Three Ways to Capsize a Boat: An Optimist Afloat by Chris Stewart Page A
Authors: Chris Stewart
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disposal, I busied myself down at the chart table all on my own with the complex calculations.
My deliberations moved inexorably toward their conclusion, until at last, panting mentally from the excess of mathematical gymnastics, I had the numbers. Excitedly, Idrew in my lines across the chart, trying vainly to ignore the little copses of half-rubbed-out pencil marks that indicated everybody else’s approximation of our whereabouts. These were quite closely grouped.
However, as my pencil slid along the ruler toward the spot where it would intersect with my first plotted line, the truth began to dawn on me that things were not as they seemed. I removed the ruler and stared, brow furrowed, at the crossed pencil lines. Either everybody else was wildly out—which seemed to me the more likely option—or else I myself had slipped up badly. For my estimate of our position, far from being about fifty nautical miles southwest of the northern tip of Denmark, as the other navigators tended to agree, had us high and dry on the top of a prominent hill just to the south of Scunthorpe.
Hurriedly I rubbed out the lines. It seemed best to keep this disappointing discovery to myself. In fact, I resolved to leave the sextant work in the future to the eager navigators, for it was hard to imagine a useful result coming from my own offbeat deliberations. So far out to sea, though, you never know exactly where you are, anyway. And it doesn’t really matter that much. It’s only when you draw close to land that you need an exact position, in order not to pile your boat onto the bricks, as Tom would have it.
Although I never quite got the hang of sextant maths, Tom did show me how you can get a rough idea of where you are by “dead reckoning.” This is a matter of plotting your course onto the chart. You have to make allowances for tides and currents, magnetic variations, leeway (whichis the way that the wind blows you a little sideways off your intended track), and your speed, which you ascertain by streaming a device known as a log—a primitive instrument with a propeller on it that you throw into the sea way behind the wash of the boat. You plot all this information, along with changes of course, wind speed, and direction in the logbook, and on the basis of it you have some idea of where you are … although—unless you’re very slick—not much.
DURING ALL OF THOSE five long days sailing northward to Norway, we saw no sign of land, and, apart from the odd distant ship, there was not much to see on the sea, either, except a few birds.
I bemoaned this to Tom one day, or at least mused aloud about the monotony of the sea compared with the variety of the land with its ever-changing views of rocks, flowers, and trees. But he wouldn’t have any of it. “Birds,” he declared, “are the flowers of the sea. They’re the living element of the seascape; they give it color and personality and endless variety. There’s not an oceangoing sailor who doesn’t care about birds. Even if you didn’t give a fig for birds before you went to sea, you soon come to love them. They’re your constant companions and you get to know everything there is to know about them.”
And sure enough, the longer we were at sea, the more I came to see the truth of this. The presence of birds was enough to dispel our loneliness and fill us with fascination. Tom and Ros, Patrick and John knew all there wasto know about them and could recognize different species when they were no more than distant specks far away among the waves. We all had our favorites. Mine was the fulmar, a fat little gray-and-white gull with an amiable disposition and a quizzical look—a companionable sort of bird that you felt might be sticking close to the boat for the company rather than just the search for food. There were plenty of fulmars wheeling around among the waves as we sailed up the North Sea, though as we journeyed north I transferred my allegiance to the gannet, which
My deliberations moved inexorably toward their conclusion, until at last, panting mentally from the excess of mathematical gymnastics, I had the numbers. Excitedly, Idrew in my lines across the chart, trying vainly to ignore the little copses of half-rubbed-out pencil marks that indicated everybody else’s approximation of our whereabouts. These were quite closely grouped.
However, as my pencil slid along the ruler toward the spot where it would intersect with my first plotted line, the truth began to dawn on me that things were not as they seemed. I removed the ruler and stared, brow furrowed, at the crossed pencil lines. Either everybody else was wildly out—which seemed to me the more likely option—or else I myself had slipped up badly. For my estimate of our position, far from being about fifty nautical miles southwest of the northern tip of Denmark, as the other navigators tended to agree, had us high and dry on the top of a prominent hill just to the south of Scunthorpe.
Hurriedly I rubbed out the lines. It seemed best to keep this disappointing discovery to myself. In fact, I resolved to leave the sextant work in the future to the eager navigators, for it was hard to imagine a useful result coming from my own offbeat deliberations. So far out to sea, though, you never know exactly where you are, anyway. And it doesn’t really matter that much. It’s only when you draw close to land that you need an exact position, in order not to pile your boat onto the bricks, as Tom would have it.
Although I never quite got the hang of sextant maths, Tom did show me how you can get a rough idea of where you are by “dead reckoning.” This is a matter of plotting your course onto the chart. You have to make allowances for tides and currents, magnetic variations, leeway (whichis the way that the wind blows you a little sideways off your intended track), and your speed, which you ascertain by streaming a device known as a log—a primitive instrument with a propeller on it that you throw into the sea way behind the wash of the boat. You plot all this information, along with changes of course, wind speed, and direction in the logbook, and on the basis of it you have some idea of where you are … although—unless you’re very slick—not much.
DURING ALL OF THOSE five long days sailing northward to Norway, we saw no sign of land, and, apart from the odd distant ship, there was not much to see on the sea, either, except a few birds.
I bemoaned this to Tom one day, or at least mused aloud about the monotony of the sea compared with the variety of the land with its ever-changing views of rocks, flowers, and trees. But he wouldn’t have any of it. “Birds,” he declared, “are the flowers of the sea. They’re the living element of the seascape; they give it color and personality and endless variety. There’s not an oceangoing sailor who doesn’t care about birds. Even if you didn’t give a fig for birds before you went to sea, you soon come to love them. They’re your constant companions and you get to know everything there is to know about them.”
And sure enough, the longer we were at sea, the more I came to see the truth of this. The presence of birds was enough to dispel our loneliness and fill us with fascination. Tom and Ros, Patrick and John knew all there wasto know about them and could recognize different species when they were no more than distant specks far away among the waves. We all had our favorites. Mine was the fulmar, a fat little gray-and-white gull with an amiable disposition and a quizzical look—a companionable sort of bird that you felt might be sticking close to the boat for the company rather than just the search for food. There were plenty of fulmars wheeling around among the waves as we sailed up the North Sea, though as we journeyed north I transferred my allegiance to the gannet, which
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