Sport of Kings - Part One
Created | Updated Aug 6, 2003
I had been in New Zealand a couple of months and was starting to feel a bit guilty that, having flown halfway around the world, I hadn't made any attempt to meet my pal Loonytunes. I got my chance over New Years when the Royal1 Port Nicholson Yacht Club announced a race from Wellington to his art-deco paradise home of Napier.
And, me being me, the natural thing to do was to hitch a ride on a racing yacht - achieved without much difficulty by putting an ad on the club's notice board.
Actually I started working up to this almost as soon as I arrived in Wellington and have raced with Distraction, a well-found Farr 10.20 (33'), a couple of times already. It always amazes me how easy it is to find someone prepared to invite you out on their boat and, as an added bonus this time, the boat's owner is a pneumatic green-eyed doll named Bindy.
Sniffy2, her partner, usually helms the boat and the other regular crew member is Sharyn - responsible for pulling on ropes and supplying chocolate. We also have two 'ringers', Brendan and Mark, on board but I'm not really sure what they do because whenever anything happens I have to be at the front of the boat taking care of 'my' sails and ropes, and drinking seawater - or rum, of which there is usually a plentiful supply after racing. We had a practise run across the Cook Strait a week before racing, borrowed a bottle from the crew of Andiamo, and yours truly fell overboard on arrival in Marlborough Sound. (With a little tugging and prying of fingers from my alleged crewmates!) Such is sailing, and it serves to prepare the mind for the tribulations of spending a week getting wet inside and out.
Preparing for the race it sounds as if there's going to be a lot of getting wet. Winds are forecast to be 30 knots, with lots of that famous New Zealand rain. Bindy is a little apprehensive, and I ask the club's Vice Commodore why. His reply is that New Zealand's east coast is 'a c**t of a place' and when it all starts to go horribly wrong there's no place to run to, no place to hide. This coming from a man who is famed for disappearing off the front of a yacht during a race and reappearing, hand over hand and spluttering, at the back - only to run forward without a word and complete what he was doing.
Inspiring stuff. (Although losing a little of its impact when you hear someone call him Cuddles.) And so I square my shoulders and go to join the ranks of explorers who have set out into the dangerous unknown for millennia, without even the promise of a party at the end of it. In fact I learn later that some of the charts we are using are based on Captain Cook's original survey - no one has got around to updating them yet! This really is going to be excitement, adventure and really wet and wild things!
But first I need waterproofing.
I learned to sail in San Diego, where shorts and T-shirts are usually adequate and shoes an extravagance, but here nothing but the best will suffice. Although people are usually willing to loan a casual crewmember whatever gear he may need, for this long a trip I have to bite the bullet and go buy a full set of made-in-New Zealand Musto foul weather gear. It's absolutely pissing with rain and I'm stalking the docks looking for Mike, the owner of Barton marine suppliers and Flying Boat, in the hope of negotiating a discount. He's busy water blasting his bottom to make it smooth and shiny for the race, but Bindy's name works wonders and after clothing me head-to-toe he still leaves me with a whole $30 in the bank. I figure that locally made stuff should be appropriate for local conditions, and try not to ask myself who's going to feed me until my next pay day in a fortnight.
And finally we leave such mundane matters behind, drop the mooring lines in the water, and head out into the windy gloom of a midsummer's morning in Wellington.
As ever I'm not really sure when the race starts. I've forgotten my watch, and never did figure out which landmarks on shore we use to identify the start line. But suddenly we're in line with a dozen boats, cranking sails taut, and we're either racing or about to race, or have been racing and I haven't noticed.
Whatever. I'm too busy really to think about it for a while. Getting out of the harbour is pretty close fought, we have to change sails a number of times, and the situation doesn't really calm down until late afternoon. Rain is cascading off the mainsail in an endless waterfall, I'm up at the bow fighting with corroded brass clips that I've been meaning to lubricate for weeks, I've got something like 11 different ropes to be responsible for and they're intent on making macramé. Hook up and hoist the spinnaker, drop the headsail, hoist it again, clean up the mess, change headsails, fold Kevlar, stuff nylon into a bag two sizes too small, and on and on with the boat heeled well over in a stiff breeze.
There's time for introspection too. Sometimes too much time, and the mind wanders off along roads that are normally best left untrod. Sitting shivering on the rail with my feet dangling above the water, and the wind deflecting off my nose to make patterns in the contents of my cup, it occurs to me that someone should write a guide entry on the joys of cuppa soup. Later, getting rid of the soup, I realise how lucky I am compared to, for instance, your typical arctic explorer. I only have to clamber over (or around) the rest of the crew and their attendant bits of rope to the low side of the boat, brace my knees against the lifelines, undo my coat, open my foul weather pants, pull the elasticated waterproof layer out of the way, lift a few layers of insulation, find my zipper, reach in and persuade the little fella to come out into the wind for a minute. After much reaching, wrestling and stretching I enjoy a moment of precarious tranquillity and reflect on what it would be like to be in a really hostile climate.
I speculate that Shackleton had to contend with a lot worse than a little difficulty peeing, and much humbled, I resume my seat on the rail. The coastline is desolate, uninhabited, battered by waves, rugged explorer's territory. It's really uncomfortable on the rail, hard fibreglass channelling unbelievable quantities of seawater around my bottom, and an aluminium ridge poking into the backs of my legs. The whole thing tipped over at an alarming angle and spray slapping me in the face every few seconds. I feel like the captain of Conrad's Narcissus3 on the deck of his overwhelmed ship, implacably facing the storm down and holding his vessel aloft by force of sheer will - until the wind eases enough to goad the exhausted crew into getting her underway again.
Stoic at last, I watch a mollyhawk4 in the gathering gloom until I am jerked out of my reverie by the arrival of stew. Food! At last! After the third shovelful or so I notice Mark picking the mushrooms from his. Mushrooms? I hadn't even noticed and normally I'd be doing the same, but today I'm too hungry and it's all nourishment. I keep cramming it in, but still my mind wanders. I find myself thinking of a line in a Terry Pratchett book about a shaman-type character, preparing for a dream quest by stuffing mushrooms into various bodily orifices. That almost raised a smile - but the next wave added a cup of salt water to my bowl, dampening my spirits slightly.
All attention is on the other boats to see how they benefit, or don't, from whatever they have done that is different from us. I have a Romantic Interest in Gucci, who remain close for most of the day. The boat to beat is ZZ Top, on their way home and distinguishable by the shark's mouth painted on the bow. Nedax, complete with 'Team New Zealand' logo, is way ahead in an exciting tussle with Flying Boat, who have Ericsson's name on the side. Andiamo and the other big boat, Pretty Boy Floyd, are specks on the horizon while closer in are Arbitrage and wineDown. Arbi are sponsored by the Australia New Zealand Bank, who have just charged me outrageously for my first month's banking so I feel like I'm subsidising their sailing. Grudge match! Bruce is highly visible (and audible) in the stern of wineGum, standing up on the lockers with his tiller protruding between his legs as he usually does when he's excited. Somebody should tell him how Australian he looks.
Arbi are on the radio because somebody on board has apparently dislocated a shoulder. Not enough to throw the body part overboard and claim to have set out short handed, but enough to be serious. I knew it was windy but didn't think it was that bad. Bruce gallantly interrupts his race to swing wineBreath close by and transfer his doctor crewmember to give assistance. There's nothing we can do, not having the right drugs on board - except the mushrooms, of course - so I go to bed for a couple of hours.
