I stepped aboard the Springtide

Return of the Springtide

The captain of the Springtide asked me if I wanted to take the wheel. I shied, suddenly filled with self-doubt, wondering if I was up to the job or if I would make a foolish mistake. After all, it had been over twenty years since I'd cruised on the Golden Vanity. What if I'd forgotten how in the intervening years? The captain insisted, she was a heavy and forgiving boat he'd said. I stepped aft in the cockpit, behind the captain then reached past him to take the wheel. He stepped aside, then moved forward in the cockpit and the Springtide moved in my hands.

Several months before, I was attending a new employees' dinner with several managers from the office. One of the managers, John, had started a round of stories, inviting each of us to describe one of our passions. He began by telling us about his love of sailing. When it was my turn, I echoed his enthusiasm for the romance of sail and told the story of my earlier experience in cruising.

Twenty-four years before, my family and a few friends set out on the Golden Vanity, a home-built, forty-foot trimaran. I was only 10 at the time, but my memories of it are quite clear. From the central California coast we'd headed south over half the length of California, the entire length of Baja California, and then into mainland Mexico. After several months in the area north of Puerto Vallarta, we returned to Cabo San Lucas, at the southern tip of Baja, and the crossed "the long way" to Hawaii. We lived in Hawaii for over a year and I attended my last year of grade school there. Finally, we took the Vanity north through the islands and returned to California.

As true-life adventures go, it has always been a good story. That night it felt especially good because I had a blue-water sailor in the audience. Someone that knew that special kind of lunacy it takes to make a 3000-mile crossing then to stay aboard for the return voyage. The telling of the story lead to further conversation and by the end of the evening I had volunteered to crew on John's boat when he brought it back from its summer cruise, but only if one of the already signed-on crew couldn't make it.

The call came in late August. The Springtide would be returning the week-end after Labor Day, and would I be interested in crewing? Would I?! The crew was to be John, myself, Dan from the Corporate Office, and Dan from the Chicago office.

I stepped aboard the Springtide shortly afternoon on Saturday, the taste of my fish-and-chips lunch still lingered. As we loaded supplies, I felt a bit awkward, not knowing where to stand or quite what to do. The captain said something about jack-lines that left me confused. Jack-lines? We didn't have those on the Vanity! Or had I just forgotten? I was tasked with lashing down a gas can on the aft deck. My fingers didn't seem to know how to tie knots anymore. Even my double-half-hitch ended up as some bastardization of the original. I faired no better with the task of helping secure the dingy to the foredeck. My knots there ending up as some sort of mutant square knot. Had I not lived and breathed the boating life for two years? Had the intervening twenty years erased everything but some romantic notion of what it meant to be at sea? Was even that memory somehow distorted by time?

We picked our way out of Tennants Harbor, which is on the central coast of Maine, dodging the thousands of small buoys marking lobster pots on the bottom. From the lay-perspective, it seems crazy that these traps and buoys are allowed in the navigation channel, but I suppose that's where the lobsters are, so that's where the traps are. The density of buoys diminished as we got farther away from shore, but didn't cease being a hazard for several miles. Being unaccustomed to getting this particular boat under way, I was left with nothing in particular to do. I took the opportunity to photograph he receding rugged Maine coastline and an exemplary white lighthouse. Camera in hand, I felt like a tourist and quite out of place in the cockpit. Then John asked me to take the helm.

As the self-doubts receded some, I began to actually enjoy myself. It was a bright sunny day with high clouds. The wind was from the WNW at 10-15 knots and the seas were relatively calm. As John had promised, the boat was heavy and forgiving. When the occasional gust of wind or ocean swell took her off course, she readily returned again as I turned the wheel. Only a few times was I forced to speak to her as well, more strongly coaxing her back to her course. I emersed myself in my task soaking up the sun, breathing deeply the fresh salt air, and reacquainted myself with the romance of the sea. Somewhere in this dream-like state, one of the Dans asked if I was getting tired, or would like to be relieved of duty. I quickly said, "No thanks!" and held my position. It would be another hour before I reluctantly relinquished the helm, believing that I was hogging all the fun.

