It Ain’T over Yet!: Big Seas in a Small Boat

Acknowledgements

MY WIFE MAUREEN

NITPICKERS PROOFREADING AND EDITING

TORONTO

Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Preface

CROSSING THE NORTH ATLANTIC Ocean in a small sailboat is no longer a news-grabbing event. Recent advances in navigation and communication equipment, not available a few short years ago, have greatly improved the sailor’s chances of survival and success. Nevertheless, the North Atlantic Ocean is still an ocean with many different moods and often extreme challenges.

In 1996 three Lake Ontario sailors, Henk Borsboom, Peter Becker and the author, all from Toronto, Ontario, decided to accept the challenges of the North Atlantic Ocean on RABASKA (big canoe), a thirty-seven foot Alberg.

Why would I now spend the time to write about such a historical journey so many years later? The main reason of course, is that the adventure had a huge impact on our lives and the experience and lessons of that trip sit constantly on the edges of our memories, ready to come into focus whenever we are together. It ain’t over yet!

However, it was so much more for me. While at sea I was forced to put from my mind the daily struggles with schedules, time responsibilities, reputation, self-image, and self-imposed obligations and focus totally on one simple task, that of survival. Strange as it may seem I can now see that all of the duties of living in society ultimately boil down to the one same thing—survival.

This is the story then of an accountant turned skipper, a property manager turned navigator, and a retired senior citizen turned cook and deckhand, working together as a team and taking our turn in conquering the North Atlantic Ocean. If nothing else, it rearranged our priorities and enabled us to become more in touch with our daily experiences. This alone made the trip well worth it. What follows is an account of my personal experience in the vast and open sea. Hope you enjoy it.

Chapter 1

HOW DID I END up in a small sailboat in the North Atlantic Ocean in the midst of a vicious storm not knowing if I would live or die? Why did I not just take a plane and cross to the other side in a matter of hours? This question goes to the heart of the recreational sailor. Mariners, working the huge freighters that ply the ocean today, want to navigate their vessel to the next port as safely and as quickly as possible. I propose that the recreational sailor’s goal, first and foremost, is the simple joy found in the act of sailing itself: harnessing the wind and feeling the boat’s hull lean into the water as it slices its way through the waves, somehow frees the human spirit. That is not to say recreational sailors are not interested in getting somewhere at the same time. However, the emphasis is on the art and skill of sailing the boat.

I retired from sailboat racing years ago, but Maureen, my wife, tells me if another sailboat appears on the horizon, I immediately start trimming the sails. The prospect of crewing on a trans-Atlantic trip was the ultimate opportunity to indulge my obsession with sail.

I HAVE ALWAYS BEEN seduced by the sea. The house I grew up in was situated on a large rocky hill. The land at the back of the house fell away quickly revealing the flats below and the busy Saint John Harbour in New Brunswick. In the kitchen at the back of the house my father built a breakfast nook which butted up against a large plate glass window. The vision through this window revealed a panoramic view of the commercial docks in the harbor below and a glimpse of the famous Bay of Fundy. From this kitchen window it was possible to watch the ocean freighters, as they were maneuvered in and out of the docks by small tugs. I ate my breakfast every morning perched on the same side of the breakfast table as it afforded me a birds-eye view of the activity in the harbor below.

One cold morning on November 24, 1944, when I was fifteen, I was watching two small tugs attempting to back a CP Steamship, the BEAVERHILL, the fourth of the Beaver cargo liners, out of its dock and into the open harbor. As winter approached, the world famous tides, together with the rushing water from the river, made the harbor a very dangerous place. But this was during the Second World War, and it was necessary to get the BEAVERHILL to sea to join the waiting convoy headed for Britain. The outgoing tide would facilitate her departure.

Suddenly, as I watched in horror, that massive ship, loaded high with military equipment and munitions, began to break free of the tugs. The small towboats were losing control of the ship to the mighty forces of the peaking tide and the powerful back eddies of the out-going river. The BEAVERHILL was drifting sideways toward Navy Island farther up in the harbor.

My mother knew of my attraction for the ocean because of the many books I had in my bedroom: The Bounty Trilogy including Mutiny on the Bounty, Men Against the Sea and Pitcairn’s Island, and The History of the American Navy, that is, the old navy of sailing ships and the ironclads during the American Civil War. My bookshelf included stories about the Elizabethan pirates who harassed the Spanish treasure fleets in the Caribbean and the pirates who attacked the shipping along the shores of England. I even possessed books about the nature of the ocean itself such as Under the Sea-Wind by Rachel Carson. I was an avid reader of the two series: Tugboat Annie by Norman Reilly Raine and Commodore Hornblower by C.S. Forester in the Saturday Evening Post. I had read Two Years Before the Mast by Richard Henry Dana and of course, Joseph Conrad’s stories. I turned and looked at my mother with a pleading smile. She quietly whispered in my ear, You can stay home from school today if you want. A rare concession on her part I am sure.

