There's bad luck . . . and bad luck

OKAY, WE’RE BACK IN BUSINESS. The flu doctor knew his business and the computer is sputtering along nicely again.  I’ve been looking at pictures of that monster of a cruise ship that was adrift in the Gulf, and thinking what a scandal it is that the engineering crew didn’t have the skills and/or resources to get her engines going again after the breakdown. Shame on them.

The rescue tugs seem to have had a time of it, too, what with the tow line breaking and all. One begins to wonder what has happened to the art of seamanship in these days when cruise ships are shaped like gigantic apartment blocks and the air-conditioned bridge stands a hundred feet up in the air, remote and isolated from that nasty old sea.

It all reminded me of the only time so far I have needed a tow into port.  I was singlehanding back from Canada on a dead calm day when the Westerbeke’s water pump quit and I had to shut it down.  It took me six hours to sail the four miles to the nearest marina at Chemainus, on Vancouver Island.

I dropped the sails about a quarter mile outside the harbor entrance, hopped into my 10-foot fiberglass dinghy, and attached a tow line to the thwart.  I sculled with one oar over the stern, and noted how little power it took to move the boat, a Cape Dory 27-footer displacing between 7,500 and 9,000 pounds, depending on which marina crane driver you believed.  I waggled the oar back and forth, keeping a nice steady pressure on the tow line, and the boat followed obediently at perhaps a knot or so in the calm water. I didn’t even raise a sweat.

A couple of kind Canadians came running when I entered the marina on a shortened tow line, probably more concerned about the damage I could do to their boats, but I managed to nudge the Cape Dory sideways into a vacant berth and they helped me make fast.

A kind skipper of a 50-footer from the Royal Vancouver Yacht Club invited me to supper aboard his boat with friends, and also gave me a 10-mile tow to Maple Bay next day, after I discovered there was no marine mechanic available in Chemainus.

I found one in Maple Bay all right, but he discovered that the water pump was beyond repair, so I had to order a new one from Seattle, which meant a wait of four days. I couldn’t complain, though.  Maple Bay was a good place for an enforced stay.  It had a pub and restaurant just a few steps away from my berth.  It wasn’t a totally luxurious holiday, but it was heaven compared with what the thousands of passengers on that cruise ship have had to put up with. At least I didn’t have to eat raw onion sandwiches or dodge streams of sewage coursing through my cabin.

Today’s Thought

What evil luck soever

For me remains in store,
’Tis sure much finer felows
Have fared much worse before.
— A. E. Houseman, Last Poems

Tailpiece

“Did you see the doctor?”
“Yeah, he said I had water on the knee.”
“Did he fix it?”
“Yeah, he gave me a tap on the leg.”

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

Cruising in perspective

THOSE OF YOU who have read the latest issue of Good Old Boat magazine to the very last page will know that I have just returned from a voyage to Alaska in a cruise ship.

I have to admit that it is something I swore I would never do. I have often looked up from the cockpit of my small sailboat at some passing cruise ship and scoffed at how the passengers are insulated from the sights and sounds of nature in the raw. I have noted with scorn how the occupants of these vast floating castles peer out from behind their facades of glass, cocktails in hand, in air conditioned comfort while we, mere specks down below, experience the full and glorious effects upon our bodies and souls of the winds and waves. And the rain, of course. And the cold. But as I’ve always maintained, a little suffering undoubtedly adds keenness to the experience.

However, all that changed when my sister came to visit us from South Africa and wanted to see Alaska. A cruise ship seemed to be the easy way to do it, and I buckled. By way of compromise, I chose the cheapest cabin on the boat, way down in steerage just clear of the bilge water and next to the steering gear, the propellers, and the noisy stern thruster. I reckoned that seven nights of sleepless hell would provide the suffering so necessary to enjoy fully nature in the raw in the form of icebergs, glaciers, and grand coastal mountain ranges.

It occurred to me early one morning then the stern thruster was grinding away that there is a distinct difference between modern cruise ships and the old ocean liners I have traveled on in the past. The liners were lean, graceful, purposeful ships. Those greyhounds of the sea earned their stature because they had an important job to do, transporting passengers, mail, and goods swiftly across the seven seas.

Cruise ships are mere frivolities. They’re floating Disneylands. If they all sank tomorrow, the world would be no worse off without them. They have no purpose beyond entertainment, over-eating, and many of the excesses that doomed the Roman Empire.

