THE FIVE OF US, Mark and Annie, Andrew and Roz Fortescue, and I sat in Wave’s cockpit with drinks and relished the early evening. The big yacht was now as Mark had dreamed of her—complete and provisioned for her first blue-water passage. Every detail of the boat was in perfect order, though that condition does not last long on any yacht. Every instrument worked, and the leak in the stern tube had been put right. We had been talking about the car bomb at the Poole Royal Marine installation that morning, in which a number of marines and civilian workers had been killed and most of the main administration building destroyed. Mark and Andrew had both lost acquaintances in that attack and Andrew would be attending funeral services on Monday. The Irish Freedom Brigade, which I well remembered from the Berkeley Square explosion, had telephoned a newspaper and claimed responsibility.
Mark set his braced leg on the opposite cockpit seat and changed the subject. “You know, there’s something about this time that I really like, when everything has been done that can be done, when a yacht is ready for anything, and when there’s nothing to do but have a drink and enjoy the anticipation.” He laughed. “In fact, this is almost the only time it’s ever happened; usually before a race there’s nothing but chaos, and things are still being screwed down and bolted on while you’re jockeying for position on the starting line.” He raised his glass. “I give you a toast to those who made it possible—us!”
We drank to that. God knew the Fortescues deserved inclusion. Roz’s help with provisioning and Andrew’s contribution of Royal Marine manpower had made the four days slip by smoothly and without panic. I glanced across the river and saw the ferry depart the opposite shore.
“Last ferry in five minutes,” Roz said. “Willie, why don’t you come back to the base and have a hot bath and a last night ashore? We’ll all go down to the Barbican and have a good dinner. We might even find you a girl.”
“Sounds good to me,” I said. I had been living on this boat and on Toscana for weeks, now. It would be nice to sleep in a bed again, and the only girl I had even spoken to in Plymouth had been the one I’d nearly knocked down near the boatyard. Something about her had been terribly familiar, but I had been unable to think of what it was. Probably I had just seen her somewhere in Plymouth.
“We’d better get a move on,” Annie said and began collecting glasses and tidying the cockpit. We checked the boat’s lines to see that they would allow for the rise and fall of the tide, then stepped ashore. Watching Mark make the maneuver, I was amazed at how agile he was with the crutch and brace. It was as if he’d been using them since childhood. We walked slowly toward the ferry dock, chatting among ourselves. The Fortescues’ car waited on the other side for us.
We bought our tickets, went aboard, and sat down. Then Mark stood up again. “I don’t want to leave her,” he said.
“What?” Roz puzzled.
“We’ve had so many problems along the way, I just don’t want to leave her alone tonight. I don’t want anything else to go wrong.”
“Neither do I,” I said and stood up, too.
“Annie,” Mark said, “why don’t you go on back with Andrew and Roz? Willie and I will sleep aboard tonight and see you in the morning.”
“All right,” Annie replied, “if you’re really worried about the boat.
“I know there’s no real reason to worry,” Mark said, “But I would.”
“I’ve got a better idea,” Annie came back. “Why don’t we all stay aboard tonight? Roz and I can cook—we’ve certainly enough food aboard—and God knows there’s plenty of room, too.”
Andrew and Roz looked at each other. “Okay?” Andrew asked her.
“Okay,” Roz replied.
We left the ferry as the helmsman revved his engine for the departure. I felt immediately better, just as Mark obviously did. We hadn’t come all this way to have something happen to the boat at the last minute, just because we weren’t around. Later, I would wonder if maybe we hadn’t felt something else besides concern for the boat.
Annie and Roz whipped up a spaghetti dinner; that and much wine were consumed with gusto. We got to bed early, Mark and Annie, aft in the owner’s cabin; Andrew and Roz forward in the larger of the two guest cabins, and I in the smaller one. We fell asleep to the sound of the river lapping against Wave’s hull.
We were up early and had a hot breakfast. Remembering my seasickness after Cowes aboard Toscana, I took it easy.
Mark looked at me across the saloon table. “Nervous?” he asked.
