraordinary thing – at least to non-sailors – is that most of us keep doing this even though we know there's only the faintest hope that a passage will be comfortable all the way, or that we might actually win the race. But the compensations are wonderful.

How does seafaring cast this spell? Let me count the ways …

We all yearn for escape. ‘Running away to sea', that old romantic cliché, carries the genuine sense of a deliberate choice to leave the complexity and strife of daily life on shore. But this separation – if only for the brief periods that work and family allow – is far more intense for sailors than the welcome break of a conventional holiday on the coast or in the bush. At sea we're instantly cut off from the familiar people, places and concerns that dominate normal life. No newspapers, radio, TV or mobile phones. No kids, cars, wives, houses, stock markets or tax inspectors. That cutting adrift from our quotidian cares is heightened by the fundamental change of elements: we trade
terra firma
for
la mer
, and must immediately jettison all those cues and reminders of our land-bound lives. There is, I concede, a whiff of delinquency about all this for adults with responsibilities, but at least our ‘running away' is in installments. The price we pay for this escape is the challenge of self-sufficiency: the boat and its provisions and equipment – and our own strength and skills – must keep us alive in sometimes hazardous situations.

A related element to the escape impulse is the powerful appeal of simplicity. Going to sea requires that we all succumb, by happy consensus, to a mode of life entirely governed by just a few clear principles. For as long as they're at sea the crew cedes absolute authority to their skipper and watch captains. There's no other practical system of governance on a boat, and sailors rarely resent surrendering their conventional rights of self-determination. It has the same unspoken sense of release that convicted criminals must
feel as they cross the prison threshold to begin their term, or soldiers signing up for a long tour of duty. The routines and physical demands of life offshore are simple and straightforward; the boundaries of mutual expectation clear and commonly agreed. Getting through each day boils down to an elemental cycle of tasks: keep your watch, keep yourself watered, fed, warm and dry (if possible), keep the boat headed in the right direction and sailing as fast as possible under the prevailing conditions. As job descriptions go, that's enticingly uncomplicated.

But the most obvious reward for the demands of sailing offshore is the sheer aesthetic presence of the sea itself. It's an infinite source of visual interest and delight. There may be water stretching to the horizon at every point of the compass – and many empty hours in which to contemplate its vastness – yet the ocean itself never exhausts my wonder. It changes colour and mood with amazing rapidity, switching from dark, brooding oiliness to blazing ultramarine as the sun bursts from behind a morning cloud. You can spend an eternity watching the procession of wave shapes and patterns. Where did this majestic roller begin its journey? On what shore will it finally crash? Only at sea can you sit on deck with a warming mug of cocoa and watch the vast panorama of an electrical storm with no landscape or buildings to interrupt the view. On a delivery back from Lord Howe Island in 2004 we were treated to one of these spectacular light shows that lasted for six hours. At the next radio sked a cruising boat 50 miles ahead of us reported they were enjoying the same awesome entertainment.

Contrary to the ubiquitous claims of second-rate poets, sailors tend not to be so impressed with the stars, treating them more as a navigational tool. We rail against an overcast night only because it robs us of a clear star to steer by. But the scintillation in the boat's wake is another matter altogether. There is something sweetly mystical about the delicate display of phosphorescence triggered by a yacht at night. I can remember being so entranced by this trail of
sparkling light during one Bass Strait crossing that I dragged a bucket of water on board to investigate. Under torchlight we could see, close up, some of the billions of plankton that were creating the gorgeous trail of twinkling stars in our wake. They can, of course, only perform this magic if there's some ambient light from the moon or boat for them to reflect, but it's still a stunning trick.

To the elemental aesthetics of the sea itself, add the intrinsic beauty of sailing boats. Yachts, at least the kind I like to sail, are profoundly attractive objects in themselves. It's an unceasing delight sitting to leeward, just inches from the onrushing water, savouring the gentle curves of the hull as its sheer-line intersects with the water and the complementary sweep of the sails. The tremendous surge of power in a swelling spinnaker when it lifts the bow and adds another knot to our boat-speed. Now look down and drink in the soothing whoosh of the quarter-wave as it breaks away from the hull in an elegant curl of foam to expend itself gently into the ocean. Good photographers can capture the components of this imagery, but never the total experience.

And everywhere, the wonders of nature. It says much about offshore sailors that even after a lifetime of seafaring none of them can resist shouting ‘Whale!' at the first distant spout. The thrill of witnessing these massive mammals in open water is one of the great rewards of the sport, and its excitement is undiminished by repetition. The thunderous
whump!
as a big humpback crashes back into the water after his spectacular, high-flying breach. The stately, serene progress of a mother and calf on their annual migration along the East Australian Current. Where else but in a yacht under sail could you doze in your bunk and be serenaded by the haunting song of a mating whale, the magical sounds naturally amplified through the hull?

Dolphins, the irrepressible comedians of the ocean's floor-show, are such companionable and curious animals that their arrival is always a highlight of any passage. Everyone's spirits on the boat lift
when we're joined by a pod of dolphins. Darting about the bow, diving with a flourish beneath the keel, twisting onto their sides to get a better look at us, or just performing their engaging feats of synchronised acrobatics. Dolphins at sea seem so directly connected to us that it's easy to believe they can communicate. In truth, they're just having a bit of fun. If the boat falls much below five knots – the speed at which a decent pressure wave is generated at the bow – then they'll soon abandon ship and look for somewhere else to play.

