All Piss and Wind Page 4

  Coming below to drop his kitbag before the start of the Sydney–Southport race a few years ago he noticed that our small ship’s library, neatly stowed beside the nav station, seemed too generously stocked for his taste. ‘Who brought all these bloody books onto the boat? Too heavy! We don’t want to drag all that stuff up the coast. Chuck ’em off!’

  Long pause. Anxious glances exchanged between the younger crewmembers. Finally, the naviguesser looked up from the chart table where he’d been quietly entering our waypoints into the GPS for the trip north.

  ‘Fair enough, skip. Which books, exactly, do you want us to leave behind? Australian Pilot Vol. II? Ship Captain’s Medical Guide? Marine Radio Operator’s Handbook? The manual for the donk? Can’t imagine why we’d be needing any of them. Come to think of it, these charts are a bit heavy. Better chuck ’em on the dock, too.’

  For once the skipper was reduced to silence.

  But not for long. A month or so earlier we’d pensioned off an old spinnaker pole and had the bright idea of cutting it up for egg rings. (Don’t laugh. You can never have too many egg rings at sea. Sailors the world over love a good fry-up as much as they all hate doing the washing-up afterwards.) Anyway, out came the hacksaw. By the time we’d finished with the old kite pole we could have served simultaneous two-egg breakfasts for the entire crews of Brindabella, Shockwave and Nicorette combined.

  Somewhere off Crowdy Head on the second day the skipper became restless and decided he’d cook himself a feed. Fossicking around in the galley he soon came upon our new mega-supply of heavy-duty egg rings.

  ‘Good to see we’ve got enough of these bloody things at last!’

  Smirks of surprised self-satisfaction passed between the off-watch. Could it be that we’d actually managed to do something that met with the skipper’s unqualified approval? Surely not.

  ‘But, jeez, they’re a bit heavy, aren’t they?’

  The difference in weight between a store-bought egg ring and a hacksawed section of spinnaker pole must be all of .0001 ounces.

  ‘Reckon we better take a few off the boat for the next trip.’

  There’s just no pleasing some people.

  Mind you, I’ve known worse when it came to weight obsession. In the early 1980s the top IOR boats were always described by the yachting press as being ‘stripped out’. This was, of course, utter nonsense. There’d never been anything to strip out of those 40-footers in the first place – they were built empty. Crude pipe berths, an open dunny and a metho stove was just about your lot when it came to creature comforts. But even those Spartan appointments seemed too heavy for many skippers. They believed that anything kept below that might contribute to crew comfort or wellbeing was an indefensible inhibition on their divine right to win trophies.

  Back then many of the boats still carried the old, Mae West-style inflatable life jackets. Before a particularly important race I can remember the owner demanding we each drag out our appointed jacket for inspection. What had prompted the skipper’s touching concern for our safety? ‘Now lads, I want you to hold open the valves and squeeze out all of the air from those vests. Our handicap’s a bit savage for this race. We can’t afford to be carrying any extra weight.’

  There followed one of those rare moments of simultaneous crew telepathy. Each of us instantly shared the same mental image: the skipper suddenly being pitched overboard by a rogue wave. Slowly … majestically … sadly … he sinks from view while desperately trying to blow up his life jacket.

  What a splendid weight-saving his demise would contribute for the remainder of the race! We’d be at least half a knot quicker through the water. But hold on, the rules now require every boat to finish with the same number of people who were on board at the start. Damn. I suppose we’d better drag the bugger back on board.

  ‘The sea hates a coward!’

  Eugene O’Neill, Mourning Becomes Electra, 1931

  WE ARE ALL FORMED by our earliest experiences. Age might give us knowledge, judgement and even a modicum of wisdom, but the essential temper of our approach to life is forged in youth. After immediate family, first mentors play a huge role in that process. In such a complex, physically challenging and potentially dangerous pursuit as ocean racing the influence of early teachers helps form a sailor’s general approach to the sport for the rest of their life.

