came from ahead, and then we stood away on the starboard tack, as was the practice of the fruit schooners and brigs trading between the Azores and Channel ports when confronted by a headwind, for the farther north one goes the greater should be the chance of picking up a westerly wind. At times we were 60 miles to the north-west of the great-circle course, which optimistically I had drawn on the chart; but this did not benefit us, because, as we were to learn a little later, an anticyclone lay between us and the Channel. However, after we had been at sea for a week, during which we had sailed less than 500 miles, there were solar and lunar halos, and the barograph, which had been high and steady, began to fall; it dropped steadily one inch in four days, remained there for 12 hours, and then started to fall some more. Clearly something unpleasant was on its way, and gale warnings, which we could now get from the B.B.C. Radio 2, were broadcast for many areas, including Sole, which we were now approaching. The sky was low and heavy, the atmosphere was damp, and an ominous swell rolled in from the north-west. At noon of the eleventh day, when we still had about 300 miles to go to Mizen Head at the south-west corner of Ireland, the wind at north was so fresh that we hove-to to cook and eat lunch in some degree of comfort; but as the wind continued to increase and the sea grew rougher, we remained hove-to, and several times during the afternoon I went on deck and rolled down more and more of the already deeply reefed mainsail, until by evening only about 75 of its 300 square feet remained set. But at dusk even that small area of sail was too much in a sudden violent screaming rain-laden squall. We dragged on our oilskin suits and went on deck to stow it with some difficulty, Susan working on the windward side of the boom and I to lee- ward. As soon as the halyard was let go the wet sail beat at our hands and faces, the terylene rattling like machine-gun fire; even to pass tiers round it was difficult, and close though we were to one another I could not hear a word of what Susan was shouting at me. Then with a springy piece of nylon rope we lashed the tiller down, and the ship lay beam on to wind and sea, heeled 15 degrees under her bare mast, and drifting very slowly to leeward. I had taken Blondie's bonnet off some time before, and now we unlaced the weathercloths each side of the cockpit, for if we were to ship heavy water these would probably carry away the stanchions to which they were secured, as they had twice done in the past. Our final act, and no easy one, was to light the riding light and lash it to the boom gallows, where the wind almost immediately it blew out. So throughout the night we had to rely on our feeble electric bow and stern lights; but I doubt that mattered as much as we thought at the time, for heavy rain so reduced visibility that even a bright light

could scarcely have been sighted at a sufficient distance to prevent a collision. We wondered, as we thankfully went below, slammed the hatch, and shed our streaming oilskins, how effective a radar reflector really is, especially one carried as ours was only 12 feet above the sea. Susan managed to heat up the evening soup, and then we lay wedged in our bunks, listening uneasily to the noises of the storm: the whine of wind in the rigging, rising to a shriller note each time we lifted to the top of a sea; the sharp rattle of spray on deck; the angry vibration of the vane on its shaft; the rushing sound of an approaching crest and the shuddering crash as it broke against the weather side. As the night wore on the sea naturally grew rougher, and we shipped heavier crests more frequently. A particularly violent one came thundering aboard at about 0300, and immediately a cascade of water poured down into the galley through the two after ventilators and through the sliding hatch, which the motion had caused to open slightly. At the same time a dollop came in through the water-trap vent over the foot of Susan's bunk and – because of the motion or the angle of the ship at the time – fell on her pillow and head. For a few moments until the ship was able to rid her deck of the burden, she felt buried, heavy and lifeless, and afterwards water sloshed in the slowly draining cockpit well for a long time; eighty strokes of the pump were needed to free the bilge of the water that had entered by way of the cockpit seats, and I had to dress up and go on deck to attend to that job. Nicholson chose the not very suitable time while we were busy mopping up, to take his daily exercise in wild dashes up and down the cabin, with his long thin tail so kinked that its tip almost touched the top of his black head; he then demanded food before turning in on the drier end of Susan's bunk. This, indeed, was a real old night of horror such as we had not experienced for a long time, certainly not on this cruise, and I wished I possessed the tension-free mind of a cat with a full stomach, and could just sleep until it was over. Because of the northing we had made nights were now much shorter, but it did seem a long, long time before the first grey hint of dawn outlined the portholes; we noticed with relief then that the glass was beginning to rise. We remained lying a-hull for a total of 24 hours. Then the wind backed to the west and moderated, so we unrolled and set some of the mainsail and got moving on our course, and from that time on we had uneventful sailing, though often in mist or rain. But during the forenoon of the day we expected to make our landfall the sun shone brightly and the horizon was clear, enabling us to fix our position with certainty; with a fine west wind to hurry us gaily along, we could not have had better conditions for raising the land, and we sighted Mizen Head in the early afternoon.

Wanderer III

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