All Piss and Wind Read online

  A singular disadvantage of the sea lies in the fact

  that after successfully surmounting one wave you

  discover that there is another behind it.

  Stephen Crane, The Open Boat, 1897

  THE SILLINESS STARTED at about 32,000 feet. Our skipper and most of the Police Car crew had set off for Hawaii from Sydney on a Pan Am jumbo late one cold September afternoon in 1982. The ever-reliable Bob Brenac and his delivery crew had already sailed the boat over, where she was safely docked at the Waikiki Yacht Club. I’d dashed straight to the airport from a film-editing room where I was scrambling to finish a documentary for SBS. Dick Gooch, the legendary expatriate Honolulu-based organiser of the Pan Am Clipper Cup offshore series, kindly managed to have me upgraded to the pointy end of the plane where Jim Hardy was already charming the hostesses (they weren’t yet ‘flight stewards’) into organising a bit of a shindig once we’d cleared our Auckland pick-up.

  Wine, beer and double scotches were flowing freely. The American hosties seemed delighted have a ‘real, live, gen-yoo-ine Knight of the Realm’ to entertain. Before we reached cruising altitude they’d set up a lavish private buffet at the rear of the upstairs First Class cabin. Caviar, pâté, smoked salmon, olives, camembert – the works – and only yachties were welcome. A bloke can do himself a fair degree of damage flying across the Pacific under those conditions, and we were a rather sore-headed mob as the crew disembarked at Honolulu. Jim had rather ambitiously agreed to first campaign Police Car in the three-race Sauza Cup regatta starting at Maui in 48 hours, then return for the Clipper series that began off Waikiki later that week. Never mind. Straight to the hotel, send up some quality zeds for a few hours, and then down to the boat to prepare for the overnight passage to Lahaina.

  We hadn’t reckoned on two things: the US Customs and Immigration Department, and Jim Hardy’s hospitality. It took an eternity to clear the airport. Yachties tend to carry a selection of pretty weird stuff in their luggage. (‘Say fella, what’s this?’ ‘That’s what we call a ratchet snatch block, sir.’ ‘Oh yeah, buddy? So whaddya do with that?’, and so on.) Then there was the paperwork. (‘Are you now, or have you ever been, a member of the Communist Party?’ ‘Hey, Thommo! What was the name of that terrific party we went to up at Mooloolaba last year?’, and so on.) By the time we’d finally been allowed onto US soil and snagged a fleet of taxis to the hotel, everyone was dog-tired and desperate to snatch an hour or two of sleep.

  Not Sir James. ‘OK, team! Dinner down in the dining room in 30 minutes. On me.’

  You just can’t turn down an invitation like that from your skipper, so with time for only the regulation shower, shit and shave we were all soon seated around a huge table, tucking into a standard three-course American hotel meal. Jim discovered a Hardy’s riesling (from memory it was Old Castle) at the bottom of the wine list and proceeded to play an extended game teasing the waitress until she finally realised that the man ordering all those bottles of white also had his name on the label.

  ‘Well, fellas, the bill’s taken care of. All set for the trip over to Maui? We may as well shove off straight away.’

  Great. Where does this old geezer get his staying power? Tired, jetlagged, overfed and full of McLaren Vale wine, we trooped straight out of the hotel, down to the dock, boarded Police Car and sailed off into the night. Which might have been just fine and dandy, except it was blowing 30 knots on the nose and pouring with tropical rain. Visibility was minimal on a black, lumpy sea. I was profoundly thankful that our naviguesser, Col Betts, had remained reasonably sober and was in a fit state to guide us out of the Ala Wai Canal, across the Kaiwi Channel, between the islands of Molokai and Lanai, through the Auau Channel and into Lahaina Bay by dawn. It was a fine feat of navigation of which I was only dimly aware at the time, having been sick most of the way. We staggered ashore, had a huge celebratory beer and ham-and-eggs breakfast at the Pioneer Inn and fell into bed at the closest hotel we could find. It was hard to believe that the last sleep I’d had was in suburban Sydney nearly 50 hours before.