As I slowly ate my breakfast the BEAVERHILL suddenly stopped drifting and I could see she lay broadside against the rugged shore of the small island. The tugs desperately tried to dislodge her, but the tremendous tide of the Bay of Fundy reversed itself and the water level began to drop rapidly as the tide receded. At the same time the increasing flow of the backwater from the emptying river was forcing the freighter further up on the rocks. Suddenly, the deck was a frenzy as crewmembers were doing everything they could to prevent the ship from being left high and dry on the reef. The tide, with its twenty-four foot tidal range in the harbor, finally left the great Beaver ship solidly aground. Once there, the only hope of freeing the ship would come twelve hours and twenty-five minutes later with the return of high tide—but it was not to be.

By noon the ship was wedged so tightly that I could see most of the ship’s hull below the waterline. The water was going down but the ship was refusing to descend with it and remained stationary. Then to my horror I saw scramble nets being lowered down the sides of the vessel and men clamoring to safety. Suddenly a huge crack appeared down the middle of the ship. As the tide continued to recede, the crack opened wider and finally the ship fell apart like a twig being snapped in the hands of an angry man. When the tide was at its lowest the bow portion of the once proud ship angled down the seaweed-covered rocks toward the west side of the harbor, and the stern was sticking out into the river, slanted backwards toward the center of the city. The return of high tide was never going to set that ship free to sail the ocean again.

Later in the day as the tide began its return, like a cornucopia, goods of all sorts began floating out of the open hull and the harbor was soon awash with some of her cargo. The ship, like a huge elephant, lay broken and destroyed before my very eyes, its entrails spilling out into the open water. I remained at my window seat in the breakfast nook until darkness descended and I could no longer see the horrible disaster below.

SAINT JOHN, DURING THE mid 1800s was a large shipbuilding center, its most famous ship being the clipper ship MARCO POLO that became known as the fastest ship in the world. Of course New York sailors argue that the SEA WITCH, built in Smith and Dimon’s East River Yard in New York in 1846 for the China trade route, and later the California gold rush, was the fastest sailing ship ever built. Unfortunately, she later burned and was wrecked twelve miles west of Havana. It is claimed the SEA WITCH established records that stand to this day.

Our house, with its lofty perch, was built by one of those ship owners in the late 1800s. This location was chosen long before the days of ship-to-shore radios. The house was situated so that the original owners could see their ships returning into the harbor from various ports around the world. When my family took possession I was six years old. The previous owners, descendents of the original Shives family, had died leaving the estate with much of its furnishing intact. Included were large paintings of ships and scenes of the seashore. As I grew older, I discovered the attic, where in one corner I found an assortment of many dust-covered wooden boxes. Searching through the crates I soon realized they were sea-chests that contained ships’ logs. There were also cartons of bank manifests, and other records of various sorts related to the world shipping industry. Later this material was donated to the New Brunswick Museum in Saint John.

I would sit on one of those dusty boxes, close to the small window looking out over the harbor, and read the comments entered into the logs years before by ancient mariners crossing the North Atlantic Ocean. My imagination knew no bounds as I crossed the ocean in spirit with them, seated on my musty perch, a beautiful hand-written ship’s log resting on my lap, dreaming of the sea and being part of its adventure myself some day.

But I never followed that dream. In high school, I settled for a small sailboat on the Saint John River and later in life a larger sailing vessel on Lake Ontario. Like so many others, I call myself a sailor. After a lifetime of reading about the sea, I know what others have endured in small boats in the middle of the ocean. But a lifetime of reading and sailing small boats, no matter how large the lake, does not fully fashion an inland sailor into an ocean explorer. I consider myself a recreational sailor, a seasonal sailor at the best. I have always made my living on the land, not on the sea that I once so ardently desired. But, as a recreational sailor I have experienced the boredom of passage-making as well as the fear that a fierce storm can instill, even in the bravest of hearts. I believed my childhood dream had been forsaken long ago.

Chapter 2

EARLY IN 1996 I was forced to come face to face with my long lost romance with the sea. Suddenly, as if out of nowhere, I was invited to join the crew of RABASKA. The owner wanted to sail his boat to Europe and he asked me to go with him as crew.

It was early in the evening when I received a phone call from Henk Borsboom, the owner and skipper. He began by telling me he was planning to leave in May and he talked about the repairs that were currently being done on the boat to prepare her for the long crossing.

