Sailing "Away from It All"

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLII, Issue 20610, 26 December 1936, Page 12

Sailing "Away from It All"

BY

A. J. LOTHIAN

This first-hand story by a Windsor, Ontario business man not only abounds in exciting personal adventures of him and his family during their sailing venture to the Caribbean, but it is also a strong human-interest story of a man and a family who “wanted to get away from it all”, from the routine and troubles of normal everyday life and therefore embarked on this adventure, which included children as well as the father and mother.

I AWOKE at my home in Windsor, Ontario, one memorable morning in the early fall of 1933 to realise that I was a free man. I had shed my former life as a busy architect and business man, like a snake sloughs its skin. Having never sailed in my life before, I now found myself the owner of a 60-foot sailing yessel, with no ties to prevent me sailing, with my wife and four children, to the ends of the earth, to the Carribbean, to South America, even to the South Seas.

It was like stepping thirty years back Into childhood, Just as in boyhood I may have stood on the brink of a new swimming hole ready for my first delicious, adventurous plunge. I had not reached this position without days and weeks of misgivings, heart-aches and mental struggle. All my working years I had built up a position for myself as an architect. I was the owner of a large home, a reasonable number of first and second mortgages, two cars, an office and a respectable, though at the moment declining income. The pall of economic depression had descended in blackest "form in my particular business and I could forsee that drainage on my funds might eventually wipe out my life work. I decided to make a break before this happened. I canvassed those from whom I held mortgages and sold out for as little as 25 per cent, of the money owing. I leased my home, I sold two cars and a motor boat. All I had built up was thrown overboard to allow me to wake up on that memorable morning with that new sense of freedom and high adventure.

My wife and youngsters had backed me to the limit. There are six of us, my wife and I, Jock, aged 17; Bain, aged 15; Francine, aged 16, and Jean, aged 12. I am giving the present ages. They were three years younger then. They are good sports and fine I companions, all of them. My boat I chose carefully though I had never sailed, simply by seeking the best advice. I finally purchased a 60-foot, two masted schooner, built on the Clyde, In Scotland, in 1890, owned and sailed in Toronto and Hamilton from 1914 to 1934. It is all steel, 33 tons displacement, carrying 14 tons ballast, 11 feet wide and with a ninefoot eight-inch draft, as seaworthy a craft as could be acquired. I Installed a 70 h.p. gasoline marine engine for emergency use. The steel construction was to prove an indispensable factor in our future safety, for we were to be wrecked twice in the first few months of sailing. We started in the late fall from Toronto harbour, bound for the Atlantic 1 ocean and wherever fancy might take us. Our dream was quickly, though temporarily, dashed when we ran into a November gale on Lake Ontario after leaving Toronto. An Exciting Start JT was bitterly cold and a light snow had begun to fall. We decided to seek anchorage in the Niagara river, although there were some nasty shoals extending out from the mouth of the river for over three miles. But the Niagara shoals are well marked by bell buoys that ring all the time from the wash of the waves. So we shifted our course and headed for Niagara. After going about three miles and listening Intently for the sound of the bell-buoys, we realised that we must have passed the outside buoy without hearing It. We had to retrace our course. Even the business of coming around, which, with any ordinary breeze could be accomplished easily with our shortened sail, was almost impossible. With the wind howling in the rigging, the water washing over everything as we headed into the waves, which by now seemed almost terrifying, solid water breaking right over the bow and the bowsprit burying itself sometimes six feet in solid water, it was a real feat; but we fortunately got around without water coming into the cabins. We did not get around, however, without every solitary thing below deck which was not absolutely fastened in place, being on the floor. Rugs and cushions mixed up with cheese and pickles, potatoes and onions played marbles with peas and beans, and the out-board motor, which was bolted in place in the forecastle, spilled oil and gasoline on the carpets in the saloon ten feet away from where It hung. Bedding, pictures, pillows, clothing, drawers, ice, pots and pans mixed with broken china all over the whole boat. Back and forth we went looking for that buoy, the storm increasing in intensity, the wind around to the northwest, and we ourselves being gradually forced closer and closer to the shoal. Then there was a most terrible thud and we knew we were on the shoal. A quick jibe in an effort to get off broke our foresail gaff and, with the forestaysail frozen in place, there was nothing left that we could do to help ourselves. True, we tried to get to windward and out from that thud, thud, thud, of the

bottom of the boat on the shoal as each successive wave would lift her high on its crest and drop her again hard on the bottom, but it was no use. What a bottom that boat must have had to withstand such pounding. Each minute we were driven by wind and wave further and further aground. Pounded by the Storm gTANDING in five feet of water, with the wind lashing at the sails, by now stiff as a board with the frozen snow, and the waves pounding at her sides and trying to force her still further over, the boat would lift herself bodily till her deck stood eight feet out of the water instead of three. Then she would be tossed ever on her side as she was caught by one of the breakers coming back off the shoal. Meantime, we were trying to cut sails down and relieve her of some of the terrific strain.