I nodded. “Lots of butterflies.”
“Me, too. It’s always this way; a combination of fear and excitement, I guess.”
“Fear? You? But you’ve done a lot of this sort of thing.”
“Sure, but the fear is always there. Will I ram somebody at the starting line? Will I be run down by a merchant ship? Will I come back from this one? Once you’re out there it goes away—at least, most of it does. But fear’s a good thing. Sharpens the senses, makes you more aware.”
If that were the case I would be very sharp this morning. Andrew and Roz prepared to leave.
“Why don’t you come out with us?” Mark asked them. “We’ll have a couple of hours of thrashing about, getting used to her before the gun. You can grab a ride back with one of the spectator boats.”
“Fantastic,” Andrew said. “We’d love to have a sail.”
And so we all remained aboard for a while longer. At half past nine we cast off from the quay at Spedding’s boatyard and stowed our fenders and mooring warps. We wouldn’t be needing them for another ten days or so. We motored down the river and, out in the harbor, just in front of the Royal Western Yacht Club, the sponsoring organization, we set sail, to waves and cheers from the crowd on the terrace. For an hour and a half, we sailed about the harbor, while Mark got the feel of his new boat. He planted himself in the cockpit, the braced leg jammed into a corner, and tacked the boat again and again, without help from us, then practiced reefing the roller headsails.
“She’s a dream,” he grinned. “I’ll get some practice reefing the main a bit later.
“No rush,” I said. “There’ll be three of us aboard, remember?” I knew he wouldn’t be happy until he felt he could do everything aboard.
At quarter to noon, the fifteen minute gun went off on the Royal Navy ship that served as committee boat. “All ashore that’s going ashore,” Andrew called below to Roz. He whistled and waved at one of the Royal Marine runabouts that had been keeping the spectator fleet away from the starting line. They came alongside. “Will you take us off, sergeant? We’ll need a lift to the Cremyl ferryport on the Plymouth side after the start.”
“Right, sir!” the man called back and held his big rubber assault boat steady against the rail while Andrew and Roz climbed aboard.
“Good luck!” they both cried as the runabout moved away. “See you in a few weeks!”
We waved them off and turned to our work. The twenty-odd entrants in the race, of which Wave was the biggest, reached up and down the starting line, trying for position, while a hundred or more spectator craft ran about, jockeying for a better view. The ten-minute gun went, then the five-minute. With Mark braced at the helm, me grinding the self-tailing winches and Annie keeping time with a stopwatch, we positioned ourselves at the starboard end of the line.
“Thirty seconds!” Annie called out.
We put in our final tack and started for the line, which was very close, now.
“Fifteen seconds!”
We picked up speed.
“Five, four, three, two, one …” The starting cannon aboard the nearby ship went, loud in our ears. Perhaps half a second later Wave’s bows sliced across the starting line.
“Bloody good luck!” Mark screamed back.
Since we had never practiced, it must have been, but that didn’t make it feel any less good. We tore out into the English Channel, neck and neck with a large trimaran. The big multi-hulls, four or five of them in the race, were going to be our competition. In the right conditions, they could beat us. A mile or so out, Andrew and Roz appeared briefly in the Royal Marine boat, waved, then turned back for Plymouth.
Mark kept us on the starboard tack, making for the Eddystone Light, some ten miles offshore, which was the first mark of the race. The next mark was the finish line, off Horta, on the island of Faial, in the Azores, some twelve hundred miles down the North Atlantic Ocean. We made the Eddystone in a bit more than an hour, having averaged nearly nine knots in the fresh breeze. As we tacked around the tall lighthouse, a faint boom hit our ears.
“I hope the Royal Navy’s not having gunnery practice out here today,” Mark laughed, looking around for the source of the noise. Then he pointed in the direction of Plymouth. A column of black smoke was rising from the town.
“Jesus,” I said. “What’s that?”
“Looks like it could be one of those oil tanks down by the river.”
Then one of my jib sheets came adrift, leaving the sail flapping, and we forgot about everything else while we retrimmed for the next long tack down the English Channel.