In 1922 the Board sold her to a civil engineer. Later, she was
passed on to none other than the Marquis of Bute who, to his
credit, fancied a spot of yachting in a real boat.
After a lifetime roaming the Channel under sail seeking paying
ships, George Morrice was long dead by the time I took his boat
home to Barry 60 years later. Darkness fell with a failing breeze
and us heading up for a distant Nash Point. The night was misty
with drizzle as we drifted east on the fl ood, guided by the four ‘L’s
of the traditional navigator – Log, Leadline, Lookout and ‘trust-in-
the-Lord’. I was half-asleep on my watch below when out of
nowhere I heard the ancient cry: “Where bound, Captain?”
There followed a muffl ed exchange before the response rang
out, loud and clear.
“We are the Barry pilot!” Then footfalls, the swirl of a single
sculling oar, and silence.
As day broke I convinced myself I’d been dreaming, but at 0300
Morrice had been as real as the shipmate who was now handing up
tea from the galley.
I thought no more of this until a year later when, on a rather
more ambitious trip, the old cutter was hove-to 100 miles off
Greenland. The whole gale was meat and drink to her, but the crew
and I had two problems. The wind, roaring straight off the icecap,
was brutally cold and it had piped up from Force 5 so suddenly
that we’d been guilty of optimism. Assuming it would drop as fast
as it rose, we hadn’t bothered to reef. A veteran skipper of my
acquaintance once wisely remarked: “The fl oor of the ocean is
paved with the bones of optimists.”
This day proved him right. We came to our senses in a rising
Force 9 with hailstones cutting our cheeks and the pitchpine mast
whipping like a fl y rod. The boat had no winches of course, the
soaking fl ax mainsail weighed at least 400lb, the boom tipped the
scales at fi ve hundredweight and the solid gaff ran out at 25 feet.
All hands laid into the reefi ng tackles with a will, but by now it
was too late even for fi ve young men to snug her down. If the rig
were to be saved, the mainsail had to be stowed. We were pointing
nicely up with the jib off her, the staysail aback and the wheel
lashed to weather, but if we dropped the main like that, the
staysail would have its wicked way. The boat would pay off
sharpish and the only place the main would go was the North
Atlantic. Somehow we had to get it on deck to smother it, so we
came up with a plan: let draw the staysail so she could gather way,
the lashed helm would swing her into the wind and, as she luffed
on to the shake, we’d throw off the halyards. Driven down by the
gaff and its own weight, the beast would succumb.
That bit sounded easy enough. Securing the gaff was the
critical element. If we missed it at fi rst shot, goodness only knew
how we’d capture it because the boat would be bearing away
fast. I stationed myself aft with a length of pliable three-strand
hoping to grab the end. Two hands stood by the halyards while
the others waited along the boom hoping for the best. The
halyards were fl aked and the weather topping lift set up. We held
fi re for a ‘smooth’, I eased the staysail across and we marvelled
at the boat’s sheer class as she whooshed into the wind.
‘Leggo!’ yelled the mate as the main started to thunder and
half-a-tennis-court’s-worth of canvas fl ogged down on top of us.
Straight away, the staysail blew the bow back off the wind, leaving
us beam-on to the tempest. The guys dived for cover behind the
hatches as the sail went mad. I made a pass at the gaff by heaving in
on the leech of the kicking fl ax, but I had no chance. The crew were
in mortal danger when, out of nowhere, the spar fl ipped inboard
and sat patiently on top of the shoulder-high boom. I was staring
like an idiot at this impossibility when, from somewhere inside
either me or the boat, I heard an uncompromising Cardiff accent:
“I can’t hold on forever, lad. Are you just going to gaze at it, or
will you take a turn and save yourself?”
With numb hands I passed my lashing, the crew bundled up the
sail and we all clattered below to the bogey stove where I sat
pondering on things visible and invisible.
Sometimes as I sail today’s sparkling seas in my yacht, I wonder
what happened to the cutter’s Klabautermann. If he were Pilot
Morrice, his vessel has long since gone
for rebuild. So little is left of the
original that he’s probably
jumped ship. Whatever
oceans he’s cruising now, I
hope the old boy has an eased
sheet and that he hasn’t
forgotten the lads and lassies
who sailed his boat so far
with such dreams in their
hearts. In our sophisticated
world we may fancy we
are masters of the sea, yet
despite our fl ickering screens
and powered winches, the
time still comes around
when we need a
helping hand.