Fair Wind and Plenty of It: A Modern-Day Tall Ship Adventure

Book by Crockett Rigel

This is the pleasure of life at sea,–fine weather,
day after day, without interruption,–fair wind,
and plenty of it,–and homeward bound.
–Richard Henry Dana, from Two Years Before the Mast, 1840

Chapter 1: Gale Warning

25 November 1997
Beginning of World Circumnavigation
Bound for Panama from Lunenburg Harbour, Nova Scotia, Canada

As evening deepened, swells grew high. Driven across the North Atlantic, they rolled under us and smashed into white against the snowy bluffs that cradled Lunenburg Bay. The Picton Castle had felt so large and steady there. Now, as we ploughed into the wide ocean – pitching, rolling, testing the concrete ballast that we’d poured – she felt small.

I tightened my grip on her wheel for balance and thought of our thirty green fare-paying crew. Most, unaccustomed to rough nights underway, grew seasick and cold on deck and below. We pressed farther from land and the strengthening wind piled the swells steeper. It kicked up whitecaps, tore them into spray.

The air was below freezing. I pulled my hat down over my ears, lifted my wool collar against the cold wind that blew over the stern. The ship, 179 feet overall, rocked so that her iron freeing ports, meant to shed water from the deck, opened and slammed shut with a string of clanging reports. In a still harbour the deck sat just three and a half feet above surface. In a rolling sea, water sprayed aboard on the low side and surged across the deck in torrents. She was wetter than I’d thought she’d be.

Above the engine’s deep chug, a near gale-force wind whistled in our new rigging. It had been a while since a square-rigger had sailed out of Lunenburg harbour. From the 1860s to the 1880s, Lunenburg was home to an impressive fleet of twenty-five to thirty square-riggers that carried cargoes all over the globe. By 1912, the last of them had her yards removed so she could be handled with fewer crew and scrape by for a few more years in an industry doomed to fade away. In late November 1997, I looked up to our topsails, lashed to their yards just days prior. Two on the fore, two on the main. I was impressed that the Captain had set the uppers in this wind. Twenty-five days behind schedule, he hungered to make distance south before the storms of winter could lock us in, before they could rob his last chance to hold the confidence of the fare-paying crew who’d helped finance his voyage.

Chief mate Brian held the rail for balance as he walked aft from the charthouse to the end of the quarterdeck where I steered. Under the shade of his sou’wester I could see his brown, close-set eyes. He fixed them on mine, like he always did when delivering an order. “Come right to south.”

“Come right to south,” I repeated, and then leaned into the wheel, feeling relieved to steer away from this cold, away from the disappointments of my Lunenburg summer. Crew tugged on the braces to pivot the yards as we changed course. If everything went well, we’d fetch the tropics in a week. Then the order would be steer west, and it would stay west until we’d circled the globe.

Dressed in a long black raincoat and knee-high rubber boots, Captain Dan Moreland stepped from charthouse to quarterdeck and mustered his watch. I felt my toes clench in my boots and made an effort to relax. The man looked tired from our four-month sprint to ready the ship. The grey patch on the chin of his beard had grown, and his face seemed long. He spoke a couple of clipped sentences and disappeared back into his charthouse, leaving the management of his watch to Jesse, his lead able-bodied seaman.

Jesse, with a few days’ scruff on his cleft chin and a ponytail pressed down by his wool hat, sent one of his professional watchmates to relieve me at the helm.

I walked towards the charthouse to report that I’d been relieved and noticed that many of Jesse’s crew were women. Some of them looked uncomfortable, likely wondering why they’d each spent $32,500 (U.S.) to be here.

“If you fall overboard,” Jesse said to his watch, “jam your marlinspike in your eye, because there’s no way you’ll be rescued.” His watch laughed nervously at the severity. I chuckled too. I was not quite so serious as Jesse. Probably it was reflected in my rank – a second-string able-bodied seaman, below the bo’sun on our watch. Still, Jesse was right. A man overboard stood next to no chance in this water.

I worked my way forward to the fo’c’sle for a few hours’ rest before my next watch. I climbed into my upper bunk, drew the curtain, flipped on my fifteen-watt reading light and settled my shoulders against the bulkhead. At about thirty inches, this fo’c’sle bunk was wider than most in commercial ships, and I was one of the lucky few with a porthole. No doubt it would be a luxury in the tropics, though now condensation and ocean spray obscured its glass, sparkling emerald in the starboard sidelight.

I grabbed my journal from the shelf beside me. Pulling up my knees to prop the book, I slammed them noisily into the guitar I’d strapped to my overhead. I muffled the strings, and with hands stiff from cold I wrote:

It has been many months since I’ve written an entry. I’ve been working like a dog on the ship and finishing my sea chest. What few thoughts I’ve put on paper I have sent to Ariel.

These months have been poignant. I’ve gotten to know Dad much better. He’s a sage man and carries a lot of sadness. His eyes were filled with tears when we sailed off the dock. Laurel cried on my shoulder last night. I didn’t expect it — my sister and I have been so aloof lately. I love Laurel. She seems both grown up and a little girl. Mom cried today.

The last few months have held a lot of disappointment. I avoid the Captain. My father is worried about the voyage.

I feel I’ve grown a lot here. Everyone has.

Here I go. Homeward bound.
From the Hardcover edition.