Chris Stewart - Three Ways to Capsize a Boat: An Optimist Afloat

For my mother, Jill, without whom
none of this would have happened

Contents

PART 1:

PART 2:

PART 3:

Preface

T HE EVENTS IN THIS book took place in the early eighties, a time of dismal illiberalism and warmongering in Britain: the Thatcher years. As for me, I had just turned thirty and was sadly contemplating the ruins of my beloved sheep-farming enterprise.

A few years before the events I relate here I had had a brief brush with fame and fortune as one of the founding members of the rock group Genesis. The boys in the band recognized a crap drummer when they heard one, though, and with some justification they gave me the bums rush. Just before they hit the big time, I found myself out on the street.

From there I plunged into a life of well-deserved obscurity, but, it has to be said, great contentment. Much later in life I was propelled, kicking and screaming, back into the limelight, when I was persuadedvery much against my better judgmentto write a book about my experiences living on a farm in the mountains of southern Spain. The book, Driving Over Lemons , was an unexpected success in Britain and Spain, and it even enjoyed a modest circulation on the western side of the pond as well.

As a consequence of this, and of the minor celebrity status it confers, I have achieved the right to burden the reading world with bits and pieces from the story of my life. I wont spoil the book for you by telling you what its about, but maybe a word or two about the effect that these adventures had upon me will serve to clarify the murk.

I came to the sea and sailing upon it by a freak of chance. After an unpromising start, I came to love it with that singular passion that climbers feel for the mountains and pilots feel for the sky. For two years I indulged my passion, and then abandoned it altogether in order to pursue different passionsmountains, travel, and farming. Today I live, with my wife and daughter, on a farm in the mountains of Andaluca. The Mediterranean is not too far away; Ill go down there from time to time and walk wistfully along the strand, scanning the horizon for the sight of a boat perhaps gliding toward the Pillars of Hercules and the western ocean beyond. But although there will always be a little longing, I shall not cast myself again upon the terrors of the deep, not even for those glorious visions of beauty and joy that touched my life forever, moments I hope I have managed to convey in the following pages.

Orgiva, Granada, September 2009

Teach Yourself Sailing

I T WAS JULIE MILLER who sent me to sea, one wet autumn afternoon in Londons Wandsworth Road. Now of course you havent a clue who Julie Miller is, and indeed why should you? but her relevance to this episode and subsequent adventures is that she had a great-aunt called Jane Joyce.

Chris! yelled Julie, who was more than a match for the thundering of London traffic. What a fantastic coincidence. Ive been longing to see you and there is something I particularly wanted to ask you what was it now? Ah yes, how would you like a job looking after a yacht in the Greek Islands this summer?

Id like that very much, I replied, without so much as a thought. As it happens Im not too busy this summer. Which was the long and the short of it, for at the tender age of twenty-nine my career as a sheep farmer had just hit the skids. The bank had refused any further loans to nurture the flock that my girlfriend, Ana, and I were tending on rented land in Sussex, and my prospects as my mother insisted on calling them, were not looking overly bright.

Terrific, said Julie. Thats a very great relief. My great-aunt Jane has been on at me for weeks to find her a skipper, and I thought of you straightaway.

Now this, it must be said, was a most peculiar thing for her to think. For I had never been on a boat before in my life, and I knew not the first thing about sailing. But I desperately wanted a job, so it struck me that it might be best to keep minor details like my complete and utter unsuitability for the job to myself.

CLEARLY, THE FIRST THING to do was to bone up on boating, in order to conduct myself satisfactorily at the interview. So I bought Teach Yourself Sailing or some such guide and immersed myself in it. It was not, I thought, quite as gripping as a book on such an interesting subject ought to be, and I emerged from it with only the haziest notions of sailing and how it was done. If I had the pictures in front of me, I could tell the difference between a sloop (gaff-rigged or Bermuda), a schooner, a ketch, and a yawl; I had a very vague idea what beating and tacking and running were; I had learned the undesirability of jibing when running; and I could tell you more or less when to reef, or if things cut up really rough, to scandalize.

I did a little work on the vocabulary, too. I discovered that ropes were not actually ropes, but sheets, lines, halyards, warps, painters, stays, or ratlines. The toilet was not the dunny but the heads. Of course, the front wasnt the front and the back wasnt the back. Then there was a fid and the bitts and take-alls, there were peaks, luffs, and clews; and if you didnt feel too good, you could always heave to.

Friends and family were concerned about my cavalier attitude and horribly obvious ignorance. What if you tip the old bird into the drink? they asked. How would you live with yourself if you were to wreck the boat, or, worse still, drown the lot of them and yourself into the bargain?

I pointed out the tautology, reassured them that things would turn out for the best, and dialed the number of my patron-to-be. A pleasingly patrician American voice answered.

But my dear, I have been simply longing for you to ring. Dear Julie has told me all about you and I simply cannot wait to meet you in the flesh, so to speak. However, things being as they are, I suppose I shall have to. So perhaps next Tuesday evening at eight oclock would suit you?

I returned my nose to the sailing book and tested myself one more time on vocabularyfull and by, jibing, reaching, tacking goose wing, veering, backing. Then, got up like a dogs dinnerI think I even wore a tieI rang the bell at two minutes to eight at a very opulent brick apartment block on the intimidatingly elegant south side of Cadogan Square. A tall, slightly stooped octogenarian opened the door. He had thick white hair and a bulbous nose and spoke quietly in a voice that was full of slowness and gentleness.

Why, you must be Chris. He offered me his hand, which I shook as firmly as I thought proper for one so frail. Welcome. Come in. Im Bob Joyce, but please call me Bob. Jane will be down shortly. In the meantime, perhaps youd care for a drink.

Ill have a whisky and soda, I replied. It seemed the right drink for a captain, though I cant remember ordering the drink by choice on any other occasion.

Very sensible, too. Ice?

Er, yes, please.

Bob busied himself at the drinks cabinet. I took stock of my surroundingsimmense but rather gloomy opulence.

Yes, youre right, it is a little on the tenebrous side, but weve only taken it for a few monthsand at least its warm.

Funny I hadnt said anything.

Here, have a seat, Chris. I believe youre to be our skipper this summer?

Yes, thats right, or, rather, I hope so.

Well, I hope so, too, Chris. Cheers. Its no good talking to me about boats though; I hate the damn things. The boat is my wifes hobby.