  Maui is a very beautiful part of the world. It’s where the big blue whales go to mate, where every passing stranger gives you a smile and the ‘hang loose’ hand sign, and where the legendary Windward Passage – perhaps the first truly modern racing maxi – was built on the beach. The relaxed Sauza Cup regatta promised to be a pleasant way of recuperating from the exertions of our trip. Even better, the event was sponsored by the makers of a particularly potent brand of tequila. Not surprisingly, they were keen to promote their product to the visiting yachties. Citrus fruit is plentiful on Maui and before long the island was awash with margaritas. Demand from the crews was so constant that our hosts took to mixing these lip-numbing cocktails in bulk. After the second race I can remember helping myself to repeated rounds by simply dipping my glass into a supply that had been thoughtfully prepared in a 44-gallon drum. Never has the line between spirits and anaesthesia been so finely drawn.

  After four days we were back on the ‘main’ island of Oahu preparing for the Clipper Cup. This event is regrettably now defunct, but twenty years ago it was one of the most prestigious regattas in world ocean racing. It was a teams competition organised roughly along the lines of the Admiral’s Cup, and drew the best offshore boats and crews from the USA, Australia, New Zealand and Japan. There were five races in the program: three ‘ocean triangles’ that each took around five hours to sail, an overnight passage race to Molokai and return, and a final, very long ‘Around the State’ race that sent the yachts on a circumnavigation of the entire Hawaiian Islands group. (A special point of interest for Australian crews was that the route of this last race took the fleet past the beach where Captain James Cook was clubbed to death by the locals in 1779.)

  The opening triangle race was sailed in bright sunshine and a steady 20–25 knots – perfect Police Car weather. We sailed well, won our division on handicap and were promptly installed among the favourites for the regatta. The chuffed crew repaired to the Michelob tent and were entertained by Chas-from-Tas, the highly esteemed Australian delivery skipper who, despite his apparently advanced state of inebriation, climbed onto a table and sang all 473 verses of a notoriously lewd drinking song absolutely word perfect (and with matching kindergarten-style actions). The evening slowly dissolved into that glorious mix of laughter, beer and yarn-spinning that marks the end of a great day’s racing. I still have the profoundly ugly trophy in my study at home that we won for our ‘1st – Class D’ effort that day. Its sharp bronze tip is a useful place to spike unpaid bills.

  Puffed up with our success, we swaggered out to the start of the second ocean triangle race the following morning, unconcerned that the breeze had now lifted to occasional gusts of 35 knots. Choosing the right balance of sailpower to match conditions is a crucial element in offshore racing, and the skipper waited until just before the 10-minute gun to make his call: ‘Two reefs and the Number Four jib!’ came the command, and we set about taking two slabs out of the mainsail to reduce its power. Up went the tough little No. 4 headsail and the afterguard pronounced themselves happy with the ‘feel’ of Police Car under this rig. From the five-minute gun onwards the pre-start tactical manoeuvres get serious. With umpteen America’s Cup races under his belt, Jim Hardy is no slouch at this stuff and he threw our 42-footer back and forth among the steep swells off Diamond Head in the fierce battle to claim the most favoured position at the Committee Boat end of the line.

  ‘Two minutes!’ came the call from Col Betts, counting us down to the start. We were in the perfect spot for a full-power charge to the line. Bang! ‘What the f—k was that?!?’

  The mainsail began to flog wildly as Police Car sagged off to leeward, suddenly dead in the water. ‘Shit! The bloody reefing line’s gone!’ Fred Neill screamed out the bad news over the noise of wind, water and a runaway sail. The stout line used to stretch the foot of the main along the boom at the second reefing point had parted. The boat was now close to uncontrollab
le and we certainly couldn’t race until that No. 2 reefing line was replaced.

  Wrestling with the tiller, Jim managed to steady the yacht as the repair crew rushed to their task. Running a new reefing line is no simple matter. One end of the old rope has to be recovered and a light ‘mouse’ line bent on so that its replacement can then be hauled through the sail and the boom along the same path as the original rope. All this in 35 knots and 10-foot swells. The starting gun fired and the fleet roared away as we still struggled to get the new reefing line run and the mainsail under control. It was another four minutes before we were ready to race. ‘All set? Well done, lads. Now let’s go and catch those bastards!’

  We sailed with the ferocity of a boxer who’d been floored by a lucky punch and was now back on his feet, resolved on revenge. In heavy weather there are major gains to be made at every mark rounding. At the end of a run, the crews that hold their nerve longest and drop the spinnaker latest will steal many boat-lengths. Conversely, at the end of a windward leg, the boat that can set its spinnaker fastest will make similar gains. That afternoon off Oahu we sailed to the limit. There’s no incentive quite like the desire to overcome a cruel blow of misfortune, and we set about reeling in the fleet with clenched-teeth determination. We tried to cut seconds off every spinnaker set and drop.