Around 4 in the afternoon, as we sailed past Monhegan Island, John called a brief informal meeting in the cockpit. He indicated that we would have only four official watches for the trip, three hours each between 6 that evening and 6 the following morning. He volunteered for the midnight to 3 watch, Chicago Dan for the 3 to 6, and Newton Dan for the 9 to midnight, leaving me the easiest, 6 to 9 watch.

Late in the afternoon, the Springtide was joined by a group of a dozen or so Atlantic dolphins. Appearing quite suddenly along the starboard side, they followed the boat for half an hour or so. These creatures are always a favorite with sailors. Their intelligence is self-evident, they move around and past the moving boat with such ease, and they appear to have a natural inclination to play. We may never know what's in the mind of a dolphin, but it is easy to imagine. The act of breathing does require that they surface for a moment before returning to the depths. But it always seems that in the presence of a boat they take care to leap clear of the water, presumably unnecessary, displaying their speed, agility, and grace, and giving their audience a thrill. At one point, six jumped from a wave at once, just even with the cockpit. The crew erupted into cheers and yells, applauding the synchrony of their effort and the thrill of being nearly close enough to touch such magnificence. They followed the boat for some time, then disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.

As the late afternoon turned slowly into evening, the generally north-westerly winds picked up, topping 20 knots by 5 or so. In the open Bight of Maine, the swells from the usually prevailing south winds competed with the shorter, smaller chop from the current wind. The seas turned lumpy and agitated, pushing the Springtide from her course with increasing frequency, and bouncing her about in a motion that was both fore-and-aft and a sideways roll. John went below to set up the sleeping berths and to break out the night-time harnesses and foul-weather gear. He emerged sometime later looking a little green and fighting for control of his stomach. The extended period of being below with a dizzying combination of motion and a lack of a global frame of reference will turn the hardest stomachs; and John's was no exception. Back on deck, and at the wheel, John had a chance to conquer his nausea with a fresh breeze in his face and the horizon to focus on. And for a while he did better, the grim determination cast into his face as he struggled for conscious control over an autonomic response.

A phenomenon often considered to be a peak experience of cruising in the tropics is witnessing a "green flash" at sunset. For those who have not seen one, it has a somewhat mythic quality. For those who have seen one, it has the exhilaration of having witnessed a myth, because in and of itself, it is quite a simple event. Essentially, at the very instant the top of the sun dips below the horizon, a small green flash of light occurs at the spot where the last point of sunlight disappears.

I had seen several green flashes during my two years aboard the Vanity, including one that appeared to me to flash twice. John brought up the myth, from his position at the wheel, at a point where it became obvious that we would have a clear horizon at sunset. Since most of the Springtide's summer had been spent along the coast, this in itself was a rare opportunity. I confirmed that the myth was true and indicated that I had seen several. I expressed my doubt that one could occur at this northern a latitude, since it was my impression that it was a tropical phenomenon. The conversation wandered after that to other sailing topics, and we forgot about watching the sunset. I chanced to look up, just a few seconds before the limb of the sun fell below the horizon and in doing so was again witness to a green flash. Despite the company of three others, I was alone in my observation as the others were momentarily occupied by some piece of conversation. "It flashed!" I said with genuine surprise. "I don't believe it! I really thought it only happened in the tropics!" John complained that he'd forgotten to look at the critical moment, and had blown his chance. The Springtide continued its fight with the agitated seas, and John's attention was forcibly returned to his task.

Six o'clock came and went. John stayed at the wheel like it was his only hope for survival, declining my offer to start my evening watch. Finally, shortly after half past 6, he gave up, surrendered the helm, and went below to try to sleep.

