14. How Strangers Meet

Mid-Atlantic to St Lucia

Something wakes me. It’s dark – I am immediately alert but don’t know why. There’s something different. Then I realise that the boat must have turned; the motion is different. The HF radio is also crackling. That’s odd, it’s not ‘sched’ time. I leap over the lee-cloth that keeps me from falling out of the sea bunk and stumble to the companionway ladder.

‘What’s wrong?’ I call into the darkness above. I can see indistinctly that Ted is sitting in his familiar position behind the wheel.

Everything looks normal.

‘I’ve turned the boat south, Nance.’ His voice has a weary sound.

‘What? Why?’

‘It’s Mary Constance.’

‘Who?’

Mary Constance, one of the boats in the ARC.’

I remember now – an Australian boat; we knew of the Mary Constance but our paths hadn’t crossed in Las Palmas.

Ted goes on quietly. ‘I just got an email – lucky I opened it; I don’t normally at 3 am. Their shroud has parted and they’ve called a pan-pan – they’re in danger of losing their mast. We’re about seventy miles away. If the wind keeps, up we can be there by three o’clock tomorrow afternoon.’

A shroud is a wire on the side of the boat that holds the mast in place. Without all the wire stays, the mast cannot stand. I feel my hands tighten to a clutch on the companionway ladder. I think I remember hearing that there were children on board.

‘We could motor.’

His voice remains quiet, flat. ‘No, they may need our fuel. If we can’t fix the problem they may have to motor, although in this jerky sea even that’s precarious. They have three days’ fuel, and land is seven days away. I have some rigging wire, but I don’t know how they could attach it and I don’t even know if it’s the right size. Sorry about the crackling. I’ve emailed them to open their SSB onto 4149. Go back to sleep.’

It’s one of a sailor’s worst nightmares – thinking that the mast may come down. There’s nothing to say, nothing to do, and I go back to bed. The last thing I feel like is sleeping, but it is hardwired into both of us – we must, at all costs, stay rested. I must sleep, even though our small world has turned on its axis. Until now, our only goal had been how to get to St Lucia comfortably and quickly. That’s over; we have more important issues at hand.

It’s a race against time to get there before daylight disappears the next afternoon. Once we are close enough to speak by VHF radio, we learn that on board Mary Constance are Mike Franklin, his wife Jos and their daughters Pippa, seven, and Justine, five.

During the daylight hours Ted has turned the boat into a shambles looking for our spare stay-lock, cap shroud and turn-buckle, connectors to hold the wire to the mast, stuff hidden away among all the gear you hope you’ll never need. You can’t walk through the saloon as sails, bags, provisions, blankets, tools and spares are piled high. The rigging wire takes up half the space. Forehead shining with sweat, he’s parcelling stuff up in bags, and then tying it in a life jacket. The wire he will have to send separately, he says quietly – two transfers will be necessary.

By late afternoon, with the sun near the horizon, the two yachts are in sight of each other. The wind has dropped, but the sea is still uncomfortably high. We don’t speak much. I cannot get my mind off the task ahead. To get close enough to throw a line we must bring our yachts within mast-clashing distance without tangling, no easy feat in this sea. How much worse it must be on Mary Constance, I remind myself.

The plan is for me to pass close enough for Mike on Mary C to throw a line to our boat. With any line in the water the engines must not be in gear, for fear of it being sucked into our propellers. Ted will catch the thrown line, tie the rigging wire to it, drop it in the water and Mike will drag it in. This will be repeated for the parcel of spares.

The tiny nightmare image spins in my head – our masts clashing, getting tangled, coming down. How will I ever be able to get close enough for them to throw lines to each other? But I say nothing. Breathing is difficult. On the two boats Ted and Mike put out fenders. No, no, no. That’s ridiculous. Our masts will collide and come crashing down long before we need fenders. But I say nothing. I rev the engine and head for Mary Constance, which is appearing and disappearing in the deep swells.

‘Closer . . . closer. Nancy, get closer  you’re too far away.’ I edge closer and closer. I am sweating. My hands are slippery on the wheel. I don’t think I am breathing at all now. Ted’s voice carries on from the deck: ‘Come on! Closer! Closer! You’ll never make it at this rate!’

Mary Constance is having trouble maintaining a constant angle in the jagged seas. She points first her stern then her beam at us as I angle closer.

Come ooooon!

‘The masts!’ I yell. ‘The masts!’ But I am not sure that any words come out.

Finally, Mike on Mary Constance throws a monkey’s paw – a small heavy ball on a light line, tied to a heavier one. ‘Kill!’ I hear. I hit the engine stop switch. Ted grabs the line and I hear his feet run to the stern. I don’t look. I can’t take my eyes off the hull of Mary Constance and the two masts swinging wild in the high seas. Ted works fast but in the crazy swell our boats are not staying together and he is running out of line.