  The disturbing eccentricities and bizarre tactical notions of many skippers who’ve come late to yachting can usually be explained by the fact that they are largely self-taught sailors. It’s not a range of abilities you can acquire effectively from books or a few quick lessons. Self-instruction by trial and error risks reinforcing methods that might work in moderate wind and on sheltered waters, but could well be fatal offshore. The great strength of learning your trade while crewing with an ‘old hand’ is that all the basic skills can be directly demonstrated in real time, in real situations. Cause, effect and the appropriate responses are made vivid to a young, absorbing mind. Incompetence is immediately punished by mishap; good work rewarded with a lift in boatspeed and, maybe, some hard-won praise. It is the age-old, dependable process of a lifetime’s knowledge being patiently handed down through the generations.

  As a mad-keen teenager desperate to tackle the major offshore events, I was fortunate to serve my first offshore apprenticeship under a true master: Michael York. Mick was a genuine ‘gun’ sailor of his time. He’d spent his own young adulthood at sea as a ship’s engineer, then become a prominent crewman on Morna, the biggest, fastest offshore racing yacht of the 1940s and 1950s. In the early 1960s Frank Packer picked him out to be ‘No. 1’, the head of the foredeck team on Gretel, Australia’s first challenger for the America’s Cup. York’s energy and skill then made a major contribution to the success of Caprice of Huon, which shocked the British yachting establishment by winning three races in the 1965 Admiral’s Cup series. He was selected for the 1968 Australian Olympic yachting team in the 5.5-metre class, and capped an outstanding offshore career by winning the tough 1974 Sydney–Noumea race in his own boat. Mick completed 14 Sydney–Hobart races and was prominent among the yachtsmen who built the Cruising Yacht Club into Australia’s leading offshore racing organisation. The bloke was clearly one of the finest all-round sailors in the Commonwealth, if not the world.

  Mick’s approach to teaching new chums was characteristically taciturn. He would only explain or demonstrate something once. After that you were on your own. If you couldn’t show him that you could tie a quick bowline, reef knot and clove hitch without hesitation, then you stayed ashore until you could. But the most enduring impression I retain of his method was its fearless physical directness. ‘One hand for you, one for the boat!’ he’d declaim, then scurry forward at amazing speed to skirt the genoa, showing us exactly how to move around a deck with safety. The underlying lesson was not to be timid: firm, decisive action was always the most effective approach to the task at hand on a boat.

  Early during a race to Lion Island and return on Mick’s 37-footer we’d set the spinnaker and were dropping the jib when someone let the halyard go. (This is a common mishap, but in those days the halyard falls were wire rope and would immediately coil themselves halfway up the mast if released.) At the helm, Mick was just managing to contain his irritation.

  ‘Gee, fellas. What a cock-up! Can you reach it?’

  ‘Don’t think so, skipper. Reckon we’d better get the bosun’s chair and send someone up.’

  That process is tedious, slow and would be sure to cost us many places in the race. ‘Bugger that!’ roared Mick, and pressed the tiller into my hands. ‘Here, take this. Just hold your course, OK?’

  Before I could protest at having such awesome responsibilities thrust upon me, he was out of the cockpit, rushing forward in his trademark hunched gait. Without breaking stride he then scrambled straight up the mast, hand-over-hand like a monkey. I was so astonished by this impromptu display of agility and courage that my concentration drifted and the boat began rounding up. ‘I said,
hold your bloody course!’ Mick yelled from the crosstree, grabbing the halyard with one hand, clenching it between his teeth and then shinning back down to the deck in seconds. ‘Here it is,’ he barked, giving the runaway halyard tail to the stunned crewman who’d let it go just a few moments earlier.

  Not another word was said about the incident that day, but we’d all learned a few hard lessons: be sure to maintain a firm grip on any loose line, keep your mind on the job while steering, and, perhaps most importantly, don’t be afraid to trust your immediate instincts and physical ability when there’s a problem to solve.

  Trust always seemed to be a guiding element in Mick York’s approach to developing crew. During the winter months, when there was no offshore racing, I’d still turn up at his home on the waterfront at Drummoyne every weekend to work on the boat. Mick had bought Tui Manu in Tasmania as an empty steel shell and sailed her up to Sydney with just hammocks slung below. The internal fit-out was proceeding at a rather stately pace as racing commitments always seemed to keep Mick absent from his well-equipped boatshed workshop for longer than expected.