In the dark, it is a bit cumbersome to follow a course by glancing down at the compass every few seconds. To allow a more "heads-up" stance, I found a star near the horizon that I cold line up with a point on the port bow when the boat was on course. Thus, I could steer by keeping the star in the correct position in front of me, and confirm with the compass much less often.

In the early part of my watch, the winds subsided a bit and our progress slowed. With classic optimism, the Dans decided to shake out the reef in the main and to unroll the jib fully. The relative calm had been a ruse, however, a "sucker hole" in pilots' parlance. With the sails fully deployed, and with darkness descended, the winds leapt back to their former strength and beyond. With the 20-plus knots on the beam, the Springtide screamed ahead, averaging over 7 knots and ploughing through the even more confused seas. The waves battered the boat from side to side and the gusts of wind tore her from her course. Behind the wheel I took on the look of a bronc rider, bouncing up and down, straining against the rudder, flinging my weight from side to side trying to tame the Springtide. For an hour I stayed aboard the bucking bronc, maintaining only just a minor semblance of a course as I danced and strained to maintain control and avoid the showers of spray that came flying past as the Springtide ploughed through the waves rather than going over them. My "star-to-steer-by" zoomed back and forth across the bow, unwilling to hold still in its prescribed position. The wind crept up to 25 knots. The boat now shuddered as it smashed through the waves, rattling and clattering all manner of utensils in the cabin below. Once the Dans offered to shorten sail, but I declined assuring them that I cold handle it, perhaps not wanting to admit any form of defeat. After all, I had gone from being shy about taking the wheel, to fairly confident that I could handle the job in a good stiff breeze. How could I admit that the job was becoming too much? It would be better to hang gamely in there until my shift was over.

Once, John appeared on deck briefly. He hung over the lee rail, with Chicago Dan hanging on to his harness, and called several times to his undersea nemesis Ralph. Getting no response, he spat into the sea and said that it was a miserable time to have a beard. He sat for a moment then took himself and his ghostly pallor back below to sleep.

Finally, the Dans insisted and reefed the sails again. The effect was immediate and unmistakable. As Springtide slowed under shortened sail, she became more like a horse at a canter, still requiring focus and effort, but not a continuous succession of athletic maneuvers. In another half an hour, Newton Dan relieved my watch half an hour early. I pointed out the star for the current course.

Afterward, I sat in the cockpit and pondered. I guess my enthusiasm carried me away. Wanting not to appear unable to do the task, I had made a rookie mistake, letting the boat be overpowered for the sea conditions. Chicago Dan asked about my earlier sailing experience. I replied that this had been my first night-watch; that I'd occasionally stayed up late at night on the Vanity and talked with the helmsman, but had never had the helm to myself at night. Having let that cat out of the bag, perhaps both the over exuberance and the mistake would be overlooked.

Dan crawled into the fore-cabin to sleep until his 3 AM watch.

The system of 1-man watches was abandoned without explicit conversation, apparently due to the sea conditions (although possibly because there were only 2 bunks). The Dans had stayed with me during my watch. Probably a good thing given my inexperience. I stayed with Newton Dan, providing an extra set of eyes to watch for lights.

Where the afternoon had had patchy clouds, the night was absolutely clear. The moon was a mere sliver so the sky was incredibly dark and every star imaginable was visible. The Milky Way was a broad frost belt fore-and-aft through the sky. From my position behind the dodger, facing aft, I could see the Big Dipper on the starboard quarter and traced the familiar path from the dipper's outer edge stars up to Polaris, double-checking to be sure that it was at the end of the handle for the Little Dipper. I thought about ancient mariners using Polaris, the North Star, for navigation. Then doing what they never could, I tried to envision the entire earth, its position in space, and its axis of rotation pointing out into the void at Polaris. My view of the world and universe above was so expansive I thought I could actually see the roundness of the earth and the imaginary lines depicting the global mapping features. I checked the Loran readings; plotted course, actual course, speed over the ground, and distance from the ideal rum-line between checkpoints on the pre-programmed list of legs of he journey - 238 degrees, 235 degrees, 6.7 knots, 1.23 miles. What would 18th century mariners think? Would they marvel at the technology? Would they even understand? Would they scoff at the prospect of using it for such a short and easy coastal hop?

