DAVID SYCAMORETIM WRIGHT PHOTO ACTION
CLASSIC BOAT OCTOBER 2016 53TRANSAT IN A GAFFER
would end up suspended by my feet, head down in the sea.
The longer I delayed, the sooner that would happen. If I
could not get back with the next attempt there would be no
strength left for another go.
There is nothing like extreme danger to focus the mind
uniquely on the task in hand, and somehow the strength for
action comes only with that danger and that focus. Then
something miraculous happened; a massive surge of
strength came into me as if from nowhere, and I heaved until
my left elbow and left knee got onto the rail, and heaved
again until my body rolled over the rail and onto the deck. I
was back onboard again, exhausted but safe. I gave the
incident no further thought and continued to La Corunna,
where I arrived the following day, 24 June. It was not until
waking after a good night’s sleep that the full horror of my
fall overboard finally dawned on me; it haunts me still.
Sally B is a traditional gaff yawl built by Ashley Butler in
2003 in the style of a Thames Bawley. At 12 tonnes
displacement, with a 19th century rig evolved for inshore
fishing with a crew of two, she can be quite a challenge to
manage single handed. But over the years since I bought her
in 2004 I had learned to sail her after a fashion, and had
fitted an engine and a self steering vane to make life a little
easier. However, being flush decked she had no cockpit, and
that meant a lot of kneeling, standing, or at best sitting on a
fender, and none of these were comfortable. It was not until
October, when we reached Portugal, that the idea came to fit
deck boxes. That solution would finally give me a spacious,
comfortable “cockpit” plus some extra storage in the boxes.PASSAGE TO PORTO
My wife Christine joined me for the trip to Porto and we laid
the boat up there until late the following summer, during
which time she was hauled out for a refit. I repainted the top
sides, anti-fouled her, serviced the engine and the standing
rigging and fitted longer stanchions, with double lifelines to
improve safety. Then the cockpit boxes were made up and
fitted. I also fitted some cushions on the boxes and around
the cockpit before putting her back in the water and heading
south on 29 August, into unseasonal southerlies.
By now the idea to cross the Atlantic had taken shape
and the plan was to reach the Canaries before the end of the
year. After a slow windward passage down the PortugueseA
s a boy I remember trying to fix something –
I cannot recall what it was or how I went about
it – I just remember my dad looking at me
critically and after a while he said: “Why, when
you decide to do something, do you always choose the
most difficult way?” That was over 60 years ago and I still
don’t know the answer to his question. Somehow I always
choose the hard way. Most people setting out these days
to cross an ocean do so in a modern GRP, steel or
aluminium boat with bermudian rig, furling headsails, crew
and all mod cons. So why do I end up doing it alone in a
traditional gaff rigged wooden boat with hank on
headsails, bowsprit, top mast, top sails, miles of rope, and
no fridge? Dunno, but that’s how it turned out.
A gentle northerly breeze was blowing as we left
Mevagissey harbour on 19 June 2013, heading for the north
coast of Spain. At that stage there was no plan for a
transatlantic voyage, only the desire to get away for a while,
cross the bay of Biscay and enjoy landfall on a foreign coast.
I decided to work out the next steps as we went along.OVERBOARD
On the third day out the wind backed southwest in the
afternoon and blew hard. I put the first reef in the main and
stays’l then went below and lit the stove to keep warm. By
nightfall the wind had increased again and more reefs were
needed but I just couldn’t bring myself to go up in the dark
and windy night to put them in, so I remained huddled
below, hoping to get away with it, feeling every straining
heave in hull and rig as if they were in my own body. It was a
long hard night, and a welcome dawn when luckily the wind
eased and backed east. I shook out the reefs, but as I
stepped aft from the bow, where I was clipped in, I forgot
about my safety tether, which got tangled around my ankles.
Before I knew what was happening it tripped me up, and
over the side. I managed to grab a stanchion as I went over,
and ended up suspended against the hull, held by my feet at
the bow, and my hands round the first stanchion aft. I was
completely outboard, but dry. I tried to raise myself but
could not lift my body by more than an inch, so took a rest to
work out what to do. But with my body weight on my arms,
resting was just as exhausting as lifting. If I could not get
back aboard, the strength in my arms would soon fail and IAbove left to
right: sunset in
Mindelo; running
with the bum sail
set from the
boom gallows