  ‘You OK with carpentry?’ he asked me early one Saturday morning.

  ‘Not too bad,’ I replied, thankful for my father’s patient tutorials with saws and chisels in the family garage.

  ‘Good-oh, then. We need a mug rack for the galley. You’ll find some nice cedar in that shelf over the drill press.’

  That was the entire set of specifications: ‘a mug rack’. How big? How many mugs should it hold? Where and how was it to be fitted in the boat? Everything was left to me.

  I laboured mightily over that mug rack at the workshop bench for the next two Saturdays. Mick came and went, engaged in the far more important work of preparing some special bits and pieces for Caprice. But he offered no comment. Finally, my masterpiece was ready for installation.

  ‘Thanks, mate, just leave it there. I’ll put ’er in.’ (Drilling holes in boats, even the bulkheads, is traditionally the owner’s prerogative – another lesson learned.)

  I can’t remember whether that mug rack survived for long in the boat, but it certainly did wonders for my self-esteem to be trusted with the job.

  In the days before sophisticated epoxy sealants, rust was the constant nemesis of all steel boats, especially on the deck where a non-slip finish is essential. Mick had experimented with a composite surface of rubberised paint and crushed cork. It was a disaster. The deck soon erupted in horrible pustules of rust breaking through the paint like an outbreak of teenage acne. It was obvious the whole thing would have to be stripped back to bare metal – a huge job. We attacked the worst rust spots with a hammer and cold chisel, but no amount of scraping and filing could restore the surface to a clean state, ready for painting. High-pressure sand-blasting was the only sure way to prepare the pock-marked steel properly, but this would require access to a large industrial air compressor. Hiring those monsters was prohibitively expensive, so the chances of us getting access to the powerful, continuous supply of compressed air we needed down on the Drummoyne waterfront seemed remote.

  But not to Mick York. At the time – the mid 1960s – construction was well underway for the new Gladesville Bridge, that magnificent concrete arch that now spans the Parramatta River six miles upstream from the CBD. One of the work gangs engaged in building the bridge had set up their compound not far from Mick’s home. An informal conversation at knock-off time on the Friday afternoon before the June long weekend sealed the ‘arrangement’. Accidentally-on-purpose, the foreman would forget to padlock their largest diesel air-compressor. By remarkable coincidence, another workman would carelessly leave out enough high-pressure hose to reach from the compressor right down to Mick’s boat. Sweet as a nut. We blasted away for three days and by dusk on the Monday had laboriously stripped the whole deck back to gleaming metal. Quick, get a coat of primer on the bastard before its starts to rust again! All that remained then was to coil the hoses, top up the diesel tank and leave six bottles of beer inside the compressor before Mick snapped the lock closed with a huge wink. That’s how blokes got things done a generation ago.

  This knockabout tradition of self-help mateship also characterised the original spirit of the Cruising Yacht Club before it succumbed to the seductions of sponsorship and big-money glitz. It’s unthinkable today, but back then CYC owners took it in turns to volunteer their boats to stand overnight ‘finishing duty’ for many of the longer weekend races. When Tui Manu wasn’t able to compete in the 1966 Cabbage Tree Island Race, Mick put his hand up for us to become one end of the finishing line anchored out in Rushcutter’s Bay. Our sole duty was to keep an ear on the VHF radio and to take each yacht’s time as it crossed. We were expected to be in position by 2200 on Saturday night and stay on watch until noon the following day. The boat was duly stocked with plenty of food and drink to last the distance. All in all, it seemed like a very pleasant way to spend a few relaxed hours with crewmates.

  By now I was working part time as a ‘C Grade’ for the Daily Telegraph and, as luck would have it, my shift that night didn’t end until 2300. ‘Shouldn’t be a problem,’ said Mick. ‘We’ll leave a dinghy for you at the club. Just row out to us when you get there.’ In those days no journalist worked without a jacket and tie, so I had to roll up my ‘good’ clothes and stuff them under a thwart before beginning the long row out to the boat. ‘Here he is, boys. Be sure you make that dinghy painter up properly. Now, mate, care for a beer?’ How sweet those last four little words sounded after a long day banging out inconsequential paragraphs about not much in particular!