Newton Dan and I each saw three or more shooting stars during his watch. One that I saw was so clearly visible and so bright that I could see it breaking up into pieces, little specks of light spraying off to the side of its main track.

Around half-past 10, I gave Dan a break, taking the helm for a while to let him rest. He cat-napped under the corner of the dodger while I stood at the wheel, the only thing awake for miles. On the horizon to the west was the glow of Portland, the nearest permanent mark of man. Occasionally a light would start from the southern sky, move to the east of us and return to the south. They were airplanes aligning themselves for the approach to Boston's Logan airport, although in the wind and sloshing seas I never heard them. With parka and gloves I was warm enough save my feet. Water flowed aft along the weather deck, past the cockpit, then spilled in from behind me. My right foot was soaked and quite cold for it.

Dan awoke and went below to check the Loran. He talked briefly with John who wasn't sleeping particularly well. The port over the berth was leaking and dripping down on John's head so he was wearing his foul-weather gear in an effort to stay dry, but without much luck.

As Dan took back the wheel he suggested we stay on another hour to give John a break. Despite being tired, I'd been up 17 hours already, I agreed and took over Dan's previous position in the corner of the dodger. By half-past-midnight, I was pretty chilled and this time standing at the helm didn't help. Somehow, I made it that last half-hour and with the good deed done, beckoned Dan to wake the others for the change of watch.

Tired as I was, there was one last task before I could go to sleep. As Chicago Dan had so aptly put it earlier in the day, there is the manly art of urinating at sea, that is, using the head. For those readers unaccustomed to this act, whether by gender or by lack of sailing experience, imagine trying to pour a glass of water into a soup bowl from a height of three feet or so while standing in a phone booth on the back of a pick-up truck traveling at high speeds on a bumpy, unpaved country road. It can be done, obviously, and requires relying on two simple tricks. The first is to wedge yourself into the available space as firmly as possible so as to reduce to a minimum the, um, operational distance. This will undoubtedly leave you in a position other than vertical. Then again, in a moving boat, nothing stays vertical for long. More importantly, the boat can continue its dance with the waves, and you won't bounce around like a pea in a can. The second is to not rely on gravity, but rather the force of pressure, which is to say, bear down with some deliberateness. Keep in mind that this is a ship-board task, not a chance to relax.

I took over the fore-cabin berth vacated by Chicago Dan. I removed my parka, damp shoes, and wet socks and put on a pair of dry socks, then maneuvered into the berth. The forward part of the bunk was under the foredeck with less than 18 inches of space above the mattress, as was the outboard edge of the bunk. The inboard two-thirds of the top half of the bunk was in the cabin proper and had another foot of headroom. All this by way of explaining why I would choose to sleep head-aft, despite the fact that it left me with my feet noticeably elevated. It was either that or face having the deck 6 inches from my face. Well beyond tired, I was able to sleep despite the feeling of being in an out-of-control elevator, as the bow continued to plunge through the waves.

I awoke once in the night for another trip to the head, the aforementioned procedure complicated by the need to keep my socks dry. The earlier wave action had forced water into the small sink through its drain and sprayed it into the cabin. A small puddle sloshed back and forth across the floor. This meant that I needed to fish for my shoes in the dark, finding them in the bottom of the small chasm alongside the bunk. Then I had to get them on my feet without having the boat's lurches toss me into the very same hole.