When it was no longer possible to keep on our feet, either on deck or below, we searched for and found lifebelts for the boys and my wife, and, pulling the dory close, we watched our opportunity to climb into it. But between each successive attempt, the schooner would roll over on the side nearest the dory, as if trying to land square on the small boat and smash it to pieces. It did not smash it, but it did succeed in half filling it with water, and when, after several attempts, we were all in the dory, we tried to row away, only to find that the painter the rope by which the dory is towed had entangled itself with the rigging and could not be gotten loose. Cut it, of course. But with what? All our knives had been torn from our hands long ago as we attempted to cut down the rigging. There was nothing to be done but to go back aboard, try to hang on to the rigging and free the painter. Meanwhile, my wife, bailing for her life in the dory, became entangled in the shrouds when they came down near the water in one of the schooner’s attempts to see if it could set the topmost tip of the mainmast down as far as the surface of the water. In order to save herself from being cut by the steel cables, my wife hung on to the shrouds and was lifted ten or twelve feet clear of the small dory up into the air as the schooner swung back in her pendulum motion, and it was only by the greatest of good fortune that she managed to release herself and fall back into the dory with a force that, by all the laws of physics, should have smashed the bottom of the dory out. I believe it would have done so had there not been so much water in the bottom of the boat, which broke the fall. At each successive plunge of the large boat, the dory became more and more difficult to keep from filling until finally I freed the painter and we were loose.

Our mittens had by now disappeared and we got about half of the distance covered with one of my hands frozen almost stiff to the oar. Then we saw approaching through the snow a lifeboat. Do you know what the word consternation means? Well, when we saw that lifeboat headed, not for us, but for the schooner, we saw it with consternation.

However, after much signalling, we drew their attention and with their powerful craft we were soon beside a warm fire and with solicitous hands finding warm, dry garments to fill our temporary need. Our clothes, funds, our everything that we had with us on the trip were with the schooner, but we were safe, uninjured, and so far, none the worse for the experience, except that we were deadly tired. And how did we come to be on the shoal, and why could we not hear that outside bell buoy? Because it had been taken in, in expectation of winter!

We have learned a lot about sailing since this mishap in our first week. The next day, with the aid of the lifesavers, we managed to free the schooner from the shoal. It was In surprisingly good condition, and, having started, we could not and would not draw back. We refitted at Port Dalhousle, sailed for Oswego, by power through the Oswego canal to Troy on the Hudson river, and thence down the Hudson to New York. In New York we stayed for a month, in order to see and sail around every one of the crack ocean-going steamers regularly calling at that port. The children got the thrill of their lives. We could have stayed two months. It did not matter. Time had ceased to have meaning for us. Happy Life at Sea From Jacksonville, in November, the usual time for the northeast storms, we set our course for Miami. Part way, off Cape Camavueral, we were overtaken by a sudden rush of wind and waves which made our hearts stand still. Remember, we had had only a short few months of sailing and this was our first real ocean blow.

The squall struck us in the middle of a pitch black night. At four in the morning we grounded, 300 yards from shore on a coast that was uninhabited except for an occasional coast-guard. Our dory had been lost in the storm and the waves were pounding completely over us. There was nothing for it but to swim, through the surf, the older ones guarding the younger in the first faint streaks of dawn.

Safely on shore we watched helplessly while the waves pounded our ship shoreward over the sandbars, as we thought to destruction. This Is where the advantage of our steel ship came in. Although pounded steadily until finally beached at five o’clock the following afternoon—l 3 hours later—our ship remained staunchly intact. And there we were, twenty-six miles from the nearest coast-guard station. Bain and I had built fires and made many trips through the surf bringing canned goods for food, and water carried in felt hats from the fresh water casks on board. We ate a meal and then both tramped that long twenty-six miles to the coast-guard station. Here word was wirelessed to Miami and a 4000 h.p. rescue tug was sent out to our assistance. The tug pulled us off, though it broke a twelve-inch hawser in the process and we were

once more afloat. A thorough overhauling in Miami showed no repairs were needed, demonstrating the stoutness of our steel craft.

Here, by chance, we heard of the annual boat race from Miami to Nassau in the Bahamas. We entered, the only Canadian boat, and finished fourth in the race. We had not intended to go to Nassau at all, for we had made up our minds on the way down that we were striking right through the Panama canal and down the Pacific to the South Seas.

But at Nassau, in the limpid, crystalclear waters of the Caribbean, honeycombed with islands, steeped in the sailing and pirate lore of centuries, we dallied, entranced beyond measure at the delicious novelty of it all. The Caribbean has remained our natural home ever since. Pursuing a Mystery JF you were to picture our family idling about a vacant ocean, lolling on the decks, swimming in the surf and living on the bounty which Providence has placed so handily in those waters, doing no work except fanning ourselves in the tropical heat, you will have an entirely false picture of what

has happened during the past three years. We are far from “beachcombers.” We have worked, and worked hard, everyone of us down to my. twelve-year-old daughter, Jean. After ten weeks’ holiday in Nassau we found so" many objectives that we were kept busy practically every day and often, in storms and in navigating through reefs, for days at a stretch without sleep. Our new objective had little if anything to do with the dollar sign, but they made us work hard just the same.

