Ideas change with age

THE OFT-REPEATED ADVICE about world cruising under sail is: Go young; go small; go now. It seems to be an established fact that the younger you are when you set out, the smaller your boat can be without causing you too much discomfort. It’s also a fact that most people demand bigger boats and more comfort as they grow older.

It was therefore interesting to learn what John Guzzwell had to say about the matter. He once held the record for circumnavigating alone in the smallest boat, a 20-foot 6-inch light-displacement yawl called Trekka that he built himself in Victoria, British Columbia.

He was in his early 20s at the time, and found Trekka to be an excellent sea-boat, fast  under sail and easy on her crew. In his book Trekka Round the World (Fine Edge) he points out that Trekka’s chief disadvantage was a lack of space down below. “This was most apparent in port and never noticed at sea,” he said. “In port the lack of space became a nuisance largely because of shore-side customs. Getting into a jacket and trousers required me to become something of a contortionist, and the toilet arrangements were hardly as easy as when at sea.”

Trekka lacked standing headroom, of course, but the main disadvantage was that Guzzwell was unable to return the hospitality so freely accorded him during his  record-breaking voyage around the world.  “Had I been able to invite some of these people into a more spacious saloon, I would have done so,” he said, “but two persons down below in Trekka was about the limit.”

So the question now arises, more than 50 years after that epic voyage: What boat would John Guzzwell choose if he had to do it again singlehanded? Well, hardly surprisingly, she would be a little bigger, a light-displacement 30-footer, in fact. She would have a small inboard diesel engine instead of an outboard. She would have standing headroom, and she would be cutter- rigged instead of yawl-rigged.  She would also have a self-steering wind vane. (In the 1950s, when he built Trekka, not a lot was known about wind-vane self-steering, so she was designed with a small mizzen to help her sail herself on most courses.)

“One’s ideas tend to change with the passing years,” he notes, “but I see a lot of people missing out on much of the enjoyment of boating by attempting to take their shore-side conveniences with them. Most seem to want maintenance-free boats, yet load up on somewhat unnecessary equipment that needs constant attention to keep it working.”

So we can add one more recommendation to the old advice: Go young; go small; go now; go simple. And if the years have intervened and foiled your best intentions, until you suddenly find yourself middle-aged or more, then take John Guzzwell’s short cut. Make it a 30-foot cutter with a modest diesel and a sturdy wind vane, and leave the fancy stuff ashore. That man knows what he’s talking about.

Today’s Thought

Luxury is an enticing pleasure, a bastard mirth, which hath honey in her mouth, gall in her heart, and a sting in her tail.

— Francis Quarles, Emblems: Bk. i, Hugo

Tailpiece

There was a young woman called Hall
Who wore a newspaper dress to a ball.
The dress caught on fire
And burned her entire
Front page, sports section, and all.

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Trekka's mystery photograph

ON PAGE 191 of John Guzzwell’s fine book, Trekka Around the World, there is a photograph of the author attending to some small task on the hull of his sweet little 21-foot yawl.  The caption underneath says: “Face-lift in Durban.” And then, to the right of the caption, in type so small that even a spider would need a magnifying glass to read it, it says: “John Vigor.”

That’s me. I took that photograph. But how it got into Mr. Guzzwell’s book is a mystery. I didn’t give him or the publisher that picture. Nobody asked me for it. Nobody paid me for it. It just somehow appeared right there on page 191 as if by magic.

Some time ago I e-mailed the publisher, Fine Edge Productions, and asked how they had got hold of my picture, and how they knew it was me that took it, but those questions were never answered. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know the answers.

I was in Durban in 1958, of course, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to take that picture, and I remember Mr. Guzzwell’s arrival in Durban. It caused quite a stir. His was the smallest boat ever to undertake a circumnavigation and he had completed half of it or more singlehanded by the time he reached the shores of Natal.

Trekka was a wooden boat, and one that he had built himself in Victoria, British Columbia. She had been specially designed for him by the famous British naval architect J. Laurent Giles.

He went on to finish his world-girdling voyage in that light-displacement yawl and held for many years the record for the smallest sailboat to accomplish the feat. He eventually settled in Seattle, Washington, just down the road a way from where I live now, by some strange co-incidence.

If you haven’t read Trekka Around the World, I urge to do so if you have the slightest interest in simple sailing. It is a yachting classic that should never be allowed to go out of print. In those days, there were none of the modern electronic aids to navigation. The author used a sextant and the stars. He didn’t even have a self-steering wind vane or an electric pilot.  Trekka would sail herself to windward quite contentedly, and she would also sail herself dead down-wind under twin jibs.  But she must have needed a bit of nursing from the tiller on reaches.

As a bonus, this book also contains details of Mr. Guzzwell’s experiences aboard the Smeetons’ renowned boat, Tzu Hang, which survived a bad capsize near Cape Horn and limped back to Chile, largely thanks to Mr. Guzzwell’s woodworking skills and seamanship.

Trekka is in a museum in Victoria, B.C., these days, and a sister ship of hers called Tern, built in 1978, is still for sale here in the nearby San Juan Islands. She’s sloop-rigged, rather than yawl-rigged, but otherwise mostly ready to take on the oceans, and in fine condition. All you need is $9,500 and a passion to see the world in your own brave little sailboat.

http://laurentgilestrekka.blogspot.com/p/description-and-inventory.html

Today’s Thought

Life ought to be a struggle of desire toward adventures whose nobility will fertilize the soul.

— Rebecca West

Tailpiece

“Are you crazy? You tipped the parking attendant 50 bucks?”

“Sure. Look at this nice new Mustang he’s given us.”

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)