I next awoke promptly at 6 AM, presumably the start time for the next watch, although nobody had actually discussed it. John looked relieved to see me and asked me to take the wheel. He and Chicago Dan shook out the reefs, puttered around a bit, then went below to get some more sleep. Several miles of the bow I spotted a whale breaching two or three times in the span of a couple of minutes. We cheered and ballyhooed his effort fro the deck, not expecting that the appreciation was communicated, but simply for the joy of it. Isle of Shoals passed to starboard on the horizon. This prompted Newton Dan to get up, replacing Chicago Dan, who then returned to the forward berth. I took the wheel first and let Newton Dan catnap in the corner of the dodger. Again, I was alone with the boat and the sea.

In the morning light the sea was quite different from the night before. The winds were 2 to 15 knots, leaving the seas almost glassy. The Springtide slid through the water at 4 to 5 knots. The air was quite. Occasionally, I could hear a fishing boat pass in the distance. This was the second romance of sailing, not the daring do, adventure and battling the elements, but rather of serenity, solitude and introspection. Where the night before I was in awe of the scale and the intense power of nature, the morning was a chance to be in awe of the scale and massive quiet generated by the same environment. It is like the contrast between the incredible stealth and incredible power of a large predator.

Newton Dan and I swapped back and forth taking the wheel. Once, while Dan cat-napped, a whale surfaced and blew about to yards to stern. I yelled "Whale!" to nobody-in-particular, waking up Dan. He obligingly sprung to he feet, but his face belied his state of confusion at having just been awakened. The whale did not surface again within view, apparently on his or her way with some deliberateness, and Dan settled in back to sleep.

Around 9, John and Chicago Dan arose and joined us on deck. We had breakfast of granola bars and orange juice. On the southern horizon, we could see Cape Ann creeping toward us. With increasingly lighter air, out progressed slowed. When the winds dropped below 10 knots, we all but stopped moving. Finally, John decided to engage the "iron wind."

I don't know what it is that causes it to happen, but on every boat I've been on that had an automated means of steering, the apparatus was given an anthropormorphic name. On the Vanity, the automatic pilot, a home-brew affair, possibly even adapted from airplane equipment, was quite naturally called Otto Von Pilot, or simply Otto. I believe the name was of my mother's invention, perhaps reflecting her mistaken belief that the device was of German manufacture (as well as being an obvious pun). On the Springtide, the analogous equipment, an AutoHelm, is called J.B.

John began the story by indicating that he was about to introduce us to the 5th member of the Springtide's crew, then went below, returning with a small rectangular box, a torpedo shaped object, a couple of electronic cables, and a long thin drive belt. As he proceeded to install it, he indicated that he had received it second-hand, from a boat-owner friend, who had dubbed it J.B. during its service on his own boat. Naturally< the change of vessel had no effect on the identity of the electronic crew member and so its name remained "J.B."

Next, much to my surprise, John asked me to remove the locking nut and take off the wheel. After a moment of wondering if he had lost his mind, it became apparent what he was suggesting. Fastened to the front of the wheel at somewhat less than half its diameter was a toothed wheel that was supposed to be at one end of the AutoHelm drive belt. To thread the belt around the gear wheel, the boat would need to be without steering for a brief moment. Under motor power, and with little wind or seas, this was an entirely safe operation. John completed the installation in a few seconds and we returned the wheel to its rightful place.

John connected the electronic cables to the box and attached it to the side of the cockpit. One cable went to a plug for power and the other to the torpedo shaped servo motor for control. The servo motor attached to the side of the cockpit as well, and the drive belt attached to its drive wheel. Steering as carefully as I could to hold the exact course, I called out "Mark!" when I hit it exactly, and John engaged the clutch on the servo motor. At that point, I, and subsequent helmsmen, became spectators as the boat steered itself. And so it went for quite some time.

We motored past Cape Ann, into Massachusetts Bay, heading for Weymouth. Certainly, just a century ago, a sailor's life was an isolated one. Often, there was no means of communicating to friends or family ashore at least until you went ashore yourself, and possibly not until you did so in a specific place. My experience with the Vanity was really only a little better. Radio communication seemed complex and difficult at best, somewhat of a black art. The home-brew nature of the boat meant a low-budget for electronic equipment, so we didn't have anything fancy like a side-band radio. Essentially we were limited to listening to coastal radio stations on the RDF or picking up WWV from Ft. Collins in the middle of the night. The intervening years have changed all that.

