Torries

36

january/february 2017

cruisingworld.com

already pouring buckets of sea-

water over herself and using

the steering pedestal as a

defensive shield.

“Don’t get any closer,” she

commanded, then barked,

“Trail yourself off the transom,

Fatty!”

I wasn’t having a good night.

“But there are sharks,” I said

pitifully.

“Good,” she said. “You’ve —

you’ve besmirched me!”

Nothing is perfect, not even

the cruising life.

About three days later and

400 miles closer to Cocos

Keeling, shipboard life started

to return to normal, or at least

Carolyn started to speak to

me again.

“Why was it so damn rough

last night?” she asked.

I began to formulate an

answer involving wind velocity,

duration, ocean current and

cross swell when she uttered

the “Oh, s---” comment again,

and pointed forward to the

main mast.

Yikes! We’d been running

downwind in lumpy seas with

our big jib poled out, and now,

unfortunately, the spinnaker-

pole track on our mast had

pulled away, bent severely, and

was in danger of shearing off.

“I’ll ease the jib sheet!” she

cried.

“I’ll haul in on the tack

line,” I agreed.

I next ran forward to drop

the pole as she cast off the

guys.

Instantly we had the sails

under control, but once again

the Indian had slapped us to

attention. One minute Ganesh,

our 43-foot ketch, was fi ne;

the next, not.

We unrolled the much

smaller staysail to keep us

moving as we considered our

options.

Without our pole to pre-

vent the genoa from slatting

and popping as we sailed on a

dead run, we’d have to quarter

off and tack downwind. This

would add many miles to our

journey to Cocos, never mind

the additional 4,000 ocean

miles we had to go to reach

Cape Town for Christmas with

the grandkids.

The Indian is famous for

grinding a boat and crew

into whimpering submission.

Numerous sailors attempt-

ing this crossing had already

turned back this season. The

trades here regularly gusted to

gale force, and the confused

seas were, at best, awful.

We had a problem at the

moment, but at least we

weren’t as bad off as Reese and

Trevor aboard the Australian

sloop Liberdade, who were,

we found out later, at that

moment wading around in

calf-high water inside their

vessel after getting raked by

a sea at precisely the wrong

time — as a sleepy Reese came

on watch.

Carolyn looked at our

spinnaker-track damage and

frowned.

“Hopeless?” she asked.

“Don’t insult me,” I said as

I ambled forward. “Am I not a

Jack-tar-of-all-trades?”

“It is hard to tell,” she

retorted, “as I can’t see over

your ego.”

After 46 years off shore

together, we banter like

Humphrey Bogart and Lauren

Bacall high on West System

epoxy glue.

The major problem wasn’t

just that the track had pulled

away from the mast, but that

it had bent sideways so acutely.

There was nothing strong

enough on the mast to leverage

it back into place via crowbar.

The solution came to me

in a fl ash. “Grab a snatch

block and a piece of spare 5/8

Dacron,” I told Carolyn. “And

we’ll need the electric drill,

some rivets and a selection of

nail punches as well.”

As Carolyn attached the

snatch block to a nearby deck

ON WATCH

The major

problem wasn’t

just that the track

had pulled away

from the mast,

but that it had

bent sideways so

acutely.

CRW0217_ONW.indd 36 11/22/16 2:01 PM