Sailing the Pacific : a voyage across the longest stretch of water on earth, and a journey into its past by Hordern Miles 1965-

Author:Hordern, Miles, 1965-
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Hordern, Miles, 1965-, Single-handed sailing
Publisher: New York : St. Martin's Press
Published: 2003-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Sailing the Pacific

more slowly, to spill the wind from the sail, then walked to the mast and took the halyard off the winch. Standing in the bow, I pulled the cracking sail to the deck. The power had now drained from the boat's rush downwind, and as the body of the sail came onto the deck the noise overhead was hushed. The motion began to ease. Lightning strikes revealed a luminous green world folding and reforming beneath driving rain. Between times it was pitch black: I couldn't see my hand. I pulled the last of the genoa down slowly, feeling from hank to hank. Even blind, there was a growing sense of control. I lashed the headsail to the jack-stay, then worked my way back down the deck.

In the cabin I dried myself, put on a dry jacket, and went outside again. I wondered for a time if I would need to reef the mainsail as well. I waited five minutes. Then the boom of the thunder became more distant, and the boat began to stall as the wind died away.

I sat beneath the spray-hood in the cockpit and smoked a cigarette as the lightning receded to the north-west and patches of starry sky emerged to windward. The seas were shapeless. Heavy strands of spray occasionally slopped out of the darkness. It took me a long time to warm up, though the wind was softer now and my hair began to dry. My legs were still stained slightly red where they had rubbed against the red anti-fouling paint. I felt empty, and thought I might drift off to sleep. But I was dragged back to the present. The front of my jacket and my legs were wet and sticky. I realised that I was being sick. A thin, salty bile was trickling from the corner of my mouth and down my neck.

I woke feeling stiff, as if I'd been struggling while asleep. From my bunk I looked through the compamonway. I could see a few faint stars in the dawn twilight. I focused my eyes on the compass. The wind had shifted, and the boat was sailing twenty degrees off-course. I needed to get up and put this right.

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