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Not yet!’

  ‘Now??’

  ‘Hang on a bit, you can do it, boys.’

  ‘Now???’

  ‘OK, go for it!’

  And we did. One spinnaker recovery was so frantic I can remember the leeward sheet, still under enormous load, scouring up my left forearm with such force that it flicked my wristwatch off and hurled it, in a long, graceful arc, straight into the Pacific swells 30 metres away. ‘Good drop, fellas! Now get that bloody thing below and pack it. Next kite in about 15 minutes.’

  One by one we began to overtake the back markers. The sea state was getting severe, particularly in the shallower water near Diamond Head. Police Car was taking a pounding, bashing to windward with eight crew perched on the weather rail and dropping off the odd wave with a dreadful crash and shudder before the boat settled and began to gather speed again. But by the bottom mark of the final beat to the finishing line we were in third place and gaining. It would now all be up to how well we tacked up that last leg.

  ‘Ready about! Make it a good one!’ Two quick tacks and we crossed ahead of the second-place boat. Just one more to catch. Our afterguard decided to take a longer board out to the layline and then bank on raw boatspeed to the finish. The leader took the theoretically correct option and came across to cover us. Employing match-racing tactics, Hardy immediately called a tack under his stern, then another on top of them before they could respond. Within minutes we crossed clear ahead and were pulling away. Our elation was unbridled. We’d sailed from stone motherless last to first, with the finishing line just 200 yards away. Then …

  ‘What a bugger!’ Considering the circumstances it was a remarkably mild oath. Sir James Hardy, OBE, had just watched his elegant white three-spreader rig disappear over the side into the warm waters off Waikiki. Other members of the crew were less reserved in their use of language. The race – and any chance of winning the regatta – evaporated in that split second. The mast had succumbed to enormous compression forces when Police Car dropped into thin air from the top of a huge rogue wave. We’d hit the bottom of the next trough absolutely flush, and with a tremendous bang. It was like pressing down hard on a stack of 20-cent coins until one of them popped out and the whole pile collapsed. The 60-foot spar failed in two places, rod-rigging looped everywhere at bizarre angles, runners and checkstays lay twisted among the lifelines, most of the main and jib were deep under water. What a bugger indeed.

  Yet in less than an hour our combined muscle power and some quick thinking from the older heads had the rig back on board with only cosmetic damage to the topsides. Even so, as Jim pointed his boat for home under motor and a steady stream of tinnies was handed up into the cockpit, not a man among us believed we would race again in that Clipper Cup series. Then, the odd wistful suggestion began to surface. Maybe if we could find a bit of similar mast section somewhere? Could we save the top half intact? Tim Stearn, the leading US spar-maker, was in town. Maybe he could help? Howzabout we give ‘Zapper’ a ring in Sydney? He carries all this stuff in stock … Hell, we’ve got enough willing hands to do the work, and the crew includes Chris Messenger, a professional rigger, and Fred Neill, one of the best boatbuilders in Australia. ‘Bugger it, let’s give the bastard a try!’

  So, before fenders were slung or the docklines brought on deck, despondency had first turned to hope, and finally to determination. We whistled up the local boatyard on the VHF radio and arranged for a crane to meet us at the dock to pull out what remained of the rig. Police Car would be back in the fray, even if we had to fabricate a mast from bloody railway sleepers. We flew our kangaroo-and-boomerang battle flag upside-down from the stern (the international sign for distress), as a show of defiance. But all the resolve in the world doesn’t amount to a hill of bandicoot droppings without two magic ingredients: money and know-how.

  Enter two fairy godfathers. The first, from within our own ranks, was Ian Gray, an ex-Heavyweight Sharpie sailor and now heavyweight winch man. ‘Gravy’ was a mild-mannered senior partner of PriceWaterhouse, one of the world’s largest accountancy firms. ‘I could get on the phone,’ he muttered, as if the mere act of picking up the dog-and-bone would produce the buckets of dollars we needed. (For starters, the insurance company back in Australia would have to agree to a payout on the advice of a local assessor.)

  Ian was quite unfazed by these complications. ‘Don’t worry too much about the money side of things, boys.’ Gravy pulled out a little black book of contacts that is provided to all PriceWaterhouse directors and began scribbling down phone numbers. Next morning he was seen heading downtown towards his company’s Honolulu office in a suit and tie. Money problem solved.