In the vicinity of Cape Ann, John went below for a minute and returned with a cellular telephone. Its not that I couldn't have thought of it myself, but the contrast to my earlier experience was amusing. John simply dialed his home phone number and, viola!, he told his wife that out ETA was 4 PM, ensuring that she'd be there to pick us up. No more trying to radio the Coast Guard when you get in trouble, just dial 911!

After a while Chicago Dan took over the helm. At some point we had lunch. It was a repeat of dinner from the previous night, sandwiches with meat and cheese. In the calm seas, everyone's stomachs faired better than the night before. John was even able to stand a stint below decks making the sandwiches and emerged none the worse for wear.

Somewhere in the early afternoon we sighted another whale off the port bow, quite close to another sail boat. We broke from our course and circled, hoping to get a closer look. The whale surfaced again and I snapped a picture. Later, viewing of the picture aptly demonstrated the power of human vision. In all our minds we were relatively close to the whale, maybe 100 years or so away. Its protruding back and dorsal fin seemed quite clear; we could see a fair amount of detail. In the photo, however, all you see is a black lump in the distance. This despite the fact that I was using a high quality 35mm SLR camera. The whale surfaced one more time, then disappeared and we returned to our original course.

The next few hours went uneventfully. The wind returned, this time from the south, so we unfurled the jib and retrimmed the main. With the extra force driving the boat, we couldn't use the AutoHelm, so we turned it off and disengaged it. It was getting close to our scheduled arrival time, so we left the motor on and motor-sailed. We made our next navigational mark, what John called a "small buoy." At roughly 25 or so feet in diameter, and equally tall, the buoy may have dwarfed other boats that passed its way. We passed along the Outer Brewster Islands until we reached Boston Light, a classic white lighthouse on one of the islands. John told us that this lighthouse was one of the few remaining that was manned rather than automatically operated. I observed that it would be a wonderful, even cushy, job in the summer, but that the winters would be awfully harsh. Finally we entered the channel into Weymouth.

The channel looked like a freeway at rush-hour. Dozens of boats were making their way in. Some of the sailboats motor-sailed in-line with the channel as we did. Others made their way purely under sail. While on the starboard tack they would cross the channel, left-to-right, threading their way through the on-coming parade of other boats. A lobster-boat was stopped at the channel entrance, sideways, it owner scrubbing the aft deck with a broom. Power boats large and small passed up on either side, their wakes disturbing for a few moments the otherwise flat water and rocking all the boats along their paths. Lobster buoys dotted the channel occasionally, not the brightly colored, uniform size and shape buoys we saw in Tennants Harbor, but any manner of flotation, mostly odd sizes of plastic jugs. These had to be avoided just as in Maine, so we dodged back and forth as we went.

As the Wessagusset Yacht Club came into view, John asked me to help him strike the main. He worked the halyard while I pulled in the sail. I made a sort-of bag-like pouch with the bottom part of the sail, then stuffed the remainder of the sail into it. When the sail was fully down, I tightly rolled the pouch around the rest of the sail, positioned it on top of the boom, and, with help from Chicago Dan, tied it down. It was just as it should have been, just as I had done it years ago on the Vanity. I felt at home with the boat and with my feet next to the mast. As we slipped into the dock at the yacht club, it was done, we had succeeded. The Springtide had returned to her home port.

For the next several days, I wore my sunburned face proudly. I was a sailor again and had earned it. In a single 28-hour trip, I had re-experienced a host of the reasons to love sailing. And every time that somebody asked or commented about my peeling face, it gave me a chance to retell the story, like some exaggerated fish tale, and savor the taste again.