Bryan wrote:

I've never experienced an absence of wind where I didn't have an auxilliary
(sp?), you know, a motor, to fall back on; I've only read of the scenario.

What is the longest dead calm you've experienced? Were you relaxed, you
know, calm, about it? How long did it take before it started to get to you,
if at all?

If not you, what is the longest dead calm our sailing author's have
experienced and lived to tell?



-The Crew of "The Tipsey": Two.-

Mouth of the Sturgeon River, Lake Nippising, Ontario, 30 years ago.

A 19 foot plywood bilge keeler, baggy sails, newlyweds, but for the
sake of a few years. A seagull outboard motor disregarded, a
wonderful week of sailing done, headed now for the last port of call
looking toward a hamburger supper near a familiar dock before the
week and soon, this weekend is done and then a return to Calandar
Bay tomorrow, and resumption of work on monday, at NORAD in Trenton.
Been nice all week then becalmed, with the river mouth in sight. Out
of ice.

Well after sailing all week, and lunchtime threatens, why not wait
for wind, and eat the remnants in the cooler for late brunch adrift?
But hold, is that a zephyr I feel on a hairy arm? Barely enough to
make a matchstick move beside the boat, but still, promise. Still
purists, the decision is made to sail, regardless, like the old
timers had to, before steam, an oath, OK?

"OK." says Mrs. Super Principals, Spouse to the Captain of Youthful
Principals, aboard the "S.V. Tipsey", in the Sturgeon's mouth.

Lunch. Stillness. Scraps. Thirst. Half a bottle of warm coke, one
ounce of rum, one warm beer, two cigarettes remain. The last of the
clean water went for breakfast coffee, caffeine and all. The porta
pottie is full. Courage.

Then, sail like a ghost toward Sturgeon Falls, an inch at a time,
back and forth, inching, tacking flabbily against a devilish tease
of wind, hinting, coming, going, never nearer, sunscreen all gone
now too, burning skin, wet T shirts and hats, Ontario heat, muggy
heat.

Time, rocking and ticking halyards in tune up before a concert,
forever tuning, tuning. Impatience, lazy seagulls, aspiring to
vulture careers, circling, squawking, ****ting, aggravating as
crackely candy wrappers at a movie, or a baby wailing in the smoking
balcony. No cigarettes left. No paddles with which to kill them, as
they come seeming sniffing, looking, smelling food and blood not yet
quite dead, scraps and sweat. Seeing their victims' slow decline
through thirst and suffering, patient, waiting, circling. *******s.
Old timers, veterans, paying the continuing price.

Tense smiles, salvation still beckons only a mile away, but too far
to swim. A vow to keep. Brooding Silence. The mood is getting ugly,
stubborn, frustrated.

Sunset. Immobility. The occasional wake as photographers zoom by,
damned papperazzi, close enough to take a picture of an odd couple
in the darkeling, against the setting sun's hellfire, haggard, sails
baggy, all at sea, getting desperate, now wavering? Never! The last
rationed beer spilled underfoot in it's cockpit shady spot, by a
stumble, a skip, a slip, a wake. Blame. Mutiny? We conspire to kill
powerboaters for diversion. Still, murder is our hearts now, and
freedom from this hell, dominated by principle over a childish oath,
a foolish mission, pointless, but not to be abandoned lightly.

Loyalty.

Principles, a vow. Acquiesecence. Patience. Suffering saints,
stained hearts. Dieting, now that rationing is ended, depleted,
without means to ration, fasting, famine, hunger, thirst. Mad,
crazing thirst and heat, and those damned gulls, circling, circling.

Drink the lake? Ewww!

"We will start the engine once we sail to a point between the red
and green entrance bouys." Remember your vow, your loyalty to
Captain, fellow crew, King, country, and holy mission?

"OK." She said, remember? Weary? Words given, words kept.

We are close enough for the mosquitos to have found us. They brought
their friends, the blackflies, and their little hitch hikers, the
no-see-ums. *******s! Bloodthirsty *******s! *******s everywhere!

We have no screens, only the companionway boards, closed forehatch,
mosquito coils, the heat, no air, no drink, no food. Nausea from
the insecticide fumes and wakes, wakes, wakes and their noise, and
the halyards' mad coded voices, urging murder, madly concerted now,
Wagnerian, blood stirring, mad, mad, mad for water, cool water.

Psycosis looms, our vows sacrosanct. Purgatory. Night. The anchor.
Sleep? The heat, the bugs, the wakes, as starships warp past. The
hurricane lantern, lighting an anchored prison ship.

The stink of bodies and the head, the festering seas, sewer to
Sturgeon falls, the moaning of thirsty sleep. Fitful, imprisoned, in
red hot irons. No sweat left. Swollen tongues, dreams, fitful,
memories dreamed: "Don't you listen to him, Dan, he's a devil, not
a man, as he spreads the burning sand with water. -Cool, -clear,
water-water." Startled! Awake again. Thirsty, trapped. Condemned?

