From the Archives • December 1999

by Bob Rice

Before I leave the ship in Victoria, Geoff informs me I'm on as crew to Hawaii and a letter awaits my return home saying that I'm confirmed all the say to New Zealand. This gives me a few weeks to set my affairs in order and then rejoin the ship in Vancouver, B.C., where my friends, Kari, Rick, Trecin, and JP, give me a great send off. A new set of voyage crew members is assembled and given the standard briefing, and I'm assigned to the mizzen mast watch under the able guidance of Richard (Richie) who is the ship's most experienced captain o' top. This is good, as we will soon be leaving the shelter of coastal waters and headed for the wild blue yonder. The first three days turn out to be a rough baptism for the new crewmembers since a low pressure area surrounds us with foul weather just when they are getting their first experience at furling sails on the upper yardarms. One of the new guys, Chuck, is soon christened Upchuck and escapes cleaning and maintenance duties for several days. Laura, his bride of two weeks, is an experienced sailor and does double duty on cleaning to help cover for him. What a honeymoon.

The mizzenmast is blessed with an outstanding cast of characters. Besides Upchuck and Laura, there's Axel, a gentle German giant who lives in Switzerland and travels internationally for business and pleasure, Rob, a former junkie turned sagacious California surfer boy, Fran, who has known the ship since its inception and can bore you to tears with minutia, Terry, a metal sculptor and graphic artist, Jack, a musician, actor and storyteller with a great sense of timing, Kristin, a nineteen year old who has all the maturity of a nineteen year old and is soon dubbed 'princess' by our watch mates, but who also has a tremendous potential for personal growth over the next eight months she'll be on board, and Vic, a maritime curator from Ottawa, Canada, who shares a wealth of knowledge on James Cook, the Endeavour and various related subjects with terrific humor and insight. Finally, there's Tom Jones, our very own supernumerary who pays twice what the rest of us pay to be on board and doesn't have to do any of the work. He is a historian teaching at a California college in Eureka, with whom I share a special interest in facets of Mayan culture. Tom presents a fascinating lecture from his thesis on the origin of the word shark in the English language as derived from the Mayan word for this formidable creature. He accomplishes this by tying together historical encounters between English traders and Mayan inhabitants along the Caribbean coast of Central America.

Following the initial days of motoring in bad weather, lightened only by the dolphins at our bow and a congealing sense of camaraderie amongst the crew, the sun breaks through and puts a sparkle on the surface of the cobalt depths. Nimble fingers unfurl the sails, yardarms are braced around to the wind, bowlines are cast off, clews, bunts and reefs are eased and halyards and sheets hauled. The ship responds with grace and a palpable sense of pride as we set our heading at 190 degrees south by southwest. The ship seems like home now, but I can barely imagine the extent to which this must be true for the captain and many of the permanent crew who have been with her for years. Nevertheless, I now run into fewer cannons, winches and other obstructions as I walk the deck on moonless night, and I fall asleep quickly whenever the opportunity arises.

On Saturday, and the end of the first week at sea, the voyage crew is subjected to a test of our knowledge of the lines. The test is conducted in the form of a competition called a line race wherein each watch is represented in heats by a single member of the group who must run as fast as they can to be the first among three to place a hand on the belaying cleat or timberhead of a named line, such as the clew line for the sprits topsail. If you can imagine a deck that has three different elevations and a maze of obstacles and narrow passages, you might get an inkling of the chaos that ensues. To top this off, we also compete to see who can tie the neatest gasket coil and accomplish the quickest single timberhead belay.

Once we have thus demonstrated a modicum of competence, the second week begins with a new twist. Each watch selects four people to serve sequentially as captain o' top for three day stints. I raw the third lot and although I've got the lines well memorized, the effect of being on center stage in a command position is unnerving, to say the least. The frenzy of trying to hear, discern, and relay the chain of shouted commands coming down from the captain, first mate, and second mate, can be intense if not disorienting. It's a heavy responsibility with the timing and sequence of the commands that you pass on to your watch crew being critical to the safety of the ship and all those on board. Laura and Jack draw the first two lots and with the support and team spirit of the entire watch we all manage to stumble through the experience without too much embarrassment.

Since Jack's turn ends on Saturday night, Captain Blake issues us a "well done" award in the form of a bottle of Port. This last about as long as it takes us to make a few choice toasts and to note that the libation come from Australia and bears the name Blake's Port. Does the captain have a side business we didn't know about?

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