CLASSIC BOAT FEBRUARY 2018 67R0RC CARIBBEAN 600
Above, l-r: David
Aisher of RORC
and Kristi Roger;
sunset off
Antiguafor leading his troops into action. Meanwhile, the
headsail trim was being called by the bowman from the
bowsprit end. Shouting is rare on Eleonora. Instead,
each sail is numbered from the outside in – jib top ‘1’, jib
‘2’ and so on. Although Andrew the bowman is a
professional of enviable experience and seniority, he is
known mysteriously as ‘The Nipper’. He held up one
finger and gave the sign to wind the winch. In came the
jib top. Next, two fingers and the jib was set. Last came
the staysail. I noted that he held the headsails off
closehauled while the schooner gathered way. It was only
when Eleonora approached ten knots that the skipper
brought her up tight on the breeze and the trimmers got
the signal to harden in. By now she was making 45° or
so to the true wind.
By the end of day two, the crew had more or less
sorted out tacking and gybing under working sail. Day
three was a thriller. While the guests were sitting at the
on-deck dining table tucking into breakfast served by the
girls, the jackyard topsail came aboard from the store
ashore. The main yard is 60ft long and it took six young
men to carry it. Even the club yard for the clew end
needed three. Hoisting it when the time came was serious
business. The masthead man was up at the hounds
making sure nothing fouled, while several hands clapped
onto a heel rope and hung onto a turn to keep the spar
more or less upright as a main halyard winch hoisted it
impossibly into the heavens. The club yard more or less
took care of itself, although a couple of crew controlled
its antics using two of the three sheets needed to keep it
in shape. The third sheet, a lightweight ‘tweaker’, was
bent onto the outboard end of the yard to help stop the
spar bending and opening the leech.
SETTING THE JACKYARDER
As soon as we bore away onto the trade wind with the
jackyarder set, the yacht felt quite different. It was as
though she were turbocharged. Every so often a foul-up
aloft would mean Andy the Bosun, Mike or the Nipper
would fly up on a harness to perform unthinkable acts of
daring, including the so-called ‘walk of doom’ along the
gaff to unwrap a topsail sheet that had whipped around
the spar. Every gaff sailor knows that there’s no other
way of clearing it, short of dropping the whole lot.
Once we were offshore and reaching, we bit the bullet
and set the gollywobbler. This is a full-hoist fisherman that
overlaps the mainsail substantially. It sheets to the end of
the main boom and it pulls like a battle tank. At last we
broke out the spinnaker and, as we brought her back as
high on the wind as she’d go, she heeled to the press of sail.
Standing at the high side, the sea foaming along the lee rail
looked a long, long way off. This is one colossal yacht.BADGE OF HONOUR
Three days later we were in the thick of the action as the
weather turned awkward halfway round the course.
We’d lost ground tacking up to the windward coast of
Antigua after the start. The schooner was making it up
now on the reaching legs, but a frontal system that had
no business anywhere near us started to threaten as we
reached steadily towards St Martin soon after dawn.
Away to weather, the mother of all black squalls was
limbering up. The rain began falling and in came the
spinnaker in short order. The front arrived like an
avalanche and all hands not still battling the kite lined
up under the fore boom to tackle the gollywobbler.
Along with ten others, I was scrabbling at its craziness
from the windward side while one of the professionals,
Colin, was hammering it from leeward. If you held onto
it, it felt as if it would flick you over the rail like a rag
doll, so we were pummelling it into submission. Colin
gave it a boxer’s whack just as I leaned in with my head
in the wrong place. The black eye I received through the
canvas was a badge of honour for the rest of the trip.
As the rain and wind backed off, we bore away and
all hands tumbled out to set every stitch we had. This
was what we’d come for. Scorching between St Martin
and Anguilla, then away southward at 14 knots in the
sunshine, rail down, rig roaring for joy, we knew that
classic sailing doesn’t get any better.
All things under the sun must end, however, and by
the time the star-carpeted night had wheeled away
westward to greet another sunrise we were becalmed
between Montserrat and Guadeloupe. For us, the wind
didn’t return and our race was run, but there’s more to
life than winning a regatta. To sail on such a yacht and
to be shipmates with a crew that Charlie Barr himself
would have signed on tomorrow was more than enough.
Besides, there’s always this year (Ed?)...The 2018 RORC Caribbean 600 Race starts on
Monday 19 February. caribbean600.rorc.org