Beer in the Bilges by Alan Boreham & Rossiter

Author:Alan Boreham & Rossiter [Boreham, Jinks, & Rossiter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781475928815
Publisher: iUniverse
Published: 2012-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

The seas and wind had been building while they toiled away, and as the occasional waves began to splash over the deck, they were glad to be bolting the hatch cover down. But the situation did not look good. Over the next hour, the clouds dropped to the surface of the sea, and visibility was reduced to about half a mile. The seas grew to an incredible forty feet and were pushed into sharp crests by the increasing wind, creating short troughs between them. As before, they had to steer the boat up the side and cross the crest perfectly to prevent tumbling down the other side, and then surf down the backside at over fifteen knots and into the next trough. The winds had increased to something over forty knots, and as warm as it was, the helmsman had to wear rain gear to protect himself from the bullet-like raindrops and wind-whipped spray that assaulted him. It was demanding work, and they rotated helmsmen about every thirty minutes to prevent the fatigue that could result in a fatal mistake.

They needed to reduce the size of the jib, so they took their smallest sail, one that had had several hanks ripped out in the gale south of San Francisco, and jury-rigged it by folding the head down to the tack. They lashed the sail to the forestay to create an improvised tack, hoping it would hold long enough to get into port.

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