  The second fairy godfather had materialised at the dock as Police Car limped alongside. Ed Dubois, the brilliant young English naval architect who’d designed the yacht, happened to be in Hawaii and wondered whether we might appreciate a little assistance. Would we what? Mr Dubois didn’t have a magic wand – just a lot of engineering knowledge and unique understanding of how the yacht and rig were put together. He agreed to meet us at the boat the next morning when the mast was out. With a borrowed tape-measure and dog-eared notepad swiped from a nearby hotel, Ed then set about making rough scale drawings of his proposed method of repair. The chart table on Police Car became his temporary design office. To accompany the drawings he wrote out a concise, step-by-step set of instructions for the now-enthusiastic crew who were about to undertake the job.

  Back on the dock he traced out the necessary cuts and drill-hole positions on the mast in blue marking pen. Finally, Ed sat down in the cockpit with Sir James and patiently talked him through the entire operation. Satisfied everyone now understood the modus operandi he surrendered his instructions and rough scale drawings and wished us all luck. Total cost of professional services: one can of lemonade. Dubois is now fabulously successful, designing 140-foot super-maxis for the world’s squillionaires. But 25 years after our Hawaiian adventures he’s still ‘one of the boys’ and sent me a wonderfully warm and funny message for the 20-year Police Car crew reunion.

  Back in Sydney the Zapspar factory was able to source the exact sections of mast aluminum we needed, and in the right lengths. The bad news was that a certain flag-carrying Australian national airline whose name begins with ‘Q’ refused to airfreight us anything over 20 feet on their scheduled passenger flights. Pan Am’s boss in Sydney, John McGee, came to the rescue by offering free space in the very next blue and white jumbo off the rank at Mascot. McGee was something of an eccentric who relaxed by playing drums with the Hilton Hotel jazz band. (We were later told that our precious new mast sections had flown up to Hawaii lying in an ais
le at the back of economy class.)

  In Hawaii it was now time for a considered division of labour. Major repair work on any substantial yacht presents logistical challenges. Crewmembers were matched up to the specific tasks that best suited them. My experience as a television producer saw me appointed unofficial project manager, coordinating the various jobs while dashing about in a hire car to track down the hundreds of specialised bits and pieces we needed. The collapsing mast had also mangled the mainsail at the luff, tearing through the boltrope in two places. Hardy and I took the damaged sail to the Hood loft in Honolulu and laid it out on their floor.

  ‘Yeah, we can fix that for you guys, no problems,’ said the loft manager, who rather disconcertingly sported an immense flowing beard but only one arm.

  ‘Well, that’s terrific,’ quoth Jim, ‘and while you’re at it, I wonder if you might also have time to just take a little bit out of the draft here near the foot? I’ve always thought it was a bit full there.’

  There was no point wasting an opportunity for a quick re-cut, especially when the insurance company back in Sydney was paying.

  There seemed no end to the tasks. Next morning Sir James and I fronted the US Customs depot at the ‘incoming freight’ hangar of Honolulu International Airport. We could see our mast sections on the floor, but soon learned they couldn’t be released to us until a long list of associated paperwork had been completed. While a duo of bored officials launched into their Concerto for Two Fingers & Typewriter, Jim sidled alongside to try some vintage Hardy smooth-talk. You just can’t beat James Gilbert when it comes to a spot of blarney. Before long the forms in triplicate mysteriously disappeared, a forklift was provided to swing the two sections onto the truck we’d hired for the occasion, and away we went, clattering down the freeway to the rigger’s shop.

  Yacht Rigging & Swaging Inc. was destined to be our home away from home for the next three days. Nestled in a seedy section of downtown Honolulu, its façade was made of faded old weatherboard panels in classic Wild West style. Inside, and sprawling into the backyard, was a remarkably well-equipped light engineering works. Beautifully maintained lathes, presses, guillotines and drills, plus chests crammed with every socket, spanner and metal-working tool imaginable. The Americans are great mechanics. But the most vital piece of equipment (and the one which saw the most use) was a large, well-stocked fridge. Tim Rhea, sailor, bon vivant and proprietor of Yacht Rigging & Swaging Inc., was also racing in the Clipper Cup. He said we were free to come and go as we pleased, make phone calls, use any of the equipment and drink his beer on the normal ‘money on the fridge’ honour system. He would just observe, advise and maybe do some of the trickier stuff if it proved to be beyond our expertise.