But there's rarely any shortage of animal life to enjoy. The ancient, effortless swoop of an albatross on its never-ending search of the sea for carrion. Tiny storm birds that dramatically appear only when the wind tops 30 knots. They dance and flit across the waves expending so much energy it defies belief that the micro-organisms they seek could sustain them for another sortie. Huge flocks of skuas, sooty terns and mutton birds darkening the sky as they wheel towards the Southern Ocean. The idly swatting fin of a three-tonne sunfish – signal to any alert helmsman to keep well clear. A flying fish spearing out of the night and slamming into the cockpit with a hearty thump. Who'll volunteer to lift this slimy, foul-smelling creature back into the ocean?

Offshore yachting provides a wealth of picture-postcard views that you can never see from the land. Few long passages are completed without the crew enjoying some vividly spectacular sunsets and dawns. The interplay of sky colours at sea is unique, with sunlight refracted through distant clouds or lingering with a golden glow before it dips below the coastline. Only from the water can you look up at the gothic magnificence of Cape Raoul as your boat swings into Storm Bay for the final leg to Hobart. Only 400 sea miles out into the Tasman can you savour the heart-stopping beauty of Ball's Pyramid and Lord Howe Island as they emerge from the morning mist, then watch in wonder while the low, warming sun begins to pick out their rocky profiles.

Then there are the shared pleasures of uncomplicated camaraderie
that draw so many sailors to offshore racing. There's no better cubby-house for grown-ups than a snug, well-found yacht. It carries, perhaps from childhood, that warm appeal of belonging to a select, enclosed group. Like-minded people tend to enjoy each other's company, especially within an exclusive conclave where membership is determined by common skills and a shared purpose. From the perspective of normal ‘adult' life on shore the endless shipboard banter, running jokes and leg-pulls of a yacht's crew must seem excessively blokey. But this is the glue of comradeship.

A group who, quite literally, must put their lives in each other's hands every day needs rituals to establish that level of trust. They also require a harmless mechanism to release the pressures that inevitably begin to build within the confined chaos below decks. That's what subconsciously motivates all the childish teasing, horseplay and repetitive yarn-spinning. It also helps pass the hours of a slow, uneventful watch. The bond between sailing mates is strong, and its appeal is much the same whether we're pounding to windward together in 25 knots or swinging on the anchor at Wineglass Bay eating fresh crayfish the skipper has just bartered for a bottle of rum.

Surrounded by the technology of modern yachting it's sometimes easy to forget that this is still a sport, and a team sport at that. The physical challenges are a major component of its pleasures. We draw fundamental satisfaction from using our strength and skills to achieve something that most people would believe to be beyond their capacity. (And I suspect we also take a modicum of secret, ego-boosting pride from knowing that they grudgingly admire us for it.) Between ourselves we prize competent seamanship and dependability – the shared satisfaction of a difficult headsail change well done, with the old jib neatly flaked, bagged and safely stowed below.

There's parallel enjoyment to be derived from the simple spur of competition. To keep racing hard for 80 hours or more, nonstop, is a considerable challenge. We work together on sail trim to squeeze
that extra quarter-knot out of the boat. Should we move the sheeting position back a hole or two? Ease some halyard tension? How about the leech line – could it do with a tweak? This is also a fine way to pass on knowledge to newcomers: young sailors learn best with the tangible incentive of trying to chase down the sails they can see up ahead. This struggle becomes even more engrossing at night when it can be difficult to judge the relative distance and heading of other yachts using just the faint glow of their distant masthead light as a guide.

But twice a day comes ‘truth or dare' time. We crowd around the HF radio during the mandatory position-reporting skeds and watch as the navigator plots the positions of the other yachts as they each call in. How far behind is
EZ Street
? Have we taken some miles out of
Cadenza
? What about those buggers on
Azzurro
? Have they really shot through or are the cunning buggers just lurking over the horizon? There's always plenty of fun to be had for a racing crew coming together in such a simple, common cause.

And, barring major disasters, we get there. The pleasure of finishing the job. Light-hearted elation as we haul down the sails after crossing the line. Fire up the donk, someone, there's jugs of rum waiting! For the older heads in the afterguard, the personal satisfaction of seeing careful preparation pay off. We made the journey, everyone got here in one piece, nothing failed.

As we step off the yacht for the first time in days most of us will instinctively look back after just a few paces to check her nestling happily into the dock. That's the moment when sailing boats seem most like people. Few experienced crew can resist some muttered words of thanks. ‘Well done, old girl. Got us here again.' Boat-to-boat bets are settled in bottles of Bundy, the traditional currency of Australian offshore yachting. War stories are exchanged. We gloat over our final position, or moan about the boat's unfair handicap. Wait until next year, you bastards!

So, the rewards of sailing offshore are many, various and
splendid. Yet, in the end, the single quality that draws me to the sea more than any other is – to wax a trifle pretentious – metaphysical rather than personal. It's the sense that no matter how strong, clever or resourceful we may be, even the finest sailors in the world are powerless before the ocean's might. When things get really nasty, smart sailors yield to the massive forces of the sea. They never fight it. Surviving that experience is always exciting, sometimes frightening, often fiercely beautiful, and – when the worst has passed – utterly humbling. Nothing puts me more in my place as a human being than completing a tough passage.

We're all insignificant offshore.

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue Ocean – roll!