Solitaire Spirit: Three Times Around the World Single-Handed by Les Powles Page A
Book: Solitaire Spirit: Three Times Around the World Single-Handed by Les Powles
Read Free Book Online
Authors: Les Powles
Ads: Link
and the Teasing Skirt. The slapping sails, the rattle of the rigging, the strange sounds that would take hours to find... a shifting mug, a loose can. One sound had lasted longer than all the rest, a bruuuph, bruuuph, over and over again. Whenever I moved from my bunk I would alter
Solitaire
âs balance and the noise, hearing me, would stop. Even if I slid along the floor on my belly, holding my breath, I could not catch it. Then the Giant scrubbed his back, and I had it. Bruuuph, bruuuph. A new drill was rolling back and forth in a drawer. I watched it with pleasure for a few minutes, like a cat with a mouse, then I pounced. Clutching it in my fist I took it to
Solitaire
âs stern, and threw a brand new drill worth a bag of rice 50 yards into the sea. You really should not do that sort of thing. Later I learned the secret of destroying calms. You simply ignore them.
Once the sea was flat I would drop the headsail, and put a reef in the main to reduce chafe, which drives the chappie taking the bath bananas. Invariably I would spend my first day on deck busy with odd jobs, always remembering to smile and whistle from time to time for Leering Clouds hate happy whistling. To attract the Teasing Skirt I would bring out my secret weapon, a couple of good books, and while reading would watch her advances from beneath lowered lids. Red skirts hate being treated in this way and soon show all they have. There are compensations to long calms for at the end you will hear the Hallelujah chorus played by the London Symphony Orchestra. Itâs like sitting in the Royal Albert Hall, eyes closed, waiting, waiting, waiting. Then a faint cough; a ripple touches
Solitaire
âs side. A flute softly tunes up and thesails stop flapping. The string section plays a few bars and her rigging hums. The conductor taps his baton, a slight pause and
Solitaire
is sailing and the most marvellous music in the world is heard. The chorus sings Hallelujah, Hallelujah, higher and higher, Haaaaaleeeelujah...
Solitaire
sailed 200 miles to the east of the Galapagos Islands, passing through areas showing six per cent calms on the charts. She had to overcome a north-flowing current of 15 to 20 miles a day as she struggled over the Equator for her third crossing to the free-flowing trade winds that started 300 miles to the south. She was sick as she told me but again, because of my inexperience, I took no notice. She lost her will to live, dragging through the sea on legs too tired to move. I assumed the slow progress to be due to the adverse current and light winds, and fought back with every sail arrangement I could possibly manage to contrive.
The first light breezes from the east indicated the start of the trades.
Solitaire
carried no whisker poles for holding out twin headsails simply because I could not afford them. Instead I had made do with two 13ft aluminium poles to which I had fitted eyes at both ends. I tried using these with both the number one and two genoas hanked on, plus the full main. Still she would not budge. Seas flowed past her and the self-steering lost control, even the tiller having little effect upon her erratic course. She would broach continually, swinging 180° and backing her sails.
When finally we came into the true trades, constant Force 3 to 4 (7 to 16mph), I sailed on a broad reach, with a quartering wind, the number two genoa poled out, a reef in the main. Yachtsmen would have considered me crazy to have so little sail, and in such conditions I would have loved to have set a spinnaker, had I possessed one. Half of the course settings were by sail adjustment as the self-steering was of little practical use.
Unknown to me a cancerous growth was spreading its tentacles around her.
Solitaire
âs cries for help quietened as it entered her mouth, silencing her. Now she was wallowing, hardly noticing the winds that entreated her to frolic.
Wednesday, March 24th, found us at latitude 6°05´S. We had left the
Solitaire
âs balance and the noise, hearing me, would stop. Even if I slid along the floor on my belly, holding my breath, I could not catch it. Then the Giant scrubbed his back, and I had it. Bruuuph, bruuuph. A new drill was rolling back and forth in a drawer. I watched it with pleasure for a few minutes, like a cat with a mouse, then I pounced. Clutching it in my fist I took it to
Solitaire
âs stern, and threw a brand new drill worth a bag of rice 50 yards into the sea. You really should not do that sort of thing. Later I learned the secret of destroying calms. You simply ignore them.
Once the sea was flat I would drop the headsail, and put a reef in the main to reduce chafe, which drives the chappie taking the bath bananas. Invariably I would spend my first day on deck busy with odd jobs, always remembering to smile and whistle from time to time for Leering Clouds hate happy whistling. To attract the Teasing Skirt I would bring out my secret weapon, a couple of good books, and while reading would watch her advances from beneath lowered lids. Red skirts hate being treated in this way and soon show all they have. There are compensations to long calms for at the end you will hear the Hallelujah chorus played by the London Symphony Orchestra. Itâs like sitting in the Royal Albert Hall, eyes closed, waiting, waiting, waiting. Then a faint cough; a ripple touches
Solitaire
âs side. A flute softly tunes up and thesails stop flapping. The string section plays a few bars and her rigging hums. The conductor taps his baton, a slight pause and
Solitaire
is sailing and the most marvellous music in the world is heard. The chorus sings Hallelujah, Hallelujah, higher and higher, Haaaaaleeeelujah...
Solitaire
sailed 200 miles to the east of the Galapagos Islands, passing through areas showing six per cent calms on the charts. She had to overcome a north-flowing current of 15 to 20 miles a day as she struggled over the Equator for her third crossing to the free-flowing trade winds that started 300 miles to the south. She was sick as she told me but again, because of my inexperience, I took no notice. She lost her will to live, dragging through the sea on legs too tired to move. I assumed the slow progress to be due to the adverse current and light winds, and fought back with every sail arrangement I could possibly manage to contrive.
The first light breezes from the east indicated the start of the trades.
Solitaire
carried no whisker poles for holding out twin headsails simply because I could not afford them. Instead I had made do with two 13ft aluminium poles to which I had fitted eyes at both ends. I tried using these with both the number one and two genoas hanked on, plus the full main. Still she would not budge. Seas flowed past her and the self-steering lost control, even the tiller having little effect upon her erratic course. She would broach continually, swinging 180° and backing her sails.
When finally we came into the true trades, constant Force 3 to 4 (7 to 16mph), I sailed on a broad reach, with a quartering wind, the number two genoa poled out, a reef in the main. Yachtsmen would have considered me crazy to have so little sail, and in such conditions I would have loved to have set a spinnaker, had I possessed one. Half of the course settings were by sail adjustment as the self-steering was of little practical use.
Unknown to me a cancerous growth was spreading its tentacles around her.
Solitaire
âs cries for help quietened as it entered her mouth, silencing her. Now she was wallowing, hardly noticing the winds that entreated her to frolic.
Wednesday, March 24th, found us at latitude 6°05´S. We had left the
Similar Books
