All in the same boat

by Earle L. Reynolds; Barbara Reynolds

At dawn, by studying the contours of the land, we were able to identify it positively, light or no light, as Miyake. We sailed on, but I still had a nagging worry in the back of my mind. If one could not depend upon the light lists and charts....

Two days later, in the evening weather forecast of November 3, the Japanese radio announced that on November 1 a 15-second light had been established on Miyake-shima. We had seen it on its first night’s operation!

I mention this little incident because it serves to bring out, as well as any other, several points which are important. First, in a cruise of this kind it is not safe to take anything for granted. I remember talking to a young chap in Fiji who, with his companion, had been approaching the Society Islands from the west. According to their calculations, they were a good 50 miles out, so they set their sails and both retired for the night. They were awakened about two in the morning by the distinctly unpleasant sound of their keel hitting a coral reef. Their boat was a total loss. They actually had been 50 miles out, but what they had taken for granted was that there was open water all the way. What they had overlooked was the existence of the small island some miles to the west of Tahiti, which they had the bad luck to run onto in the night.

Another lesson I learned from the Miyake incident was that no matter how carefully you prepare, how many precautions you may take, something unanticipated is bound to come up. When it does, it should be met in a way that will give the greatest margin of safety to the ship. If the chart indicates there is a one-knot westerly drift, assume it could be as much as two knots—one of these times it will be. If the anchorage is strange and the weather uncertain, set an anchor watch, no matter how sleepy you are. For ninety-nine nights you’ll lose your sleep and nothing will happen, but on the hundredth night you’ll save your ship.

This point of view, in a number of instances, may have caused me to err on the side of caution—I know for a fact that our Japanese crewmen tended to regard me as cautious to the point of obsession. But when they became impatient, or at times clearly disapproving, I reminded myself that, after all, the responsibility was mine. This was my dream, my family, and my boat—and I had to make the decisions.

Whether these precautions were excessive I have no way of knowing, but I treasure the observation that Nick made, almost grudgingly, after the successful completion of the trip:

“If other boys and I had been boss, we’d have gone on reef many times!”

I accepted the admission in the spirit in which it was meant, and refrained from pointing out that it might not be necessary to run on the reef “many times.” Once might be quite enough.

Finally, there is the practical matter of sleep. Unless you can snatch it at odd intervals, and when necessary get along without that precious commodity for long periods and still maintain your efficiency, you will have a real handicap on a long ocean passage. You are lucky if you are a light sleeper, for to awaken promptly when an anchor begins to drag or when the changed motion of the ship indicates a change in the weather is better than explaining that you didn’t hear a thing until you hit the rocks or until the sail blew out. In my case, I found out that a characteristic which ashore was a liability—the habit of being easily awakened—was an asset at sea.

As a matter of fact, all of us learned to grab sleep where and as we could get it. Day ran into night. On a ship there is always someone awake, and usually someone asleep. Only at mealtimes does everyone generally put in an appearance, and even then the man on watch must wait until he is relieved before he can come below and eat. On our first crossing, when getting ready to go on watch was often a case of putting on heavy weather gear, it took some nice calculation on Barbara’s part to serve each meal long enough before the change of watch so that the man about to go up would have time to eat and dress, and still report promptly for duty, and the man coming off could come below to a still-hot meal.