‘Stop the boat! I’m losing it.’

But I can’t run the engine to reverse. ‘I’m in neutral!’ I shout back.

Mary Constance’s bow has turned dangerously towards us.

Finally, after an agony of waiting, I hear, ‘Okay go!’ He must have thrown the package. It must be clear of our propeller. I put Blackwattle into gear and roar away from the other boat.

Now I look back, and I can see Ted doing a victory dance on the aft deck. I take some deep breaths, my eyes moist with relief, but Ted is shouting at me.

‘Nance, you’ve just got to get closer!’ He’s come in to get the second package – adrenaline flowing, steamed up.

‘I know, I know.’

The next two runs are unsuccessful – we cannot line the boats up and it’s too dangerous to approach, so we abort each time. We’re running out of light.

But the fourth run is successful, and this time it is Mike on Mary Constance who is waving the yellow life jacket full of spare parts above his head and dancing on their aft deck.

‘I’m having a beer!’ announces Ted. (As we run ‘dry’ at sea, this is a statement of rebellion.) I am panting a little unevenly as I flop down in the cockpit. Beer is the last thing I need.

So far, so good. Nothing can be done tonight, as it’s just on dark, so we put the boats on a port tack (so that there’s no pressure on Mary Constance’s starboard rigging) with a small scrap of headsail, and we drift overnight, keeping in touch every now and then by VHF radio. It’s the tension that is the worst, not knowing whether the fix will actually work. On Blackwattle we are subdued. We are all still 1400 nautical miles from St Lucia, and there is no land in between.

In the morning we rendezvous again. Mike climbs the mast, which is rocking like an upside-down pendulum in the three to four metre seas, to insert the new rig. It’s a long morning. Jos stays on deck watching Mike work, sending tools up, bringing them down. The small girls man the radio like experts, their high, childish voices strangely at odds with their expert knowledge of radio protocol.

By lunchtime, the deed is done. Mary Constance has a new starboard shroud.

All the way through the previous thirty-six hours, both Mike and Jos have been solid, down to earth, even cheerful. Now the emotion shows in both their voices. Mike’s voice is breaking with relief, and the joy is overflowing in Jos’s words. They’re a gutsy pair. In addition, the children, Pippa and Justine, seem unaware that anything unusual has happened – what a star act from the parents!

Mary Constance will now sail as much as possible on the tack using the healthy shroud, and motor as much as possible on the other tack, to save the jury-rigged shroud. They will sail carefully and slowly to St Lucia.

Farewell, Mary Constance, sail safe! For Blackwattle, there’s no more we can do, and it’s only eight days to St Lucia. We sail on, up to full speed again in the choppy seas.

It’s two days later when the call comes in the middle of the night. Mike has examined his rig, and found that the port shroud, his remaining intact shroud, is parting, like the first.

We have no more wire.

We realise quickly that we must escort them to St Lucia, ready to take them on board should the worst happen. We slow down to two knots towards a new waypoint rendezvous. After two days we meet up, and begin to shadow Mary Constance’s movements.

The weather turns against us once more. The wind is back up to twenty-five to thirty knots, gusting forty, and the seas have become the huge goliaths we had at the beginning of the journey. Mary Constance is running short of water. Daily showering has stopped, and they joke gamely about how smelly they will be when they arrive at the other end.

In this weather Mary Constance cannot risk sailing, even on her jury-rigged shroud, and is using up her remaining fuel rapidly. We are still little more than halfway, and have no clear idea of how we can get Mary Constance to the other side of the Atlantic. We discuss the possibility of her waiting for calmer weather then sailing on one tack, with her jury-rigged shroud. We figure that she will end up on the coast of South America – a possible scenario, as long as they can make the water last.

Living in fear of an imminent disaster is sometimes worse than experiencing the disaster itself – having a loaded gun pointing at you or thinking about going to the dentist – and Mike has been living and breathing keeping that rig up for nearly six days now. In addition, we hear he has climbed the rig three times. He is also constantly on the radio, at any hour that we call. The time comes when Mike’s voice starts to sound ragged on the VHF, uncertain. The controlled tone is still there, but he sounds frayed.

‘Yes, I said port. Yes, that’s right. No, yes, on starboard. Did I say port? Oh, sorry, I meant starboard. Of course.’

Ted and I look at each other, concerned. Mike Franklin has been superb in his cool handling of the situation, but now, after six days of almost no rest, he is showing clear signs of sleep deprivation. We’re worried.

‘You have to get some sleep,’ we say.

‘I know, I know, and I will.’

What we really need is fuel. Fuel, so that the yacht can motor on one tack. We turn again to the ARC Rally for assistance, emailing and calling on the HF radio ‘sched’ for both fuel and water.