Suddenly I could feel my heart flutter. Perhaps the boyhood dream was still buried deep inside. I found myself hoping he was building up to an invitation to join the crew, but at the same time, I was afraid that he might actually ask me just that! I remember reading Joseph Conrad’s words, He—man or people—who, putting his trust in the friendship of the sea, neglects the strength and cunning of his right hand, is a fool! As if it were too great, too mighty for common virtues, the ocean has no compassion, no faith, no law, no memory. He goes on to say, "Odi et amo (I hate and I love) may well be the confession of those who consciously or blindly have surrendered their existence to the fascination of the sea. (Initiation", The Mirror of the Sea). Would we be such fools to blindly and consciously surrender our very lives to the mercy of such a merciless sea?

While I was listening to Henk on the phone my mind was racing. If he asked me what would I say? If I turned him down, was I rejecting a long lost boyhood dream? Would I lose face among my sailing buddies in the yacht club where we moored our boat, a 33’ Gib’Sea called SQUALL? Certainly we had no plans to make such a trip in our boat as we considered it too small for such a challenge. Everyone knows ships are big and boats are small. Ships are meant to sail on the ocean, and boats, to sail inland in places like Lake Ontario, or along the coast. Every year there is a small fleet of pleasure craft from Toronto that venture down the coast of the United States to winter in Florida, Bermuda, or the islands of the Caribbean. As early as the ninth century, and perhaps even long before, sailors ventured out to sea in boats, and boats have been making sea voyages ever since. But a boat is not a ship and a lake is not a sea. I had to ask myself, was the idea of making a North Atlantic crossing a realistic dream, or was it just part of the lore and language of many recreational sailors?

TO BE HONEST I did not hear much of what was said on the phone that evening as my mind sped through these various thoughts. Suddenly I heard the skipper say, We were wondering if you would be interested in joining us for the trip across the ocean this summer? He probably told me who the we were, but I had been so distracted by my own thoughts that I did not remember. He had asked me the question I wanted to hear, yet at the same time dreaded. Since I was not in control of my immediate emotions and fears, I frantically searched for an excuse to put off an instant answer. My wife Maureen was not home at the time so she became my excuse for not saying yes or no. I told him I was honored that he respected my sailing skills enough to consider me for a crew position, but that I needed time to talk it over with my wife prior to making a final decision.

I knew in my own mind what Maureen would say. We had casually talked about such a trip for many years on those few times my boyhood dream tried to surface. If you want to sail across the ocean, go ahead as long as I can fly to meet you on the other side. Therefore, I knew I could give an answer on the phone that evening without consultation with Maureen. At the same time, I realized that previous conversations with her, were at best, discussions in theory. This time the situation was not one of if, but Will you join us this summer? I did need to talk to her; I also recognized that I was using her as an excuse to give me time to get my own feelings in order.

I pondered the problem for two weeks before calling him back. During that time I did speak to Maureen and she restated her original position. I could sail anywhere provided she could join us at the other end.

Because I am retired, I had no reason to refuse the offer to join the crew. However, I was filled with all kinds of negative thoughts. What condition will the boat be in? Was it big enough to withstand the wave action of the North Atlantic Ocean? How long would such a journey take? I did not want to be separated from Maureen and our own boat for the whole summer. Would the crew be able to get along together? Fresh in my mind was the incident where another boat from a nearby sailing club had set out on a similar adventure and was forced to abandon the plan in New York because the crew was unable to work as a team. I did not want to be part of a similar experience. If I overcame my fears, and decided to join the crew, I wanted to see the adventure through to the end. It has been said often that the boat can make the trip successfully, but it is the crew that will have the problems.

But these were not my deeper concerns. During the intervening weeks, my mind would not let go of all the negative possibilities confronting such a journey. My real problem was, if the truth be told, I was afraid of what the North Atlantic might throw at us. The Bay of Fundy, where Saint John is situated, is considered one of the foggiest areas in the world. The only possible place it could be worse is off the Grand Banks of Newfoundland where many a fisherman lost his life in that cruel and foggy sea. I remembered the mournful sound of the foghorn on Partridge Island at the entrance to the Saint John Harbour. It reminded us each morning and evening that the fog was closing in. As kids we called it the B.O. horn, after the ad for Lifebuoy soap, the kind Ralphie (A Christmas Story) had to sit with in his mouth for using swear words. Beee…. Ohoo was also a reminder that danger was nearby. I thought about sailing out into the cold North Atlantic, surrounded by night and fog, and being cut down by a freighter! I have been told that most ocean going ships rely heavily on modern electronics when at sea and the chances of them taking evasive action is very remote or even impossible. Small boats must look out for themselves. Even if there was