With diaries, charts and books we followed the course which Christopher Columbus sailed to San Salvador, his first glimpse of the New World, in an endeavour to track down the “mystery of the 50 islands.”

We believe we have solved this mystery. As the map shows, there are near San Salvador, only four islands, Cat Island, Long Island, Rum Cay and Conception Island. Columbus’ diary says he saw fifty islands, yet his description of the coast line of San Salvador tallies so minutely with the actual coast to-day that there can be no doubt this island was his first glimpse of the New World. Columbus

was a faithful narrator, never given to over-statement. Why then the fifty islands he records?

A chance climb to the top of the main mast at a certain spot solved, I think, the enigma. To the west of San Salvador lie, forty-six miles away, two long islands, each very hilly. Far on the horizon I could distinguish the tops of the hills. At that distance the valleys separating the hills were lost to the view, giving the impression of many small islands. I counted them, there were 46—the remaining four nearer islands making up the total of 50 noted In the diary.

Another expedition took us to the island harbours of the pirates, which we located from descriptions in the diaries and logs of Teach, Homcroft, Charles Gibbs, La Fitte and other now legendary but once very real sea-dogs from the days of the Armada down. There were treasure hunts. No Budget Worries TN order that I do not become over--1 romantic or stretch the reader’s imagination I had better tell you a little about these treasure hunts. In Nassau we heard continually the story

that off one of the smaller islands in the Caribbean many natives had seen at six fathoms depth a large iron chest burled in the sand. Natives had touched this chest by diving but it was too heavy to raise without complete diving equipment and stories were rather vague as to its exact location. The name of the island however, always tallied. We decided to try to locate this chest and after a month of hard sailing and cruising, tracing down one clue after another we did finally catch a glimpse of our objective. It lay there 55 feet below the surface, a chest three feet wide by five feet long, solid iron, half-buried in the sand of the ocean floor. It could be seen only on a calm day when the wind was just right and we decided it would be necessary to have two boats there in order to raise the .chest. I took accurate measurements of the exact spot and this winter with the aid of my friend, Commander Rees, and his boat I hope to raise it. Our treasure-hunting, as I say, is not all make-believe!

Every adventure has meant hard sailing, night and day work, continual watchful navigating through coral

reefs, often through hurricanes until our very flesh cried out for easement, and fro meach expedition we came back to our headquarters in Nassau refreshed, invigorated, and filled with a zest for living such as we had experienced only fleetingly in our previous mode of life. We quickly found that we had sought manufactured entertainment previously as a release from the monotony of the daily round. Now living on that boat, sailing new courses to new lands is the day’s excitement and fun. We don't need more. We have no “maid problem,” no automobile expense, no taxes. Our clothing account is negligible, for we dress for the street only in Nassau or other cities or towns. On board ship our clothing Is of the simplest. Needing Little Money p"OR instance, it cost no more than $4O to stock our boat with enough food for a month’s sailing, our only sea-going expense. This includes potatoes, rice, canned milk, bacon, eggs preserved in lard and sand, canned butter, sugar, tea,” coffee, canned beef and mutton, local citrus fruits, beans, flour, oatmeal and canned goods which with fresh fish give us as varied and wholesome a diet as we ever enjoyed at home. Consider this subject of budgets thoughtfully for a moment and you will discover how cheaply a man and his family with the most moderate of incomes can “live like a king.” For three years we have worked at our play and played at our work. In August of this year we left our boat in dry-dock near Nassau and went by steamer to Miami and by train to Windsor. Ontario. My youngsters needed their matriculation. They needed, too, we thought, the experience of returning to city life, regular hours, to make friendships among youngsters of their own age, to keep well-balanc4j? in that formative period of their livfjs There were periods during our CariSfe bean adventure when I wondered why I had "got myself into this fix.” when I would have to be on deck 60 hours at a stretch navigating through tortuous coral reefs when our safety depended on judgment and sailing ability. I wondered this often when we sailed before a hurricane, our steel ship a cork in the vast terror of waves and wind.

But—we left Miami in the evening, and on a foggy August morning I awoke with the train travelling beside the Ohio river on the outskirts of Cincinnati. A murky pall of smoke and fog hung over the dark stretches of river. Commuting trains rushed by us carrying hurrying office workers to their desks. I was appalled. I realised that I would stay in industrial America only long enough to settle any immediate problems before taking the train again to Miami, the boat to Nassau and my own stout sailing ship into the clear and far horizons of what is now and will be my home, the Carribbean sea.