2008

HARNESSES

So it’s Mar ‘08,Isabella, Thalia and I are sailing from the Galapogoes Islands to the Marquesas, following the conventional sailing wisdom of sailing south until you hit the trades and turn right. What we found was a multi day wind hole, for 3 days we didn’t put up sails and Thalia drifted 36 mi/day, all of our friends on the loosely organized SSB net sympathized with our plight and wisely sailed the rhumb line and posted passages in the low – mid 20’s, we were 28.

I need to give a brief description and explanation of Isabella, my heartbreakingly beautiful crew/mate for almost 2 yrs, To call her stupid would be doing her a hugesh disservice, she’s not, she’s actually a lawyer from Cartagena, Colombia. Plus she had passion, like so many Latinas and like so many she had an interesting conflict resolution technique. Taking a knife away from Isabella used to leave me scared spitless, but the idea of leaving her with the knife scared me even more, there’s nowhere to hide on a small 38’ sloop. Oddly enough Isabella had zero interest in all of the things that allowed Thalia tosail from point to point, like autopilots, radios, EPIRBs, navigation, charts, sails, sail trim… it was a long list. She knew that if anything happened to me she was in very serious trouble. So she was very proactive in encouraging my use of a harness. See I told you she wasn’t stupid.

So when the wind started to fill in it was light and variable, I was trying to maximize our speed with an asymmetrical spinnaker, but about once an hour it would tangle when the wind changed direction usually radically. So I stroll up to the bow wearing a hat and sunglasses, it was hot, review the tangle and elect to remove the tack sheet from the sheave on the bow roller and untangle the spinnaker, at this point Thalia isn’t moving very fast, tangled spinnaker and all. An unexpected puff of wind started pulling the sheet through my hand and reflexively I put a bight around my hand and hey presto I’m spinnaker flying. I come down about 15’ from Thalia who now is gathering way, during my brief spinnaker flight I pulled the tangle out of the spinnaker and while it isn’t set properly 1200 sq ft of spinnaker with the tack anchored by the stupid captain is still a pretty good piece of sail. The situation hadn’t become grave, I could still out race Thalia by swimming and if I let go of the tack sheet I knew the spinnaker wouldn’t have any pull. But you know there was no way I was going to relinquish my death grip on that sheet, in fact it was 3 days before the braid imprint faded from my palm. Now obviously I’m going to call Isa, but I need to say that in normal conversation I spoke Spanish to her and she spoke Eng to me, and we would correct each other’s mistakes, very civilized,except when she had the knife. But I have to admit to feeling a bit stressed there in the water on the end of my sail and I called Isa and when she came up from below she understood the situation instantly, she knew this was her worst nightmare realized. My next words unfortunately were in Eng, remember the stress, “remove the rope” I hollered. Now rope and remove have no meaning in Spanish, I should have said “quites la cuerda” she would have understood perfectly but what Isa understood from what I said was close to rope, which has no meaning in Spanish ropas are clothes, she heard remove your clothes. Now shes in tears screaming at me in Spanish “You’re in the sea we’re both going to die and you want to see my tits?” They were truly wonderful breasts, but seeing them at that moment wasn’t my primary concern. Just then the wind backed, the spinnaker collapsed against the rigging and I climbed up to try to console my sobbing crew. The wind continued to build the spinnaker stopped tangling and in typical S Pacific fashion once properly trimmed it needed no further attention for days, it’s magic sailing there. Our landfall in Fatu Hiva was uneventful and all I’ve left is this story. George and Thalia

Suffix

“If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’” (Clete Purcell, James lee Burke, Dave Robicheux crime fiction series, I think)

Prefix

George is a 60+ boat bum, who, with Thalia, his ‘67/68 designed S&S, Hughes 38 left Toronto, Canada in’92. Together they have been satisfying his quest for adventure and thirst for rum and her quest for proper maintenance and thirst for expensive parts by fixing boats. They are somewhere on the W coast of Mexico. Questions, comments, accusations and insults can be directed to