to the International Rule still abound in the Baltic, so I concluded
that she was probably a pensioned-off 12-Metre. She had no
coach roof, and would have been a proper ‘straight twelve’
except for an ugly shelter planted just abaft amidships. It perched
four-square above her lovely sheer line and sported a flat Perspex
windscreen of the sort more normally seen on low-end RIBs.
Crouched behind this shelter, a wild-looking character clung
onto the wheel in obvious anxiety.
This was before universal designer oilskins and he was clad
from head to foot in what appeared to be a white, one-piece suit.
His head was crammed into a leather flying helmet and his eyes
were protected from 35 knots of driving spray by old-fashioned
goggles such as I used to wear on my motorcycle in the 1960s. A
grey beard protruded from the neck of his zipped-up babygrow to
beat rhythmically in the airstream.
As he approached, still on a steady bearing and very surely the
give-way vessel, we began waving him off. On he came until, only
a boat’s length away, he tacked onto a parallel course and began
shouting and gesticulating. With two large boats plunging through
a considerable seaway, and him hollering upwind in what sounded
like comic-book German, it wasn’t easy to get his drift.
“What’s he saying?” I asked my wife.
“Sounds like ‘Get ze reef’,’’ she replied.
I cocked my ear again. He was still in full voice.
“Get ze reef! Get ze reef!” he bellowed, emphasising his message
by swinging his arms like a windmill.
“What’s he telling us to take a reef for?” she said. “We’ve got
two in already.”
Hirta’s third reef only went in when conditions were desperate.
We’d no weather bulletin but the glass had steadied. Apart from
the fog, nothing much had changed all day. We were actually
expecting a veer in the wind and a general improvement when the
front, of which the current unpleasantness was surely the
harbinger, trickled through. I pointed out my reduced mainsail and
gave the sort of exaggerated shrug of the shoulders that would
have done justice to a French harbourmaster. The madman was
unimpressed and redoubled his antics.
“Wait a minute,” cried Mike, my crew. “Get ze reef... Just hang
on while I look at the chart.”
He disappeared below, to return a moment later, grinning from
ear to ear.
“You know that awkward corner halfway to Møn?” he asked
rhetorically. “It’s about five miles north of us and it’s called Gedser
Reef. He’s probably lost and wants to know where it is.”
So we told him. He sheered off with a wave and in a couple
of minutes had disappeared into the mist, still with his beard
whacking against his jump suit and his colours streaming
out in the gale.
At dinner late that evening, safely tucked inside the
tiny fishing harbour of Klintholm, we decided to
broach the monster cheese after tucking in to the
ritual five-day stew. Mike manhandled it onto the saloon table and
I began unwrapping it. With one layer of paper off it began to
make its presence felt. After two, we could smell why the honest
burgers of Heiligenhafen had wrapped it up so comprehensively.
By the time the fourth and final leaves of waxed coating peeled off,
it was practically galloping out of the porthole.
“How much did you pay for this?” asked Mike.
I revealed the details of the advantageous deal I had struck.
“They must have seen you coming then,” he said. “Let’s bin it
right now before we catch something from it.”
Without a word, I wrapped it in one layer of paper, took it up
on deck and started out for the boatyard skips. As I passed the
next dock, a figure who looked somehow familiar materialised
out of the haze to leeward and sniffed the air.
“A fine cheese you have there,” he commented in
broken English.
A thought struck me. “Would you care to have
it?” Then I added: “As a gift.”
His face lit up behind an unruly beard.
“Jawohl. Dankeschön.” He grabbed it and
shot off down the wooden pier. I followed
at a discreet distance out of curiosity about
who on Planet Earth could possibly fancy
such a culinary horror show, only to see
him disappear behind a gimcrack
wheel shelter on a sorry-looking
12-Metre with a miserably stowed
mainsail. I don’t know if he ever
found Gedser Reef, but
smelling my pal’s cheese last
week took me right back to
him, his yacht and the
image of him carving
off a slice as he
careered around the
Baltic like a
latter-day Flying
Dutchman.