Dawn, again. No wind, not one breath all night, and now, no grub,
no pudding, no duff. Nothing to drink. Itching. One pink peppermint
remains, to burn again the swollen, parched overhung tongues that
share it, lovers star crossed, allies, fellow stubborn victims,
fellow traitors, condemned together, we spy for weakness, seek out
heresey to use to condemn the other, to save ourselves.

"You want to give up? Start the engine?"

"Only if that's what you want."

Where do women get that attitude? Perhaps they are bad luck at sea,
as they say?

Then the breakdown, shameful, mercy, debased, dishonour? Then,
motor, grudging seagull putting up the river, powerboats zooming by.
One in particular, giant, fast, centre channel in a curved sewer
ditch, stereo blaring, waving, joyful, blind to suffering and
circumstance, ignorant fools! How I had wished to sail here. What if
he met another like himself, blind, coming the other way? But now,
a common enemy, a unity refound, goal in sight, nearer, nearer. A
monster wake, fitted perfectly to the damage seen on the boat houses
and rocks awash on shore as we pass, slowly, put-putting, putting.

Only a hour to the dock, washrooms, pop with ice, chips, hamburgers,
salvation, heavan!

Saturday shopping, beer store, then for home: showers, air
conditioning, ice cream, beer, TV. Only twenty years on the parade
square with rain and snow in November, remembrance days fly by, and
other duties too, to get to here.

A short becalming? Still, the longest. Too long. A survival story
for the kids, eventually, like the story of great grand dad in his
tin hat crash landing in the bomb shelter sump full of water, ass
full of shrapnel, chin strap tight, hat wedged tight in the sump,
underwater, a nearby bomb echo resounding, hanged upside down by the
chinstrap under water below great grandma's ankles in the mud, a
near drowning in the blitz. Comical now, just a little character
building now, memories of fun, then, in the good old days survived.

-Recalled aboard "The Tipsey Two, Too" once, and now again, yard
sailing at home, the house a part of a frozen winter flottilla in
formation with "The Bote Ouele", a bigger bilge keeler on the
trailer in the snow, thankful for the cool warmth, and water to
waste. The water of life. The book of living.

Terry K

"Bryan" wrote in message
et...
I've never experienced an absence of wind where I didn't have an
auxilliary (sp?), you know, a motor, to fall back on; I've only read of
the scenario.

What is the longest dead calm you've experienced? Were you relaxed, you
know, calm, about it? How long did it take before it started to get to
you, if at all?

If not you, what is the longest dead calm our sailing author's have
experienced and lived to tell?

Sailing from Sydney Australia to Auckland New Zealand in 1949 after '48
Transtasman race (NZ to Aussie)
Tasman normally one of roughest seas in world.
5 full days becalmed halfway across - did 50 miles in 5 days, and worst
day's run was MINUS 2.
Engine was defunct . Total 1250 miles took 22 days - probably record slowest
crossing for boats not dismasted or similar. Enough food on board - and
proved that water usage can be as little as one third of a (imperial)
gallon - about 1.5 litres - per man per day.
Boat was 30 foot solid (and slow) double ender - Colin Archer type.
Big shark - about half boat length - right alongside, so no swimming!

Irony was that we were returning after the race in which we encountered a
cyclone and weathered 110 knot winds - proved by the anenometer on Lord Howe
Island - we were about 50 miles from Lrd Howe, and the centre of the
cyclone passed between us and island. The graph shows wind going off the
chart at 111 knots, and then dropping to flat calm. No, it wasn't the eye of
the cyclone- just the mast on the weather station blowing down.
We rolled about 135 degrees (one boat in the race rolled 360 and survived).
At the height of the blow I promised God that if we survived I would never
complain about being becalmed again - and HE must have heard me !!!
Terry

"Mouth of the Sturgeon River, Lake
Nippising, Ontario, 30 years ago."

nice post Terry....thanx.......

On Fri, 02 Dec 2005 05:23:11 GMT, "Bryan"
wrote:
What is the longest dead calm you've experienced? Were you relaxed, you
know, calm, about it? How long did it take before it started to get to you,
if at all?

Nothing as remotely dramatic as I have yet to sail anywhere but Lake
Ontario. But this little drinkable sea is known for dead air in the
summer, and we spent three days a few years back going a miserable 50
miles (essentially propelled by a weak current setting east) between
Toronto and Cobourg in a June with 30 degree heat. The bugs were
ferocious even four to five NM offshore, and I was all purist and
gung-ho to "sail, because it's a sailboat". Despite casting off the
pretense of staying clothed, it was pretty futile and hard on the
gear. What finally made me reach for the engine key was the sight of
my Zodiac on a long bridle driving ahead of the cockpit...an unmanned
rubber runabout was a better sailor than me....sigh...

R.