Swiss yacht Meitli, with Martin and Christa on board, reply overnight, and are close enough to rendezvous by morning. They tell us they can spare seventy-five litres of fuel, and a hundred litres of water. Ted liaises with Meitli through the squalls, sometimes unable to hear Martin on the radio for the noise of the wind and rain. There’s nil visibility. It’s a long night, but by daybreak, the three yachts are sailing together.

Day, however, brings sight of the huge seas, much worse than when we transferred the wire and spare parts to Mary Constance. Strategies are discussed, and an improvement made on the previous method, using a number of swift passes.

We watch from the sidelines. Even though we are very close, the swell is so high and the troughs so low that often we can only see the boats from their radar reflectors on the mast upward.

There are some false passes, we can see, but by lunchtime the whole transfer of seventy-five litres of fuel has taken place, and for good measure they send an additional twenty litres of water. In this last delivery of water, Martin and Christa include some chocolate for the children. It’s hearing of the chocolate, more than anything, that makes me misty-eyed.

Meitli is on her speedy way – we’ll see Martin and Christa in St Lucia to shake their hands, and if Switzerland ever plays basketball or football against anyone, guess who I will be barracking for!

The bulk of the 232 boats in the ARC have already arrived in St Lucia, and the rest will be arriving in the next couple of days. No doubt there are great celebrations going on there, but our world has reduced to a single focus. The morning after the fuel transfer we learn that Mary Constance has motored all night, and their skipper has had his first good sleep in six days. Thank you, Meitli! We have 400 miles to go, and Mary Constance’s mast is still standing.

The next morning, we see our first albatross. Suddenly, there she is, great bulky body, sitting placidly beside the boat in the rough seas, fixing us with a baleful yellow unblinking eye. She’d make a good poker player. She is light brown, almost tan, speckled with white, and has a white underbelly. She sits, watching us watch her, flaps a few metres to examine the bow of Blackwattle thoroughly, then flaps away low to the water, lost from sight quickly in the high swells. It’s good luck. Now we know we’ll get to St Lucia without mishap.

The last successful days of our trans-Atlantic journey play out as our baleful albatross predicted. We have strong winds, with miserable seas and squalls, followed by days of blue sky and innocent wandering clouds, followed by still more grey days and squalls, but nothing occurs to prevent our quiet steady progress.

We round the point at the top of St Lucia just before daylight one morning. It is a strong ARC tradition that you must sail across the finish line. With little wind we sneak along, creeping towards the torchlight flashes from the ARC finishing line crew to show us the way. It’s hazy and dark ahead, and St Lucia’s high tropical mountain peaks loom behind, tall silhouettes against the slowly whitening sky as we glide towards the buoys that mark the end of the ARC.

This arrival is already emotional enough for me, but now, out of the greyness of the dawn, there’s a high building whine of outboard motors, and two dinghies full of cruisers from boats we have known appear – Australian boat Zulane, and British boats Steamy Windows and Osprey – beside Blackwattle. They are laughing at our surprised faces.

‘What are you doing out of bed at this time?’ I shout, teary with joy at this unexpected welcome. (How come I cry so easily now? I never used to cry ever.) They zoom around us and then speed off to welcome Mary Constance.

‘We’re going to push her across the line!’ they yell to us, laughing.

But when they get there skipper Mike Franklin, unable to put up the main but bent on keeping to the ARC tradition of sailing not motoring across the line, won’t hear of any help. Mary Constance therefore makes a longer time of it in the tiny breeze, but she slowly inches her way to the line, unbowed to the finish.

We are soon motoring down a lush waterway, there’s a cacophony of fog horns from somewhere, and people on yachts in the anchorage are all waving, and as we enter the marina people are climbing out into their cockpits to wave. On the wharf at our berth are dozens of people, clapping, smiling. It’s hard to tie up with the blur of faces all around, and I get my lines all crossed, giggling in embarrassment. A rum punch is put into my hand, and baskets of tropical fruit and bottles of rum.

Mary Constance and Blackwattle have made it to St Lucia, and both have a standing mast.

Too early for rum punch? Tell someone who cares! We talk and swap stories, but it’s not long before I spy a family of husband, wife and two little girls striding down the dock in our direction. I stare for a moment . . . there is something about their purposeful air . . . It must be, it has to be, it’s definitely – the crew of Mary Constance! My tears stream in a most embarrassing way and it’s like greeting long-lost family.

Two bottles of champagne and lots of sangria later, it’s still only 0930 when we all leave Blackwattle to go check in to St Lucia formally. The heavy timber dock that carried so many dozens of people successfully when we arrived now seems to have a definite wobble.

‘Hold my hand, Ted – there’s something wrong with the wharf here!

It’s taken us twenty-five days to cross the Atlantic.