Their patrons remind me of the landlubbers who decide to buy yachts and go cruising around the world, only to find their dreams shattered after a month or two. It’s just not realistic to expect to find happiness by sailing off into the sunset, cocktail in hand.

A successful cruise in a small sailboat is the result of having a purpose, a goal, and a plan to achieve it. The yacht is merely a tool in this great enterprise, and happiness comes as a result of not seeking it directly, but of doing a good honest job of working toward your goal. Happiness is the child of serendipity, and it creeps up on you and ambushes you when your attention is healthily occupied with the working of you boat.

Nevertheless ... I grudgingly admit that the cruise to Alaska was enjoyable, even for those of us down in steerage. Perhaps the glaciers weren’t as impressive as they would have been from the cockpit of my own boat, and perhaps the humpbacks looked a lot less intimidating from a height of 90 feet, but there is a certain amount of consolation in knowing that the steward hovering nearby will bring you a cold beer at the flick of a finger, and that a mountain of fine food awaits you in the dining room down the passage. And best of all, you know that you don’t have to do the washing up in a bucket of that cold, cold Alaskan water while sitting in the rain in the cockpit.

Boaters’ Rules of Thumb #64
Auxiliary engine. Surprisingly little power is needed to move a boat at a reasonable speed. The problem is that the power needs to be delivered by a large, slow-turning screw. On auxiliary sailboats, a large screw creates too much drag, so a compromise has to be made. The old rule of thumb is that enough power is needed to give at least 2 knots against a Force 5 wind with the weather shore up to 2 miles distant. Three or four horsepower per ton of displacement will do it.

Tailpiece
“I hear that hussy in the tiny thong got badly sunburned yesterday.”
“Good, I’m glad. She got what she was basking for.”

Saving the sun

ONCE AGAIN, we in the northern hemisphere have pulled the sun back from the brink. With our candles and flashing lights and the noisy festivities surrounding the solstice, we have persuaded our mother star to abandon its flight to the south. At this very moment it is inching back our way, lengthening our days and bringing back the warmth we so sorely miss.

Happy New Year to you. I myself am happy that its number is 2010. A nice, convenient, twenty-ten instead of the multisyllabic two-thousand-and-nine, or twenty-oh-nine. Or even twenty-aught-nine, as my Idaho relatives used to say, instead of twenty-naught-nine, as is only right and proper. They even spelled aught as “ott,” just the way they said it. But they’re only relatives by marriage, you understand. It’s not in the genes.

So what’s new for the New Year? Well, a cruise to Alaska, for a start. No, not on my yacht. On a real cruise ship. Yes, honestly. I know, I know, I vowed I’d never set foot on one of those floating monstrosities that have more in common with ugly slabsided condominium blocks than shapely ships of the sea. But, see, my sister and her husband are coming from South Africa for a short visit next summer, and they wanted to go to Alaska. So this seemed the quick and dirty way to do it.

I can well remember the trouble we had with cruise ships in the Caribbean, how I cursed them when we were making night passages through the islands in our 30-foot sailboat. They would appear ahead of us, their navigation lights lost in a 10-story blaze of twinkling lights, steaming slowly in wide circles so you didn’t know which way to steer to keep out of their darned way.

They were just killing time, of course, waiting for daylight to enter port and disgorge 1,500 stampeding passengers into a village with one main street and 50 duty-free jewelers’ stores, all owned by the cruise-ship company.

So I’m not expecting too much of the Alaska cruise. We have the cheapest accommodation on board, deep down in steerage, over the props and next to the rudder motors. There is no outside view. I just hope they’ll provide us with bilge pumps to keep the water off the floor -- although I expect to suffer some. It would only be right, considering that I’ve broken my solemn vow.

Today’s Thought
Travel seems not just a way of having a good time, but something that every self-respecting citizen ought to undertake, like a high-fiber diet, say, or a deodorant.
— Jan Morris, “It’s OK to Stay at Home,” NY Times 30 Aug 85

Tailpiece
An old bachelor had been visiting an elderly widow every evening for three years. One day a friend said to him: ”Since you two get along so well together, why don’t you marry her?”
“I thought of that,” said the bachelor, “but then where would I spend my evenings?”