  But a few cold tinnies later the natives were getting a tad restless. The breeze offshore had gone extremely light and the radio sked confirmed the leading boats were still nowhere near Port Stephens, the rough halfway point in the race. Not even the biggest boats would be finishing for ages.

  ‘Doesn’t really seem much point hanging around here,’ someone remarked, ‘there must be a good party we can crash.’

  Memories were trawled. ‘I think one of those Qantas hosties over at Kirribilli said they’d be having a bit of a turn tonight. What about it, skipper? Worth a go?’

  Mick didn’t need much urging. ‘Start engines! Up anchor!’

  Try as he might, our party informant couldn’t remember the street address of his airline acquaintance, but that presented no great obstacle to a boatful of bored yachties suddenly energised by the prospect of all-night festivity. At minimum revs we cruised quietly along the Kirribilli shoreline until a telltale glare of light and blare of music betrayed our target. ‘Beauty! Corner flat on the second floor. And there’s a jetty we can use just 50 yards further up. Drop anchor, boys, we’re on!’

  We rowed ashore clutching the liquid supplies that were sure to get us through the door. Mick led the way – quite literally the life of the party with his engaging grin and boisterous good humour. It was a memorable night of carousing with people we’d never met and were unlikely to ever come across again. I can dimly remember baulking at my fifth shot of arrack (those hosties brought home some amazing liquor duty-free), with Mick urging me to drink up like a man because we’d soon have to shove off and return to our finishing-line duties.

  Tui Manu was safely back ‘on station’ before dawn, and before any member of the CYC Board of Directors might notice our absence. I cooked us all a mountain of bacon and eggs served on fried bread. (There’s nothing quite like high doses of fat and cholesterol to attack a hangover.) Soon the sore heads abated and we gathered in the cockpit drinking coffee and playing endless raucous rounds of Liar’s Dice, a favourite sailor’s game to help pass the time when becalmed. There was nothing else to do. The fleet was still off Terrigal, creeping back down the coast for a late-Sunday finish. Just before noon, the Race Committee arrived in the club cruiser to relieve us.

  ‘Everything OK here, fellows?’

  ‘Oh, yes, Mr Commodore. No problems whatsoever. Quiet as a mouse all night.’

  Like all good leaders Mi
ck inspired loyalty because he trusted his crew. But that almost casual extension of confidence could sometimes cause the odd flutter of real trepidation. Tui Manu had a square-section timber mast made from handsome, straight-grained Oregon. These were impressively sturdy spars, but a nightmare to keep waterproofed. Where sunlight hadn’t cracked the finish, the angry slap of wire halyards soon would. They needed to be sanded back and properly re-varnished every season.

  Mick had better things to do early one Saturday. ‘Mornin’, young fella. Ready to go up the stick?’

  No crewman in those days would ever admit to being fearful of spending his day suspended 50 feet above deck. Mick’s briefing was typically short: ‘Nothing to it. I’ve already done the hard yakka sanding her back. All you’ve gotta do is bung on the varnish. I’ll show you the drill.’ So out came the bosun’s chair, tin of Estapol, brushes and rags. ‘All set? I’ll winch you up and you can let yourself down as you go. Easy as pie.’ But how? ‘Here’s the knot to use. Dead simple.’

  I stared intently as Mick’s experienced hands tied an ingenious hitch that allowed controlled slip under load, but could also be cinched firm with a simple additional bend.

  ‘Got that?’

  ‘Er, I think so.’

  ‘Righty-o then, up we go!’

  I was hauled swiftly to the truck and Mick made off the halyard with one turn around a mast cleat and sent the tail back up to me on the burgee halyard. ‘All set up there? Great. I’ve got to go over to the club now and see Gordon about a handicap measurement for next season. Should be back by arvo tea-time!’

  And that was that. Alone, aloft at the end of a rope, and terrified that I wouldn’t be able to replicate Mick’s magic knot. But desperation is a good teacher. I somehow managed to tie that obscure hitch and then spent the next three hours slowly letting myself down the mast while covering it with a very thick coat of varnish. Whatever happened, no mongrel was going to send me up again because the coverage was too thin! By the time my feet touched the coach-house roof I was racked with cramps but also secretly proud of completing the job as required, and unassisted.