Alone Across the Atlantic by Francis Chichester

Author:Francis Chichester [Chichester, Francis]
Language: eng
Format: epub

27th June. The above seems to have petered out. Something called me out I suppose. Today has been a very nice change of weather. Sun and calm. Racing yachtsmen may take umbrage at my welcoming a calm but I loved it. Especially as I had to repair Miranda before proceeding; pretty well a whole day’s work. I only hope my rivals have had the same delightful calm themselves for a day; I wish them weeks of calm!!

It is a great pleasure from where I am sitting here tonight to be able to watch Miranda back on the job again and the ship ambling along with that queer wobble of her stern and the water guggling along the hull.

Miranda needed some attention. I started at 0900 hrs. BST and have only knocked off for dinner, which I have just finished at 2325 hrs., 14½ hours later. I won’t go into details, she needed a lot – new halliards, a topping lift etc. The fact that I have been on the job all day, gives an idea.

The rolling was really nasty snap-back stuff – it was very difficult to stand on the deck and even sitting on it, one was slid suddenly from one side to the other. There was one hilarious scene which must have made the fishes laugh – Miranda is 14 feet tall from the deck and very slender with it. I wanted to reach the top to reeve the new topping lift. I climbed up in my best monkey style. You know how Miranda works, the vane sails make the whole mast rotate in its socket or sleeve and two arms at the bottom or foot have lines which pull the tiller one way or another according to how the vane weathercocks.

I should add that the rolling has been really maddening, due to the sea left by the storm. As soon as I got up aloft the first roll swung the whole thing round 180° due to my weight. I hung on pretty tight. I waited for it to come back; instead, the roll back sent me right round. The next roll occurred just right and spun me again and in about 15 seconds. I was spinning round like a scared dormouse clinging to a spinning top.

As a matter of fact I wasn’t worried about myself, after my first astonishment. I only regretted I couldn’t see it because I thought it must look the most comical turn. But I was scared stiff for Miranda. She was not built and stressed for a load like this. If her mast snapped, it might take me a week to repair it. I got out of my perch as soon as I could, having to catch the pulpit with a leg dropped down as I spun round.

Another silly thing occurred … I was cleaning Miranda’s clamp, after refitting it, with paraffin and spilt some on the rubberized deck. This gave me unbelievable trouble; it made the deck so slippery that I just could not stand on the deck in my deck boots.

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