Jones - Saga of a Wayward Sailor

Tristan Jones

To
the women of this world
without whom there would
never have been any voyages,
in memory of Megan Roberts,
who gave me life.

And to:

Neils Arblom of Lofoten,

Karl Boehm of Dsseldorf,

Paul Condamine of Bordeaux,

Alex Fougeron of Paris,

Simon Godolphin of London,

Jean-Pierre Berton of Brest,

Bob Perko of Santa Barbara, California,
Ruy Vidal Molinharo, Commander, Portuguese Navy,

Steve Llewellyn of London,

Mr. Ballcock, Chief Engineer, Harrods, London, and

Milt Johnson, Bill Karr, and Keith Miles, of the Boat Loft,

Edmonds, Washington, who faithfully guarded Sea Dart

while I wrote this book.

Apology to my British, Dutch, French, German, Spanish or Portuguese readers: my nursery was Wales, my school was the Royal Navy lower-deck; my language-colleges were the sailing boats and dock-side taverns of the world; my university was the sea; my apology is for any slight error I may have made in reporting colloquial speech.

Tristan Jones
London, Antarctica, and Manhattan
Easter, 1976New Year, 1979

Foreword

My arctic voyage, 1959 to 1961, as described in the previous book of this trilogy, ICE!, was probably among the most futile of expeditions. It was made for the wrong reasons, with the wrong boat, meager finances and unsuitable equipment. It was a classic example of how not to tackle such an effort. Or so it seemed at the time, before the realization that I had been exploring human limits finally dawned on me.

The first leg of this voyage took me into the Baltic, on a futile detour of two thousand miles or so, to find a Finnish girl friend. I eventually found her, well married. I have not dwelt on this. Some parts of a mans life are his and his alone. To complain is not my function.

Be patient with a simplistic survivor at the start of this tale. Persist; endure with me; try to see things as I saw them then. See how time, although it may not quickly heal all wounds, at least puts pain into perspective. See how freedom demands sacrifice.

Nelson was a Labrador retriever, at the start of this saga about fourteen years old. His right foreleg and his left eye were missing, lost before I inherited him from his previous master (my first sailing skipper twenty-four years previously), Tansy Lee.

Cresswell was an ex-Royal National Lifeboat Institution sailing rescue craft, built in London in 1908. She served in that capacity for many years, until I bought her for $700 and converted her into a rough and ready cruising ketch. Her engine was an old ex-London Fire Brigade trailer-pump from the Blitz. Her dimensions were 36 feet long by 6 feet 6 inches wide and she drew 2 feet 9 inches of water when fully loaded. When this story starts she carried 620 square feet of sail. Her construction was grown Portuguese oak frames, with double diagonal West African mahogany planking. She had twin, shallow, bilge keels and, being double-ended, an outboard hung rudder, which could be removed when going aground. At the start of this tale she was 54 years old. I was 38. Therefore the combined age of myself, Nelson, and Cresswell was 106. Our combined resources were about ten dollars a week plus what I could earn from occasional yacht deliveries; my wits and Nelsons loyalty.

The sequel to this account, the third book of the trilogy, The Incredible Voyage (Andrews and McMeel, 1977) has justified itself time and time again, in the letters I have received from people in hospitals and prisons and in situations where they imagined themselves to be at the end of their tether. If this book, too, can help as well as amuse, then I shall be content and I shall feel that our voyages, my readers and mine, have been well worthwhile.

Part I

Lets Go!

July 1961-November 1963

Sweet are the uses of adversity,

Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous,

Wears yet a precious jewel in his head;

And this our life, exempt from public haunt,

Finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks,

Sermons in stones, and good in everything.

William Shakespeare

As You Like it (act 2, sc. 1)

Yes our hearts to you are bounded,

Dearest Fatherland,

On the mountains songs are sounded,

On the sea-girt strand.

Legends in the forest linger.

Dreams of olden days,

Every bard-like wandering singer,

Sounds our Norways praise,

Every bard-like wandering singer,

Proudly sounds our Norways praise!

Norwegian National Anthem

(Translated by Tristan Jones)

Hell and High Water

The storm struck out of the southwest on August 3. It developed rapidly, in a matter of hours: from a steady blow to a howling rage of shifting cloud, rain, and wind, and the four cardinal points of the horizon galloped at me like the horsemen of the Apocalypse. And me in the middle of them. Waiting, vulnerable, patient.

Hold onto your hat, old lad, weve got some fun and games coming, I said to Nelson, my three-legged Labrador retriever, as I watched the sky turn first into somber gray, then menacing blackness, with sheets of lightning electrifying the whole heaving, gray-green watery curve of the world. Cresswell plunged on, away from the Arctic Circle, which she had passed over only the day before. By the time the gale freshened to a full storm, I was exhausted.

I had set out on July 10, 1961, from Svalbard for Iceland, 800 miles away to the southwest. With the prevailing wind against me, this distance was doubled.

I thought I had recovered my strength and wits during the days in Svalbard, and Cresswell was again sound. I first headed due south to latitude 71, so as to avoid any ice floes which might have broken loose from the main pack; then I headed due west for Jan Mayen, with the idea that if anything went amiss, I could shelter in those lonely islands. But the wind shifted to northwest and I was forced away to the south; so I missed Jan Mayen entirely.

By July 25 I was 180 miles due north of the northeast tip of Iceland. With the northwest wind I had a close reach, and the boat was making fast time. I aimed to reach Cape Farewell, the southern tip of Greenland, not later than August 30. From there, with the Greenland Current helping me westward until it joined the southerly running Labrador Current, it was around 800 miles to St. Johns, Newfoundland. If my luck held out, I should reach there by the end of September. I would have to push it, because my margin of safety, food-wise, was narrow indeedonly three weeks.

On July 31 I was in the Denmark Strait, heading southwest on a broad reach over the heaving waters, sometimes sighting Icelandic and British fishing vessels over the white-silver-topped, flashing green seas. Now came August, and with it the end of the short Arctic summer.

In the Arctic for almost two years, my diet had consisted mainly of rice, seal blubber, fish, and corned beef, and I was down to a wiry 120 pounds. Besides, I was suffering from what I call Arcticitis, a kind of lassitude which slows you down. Everything is slow motion, though you are unaware of it until you encounter someone who hasnt got it. Its something like a man from the mountains plodding along at his pace for years, nice and easy and perfectly normal to him. Then he goes to New York and immediately theres a difference in time, almost a time warp. After two years alone in the Arctic, even the mountain man would seem like a big-city tycoon.