Wearing Sails

Wednesday 5/22/2013

On that first morning at sea, I awaken from a post-watch nap, drink some coffee and bring out my sketchbook and markers. It’s more therapy than art, a way of loosening my mind into a swirl of curves, spirals and colors.

At noon “C” goes on watch and “A” becomes standby. Shortly after this, Captain Trost calls for a course change and for “A” Watch to come on deck to help with the required sail changes. We will have to wear the sails, that is, move the sails and spars from the port side to the starboard side while the helmsman turns the boat through the wind. The direction of the wind has not changed, so as the boat turns to a

more northerly direction the wind shifts from the starboard to the port side.

Easier said than done, of course. The wooden boom and gaff for the mainsail are large and heavy. So is the canvas – no nylon or carbon fiber on the POB2.

But...ingenious as humans are, they have invented and perfected devices to aid in the hauling and tugging. And on the POB2 they don’t require fossil fuel, only muscle power. Winches, pulleys and levers are all over the boat to aid the sailors. Still, the tugging isn’t for the faint-hearted.

Showing the crew that I am a competent guy I tug and haul with the rest, all the while knowing that I will pay that night. I don’t care – better to be sore than to be considered something less than a full participant in sailing the POB2.

I don’t have to wait until night to pay for my pride. I don’t remember how long it took to wear the sails, but when the POB2 is pointed northward, and the sails are trimmed properly, I’m so spent my legs buckle and I fall to a crouch. Luckily no one seems to notice, and more luck, Erin does notice. She tells me to go below. But I “man-it-up” and tell her that I will after I tell Jill. (This is boat protocol; the watch leader needs to know where her charges are.) Jill is below at the chart table with the captain, talking navigation business. Again lucky for me, Erin doesn’t buy my manliness. She goes below and tells Jill that I’m going to my cabin. And I do, muchly grateful for Erin. While resting in my bunk, the event weighs on my mind. I’m quiet during our evening watch.

That night I’m more than sore.  Immediately after our post-watch dinner I retreat to my cabin.  Completely depleted in body and spirit, tears from the exhaustion flow out.  I moan into my pillow, “I can’t do this”, and “I can’t make this all the way to Cleveland.”  The tears are not from any particular saddness, only from a body in much pain and completely exhausted.

Luckily my cabin-mate, Mark, a computer consultant from New Jersey, is on the watch immediately after mine, so I have the cabin all to myself.  Even knowing that tears are only the relieving of internal distress, I can’t let anyone see my collapse.  Gotta always be the capable, “can do” Bob.

More luck – by our morning watch, I am sufficiently restored. Thanks to modern medicine and the north Atlantic.