The Ship of Fools motors on…
No we didn’t put the sails up.
You can’t put up the sails when the wind is coming from the opposite direction to the one you have a pre-arranged appointment with – the wind would just blow you backwards. So you motor towards your pre-arranged, months ago, destination. Now the trouble with motoring into a head on wind, is that you hit all the waves head on. Up one side, down the other….all the while continuing to roll from side to side like a banker’s desk toy.
This curious motion had an unexpected effect on those on board. Yes, even the ’22 years in the Royal Navy’ and ‘done the Hobart to Brisbane’ types. As the waves crashed over the bows, they all had their heads stuck in a paper bag.
Our plucky craft now resembled nothing more than an episode of ‘Deadliest Catch’ crossed with the local Chemotherapy ward. Vast fishing boats skinning the North Sea of the last known Cod fish passed us with flocks of white sea gulls in their wake – we went in the opposite direction with a flock of white sick bags following us. I kid you not – three quarters of those on board were giving the ‘two-six-HEAVE’ order new meaning and na’er a rope in sight. Even the nurse. Who had the sole responsibility of making sure that those who had been put to bed without their prosthetic leg had a suitable supply and disposal service for the sick bags that they had no way of getting to unaided. After several years service on board this craft she was heard to mutter to anyone who would listen that never, ever, ever, again was she going to do more than ‘day sailing’ on it – and she had never been sea-sick before.
Now Ms Raccoon, showing that breathtaking resilience you have grown to expect of her, was never sick, never even took one of the sea sickness pills that were by that time being handed out like Smarties. Some people just have the extra special something, and can I help it if I am one of them? This proved to have its disadvantages, since running the ship was now down to the dozen or so souls that could peel their heads off their pillows.
T’was thus that on a braw wee night, in the icy depth of the witching hour, she found herself on the bridge, in the company of our Relentlessly Cheerful watch leader, another five foot tall ‘hopeful’ future watch leader, and a diamond of an old Royal Navy man in a wheelchair fastened to the Port side. Ms Raccoon was delighted to be fastened to the starboard side with orders to watch out for marauding fridge freezers that might attack us. Ms Five Foot did a magnificent job at the helm, putting us back on track after every wave knocked us sideways – no easy task. After an hour we all swapped positions, in order that we could experience freezing the other side of our collywobbles. They were very keen on us experiencing every aspect of ‘sailing’. Especially at 4am.
Above the howl of the wind, the crash of the non-authentic stainless steel rigging and the roar of the engine, a faint voice could be heard crying ‘Ms Raccoo-o-on’. Naturally I leapt to attention; well, as fast as my Paddington Bear outfit would allow, more of a doubled-up ‘attention’ actually, since I had forgotten to undo the carabiner, and I answered ‘Yes Ma’am, O Glorious Watch Leader’.
‘Could you come and take the Helm please?’
This was not music to my frozen ears, since I was the one who had missed the ‘Helm handling briefing’ the day before, on account of being fully occupied cleaning the Heads along with a disgruntled putative author who had paid £1,000 to get an idea of how rigging worked for his next historical novel. Instead of which, he is now an expert on cleaning Heads that have had 42 people throwing up in them, which is bound to come in terrifically handy some time.
‘I really don’t have a clue what to do’ said I. ‘Don’t’ worry’ said Mrs Relentlessly Cheerful, who looked a trifle peaky, now I come to think about it. ‘I’ll tell you what to do’.
‘What you do is…..’
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Oi! Where the fu*k d’she go? “Come back Missus!” “What you do is ‘WHAT’?”
She’d vanished! Gone. Vamoosed. There was just me, the helm, the pitch darkness, the stars. All very romantic, but since we were in the middle of one of the most crowded shipping lanes in the world, the silence was enough to ruffle the fur of even a Raccoon. I couldn’t see the man in a wheelchair four foot below me, come to that I couldn’t see Ms Five Foot below me on account of her being sat down…..and I definitely couldn’t see Mrs Relentlessly Cheerful, the experienced sailor.
She hadn’t even told me what course I was supposed to be keeping this blasted ship on, assuming I could have figured out how to do that. Obviously I followed the old Army adage, which I figured would work just as well at sea – ‘When in doubt, do nowt’.
As it happens, she wasn’t enjoying her separation from me any more than I was, for it transpired that the poor girl was on hands and knees behind me, throwing up for the eighth time in succession, completely unable to speak, and well aware that she had just put a complete dickhead in charge of the precious Lord Nelson. Fortunately, alarms were going off somewhere in the bowels of the officer class accommodation, on account of us now taking the waves on sideways, and something in uniform with bags of experience (like ‘knew the difference between port and starboard’) came racing up onto the bridge and took over. Phew! You’ll never make a Robin Knox Johnston out of a Raccoon – still you get a blog post out of it, and Mrs Relentlessly Cheerful will dine out for a few years on the tale.
That watch came to an end. Eventually. And I stumbled below decks in the gloom of the emergency lighting, swinging from rail to rail, crashing into wheelchairs parked for the night and feeling my way past fire extinguishers and all manner of shin combatants, to my very own little berth next to the anchor locker. I rolled from side to side as I removed the layers of yellow plastic; I crashed head first into the berth above as I balanced on one foot to remove the sea boots; until finally I was in a suitable sartorial state to tackle the Head, so close to my berth. It bore a sign saying ‘Do not use’. A voice in the gloom, watching my progress, said ‘It’s broken, and they don’t want to wake the engineer til the morning’…
I reflected on the engineer’s beauty sleep as I made my way, now without protective clothing or steel capped boots, the length of the boat to the ‘disabled’ Head. I can’t tell you what the objects were that I met in the rolling, bucking, dark, only that they were sharp and unyielding; and that I met them all again on the way back to my berth. And yet again two hours later, thanks to those cautious French surgeons and my redesigned plumbing system. And again on the way back. And yet again, two hours later. I swear they moved each time. No matter how I tried to memorise their position; they lay in wait for me. If I’d known where that engineer slept, I’d have given him ‘beauty sleep’.
You may have gathered by now, that Ms Raccoon’s fabled even temperament, endless patience, and calm, placid, nature was slipping, ever so slightly, notch by relentless notch. I was all out of masochism. Not a drop left. Something about ‘a game of Ludo’ came to mind as I rolled from unyielding steel side to wooden side of my bunk and back again.
A plan was formulating.
Should we ever reach Holland, and that didn’t seem a certainty, but should we…I would somehow set foot on dry land again, and never look back. We were pointing our bow at Scheveningen, a place I’d never heard of nor shown the slightest inclination to visit. However, I was prepared to give Scheveningen a chance; it must have roads, maybe even a rail track, perhaps trains, oh glorious objects. Whatever it possessed, it was surely preferable to entrusting the remainder of my life to my present travel arrangements. Who knows, they might even have the sort of toilet you can use without undressing whilst holding onto the ceiling light bulb? So? I’m pushing 70, I’m getting very stuck in my ways. Say what you want.
However, what you ‘orrible lot would say was very much on my mind. How I cursed my big mouth telling you I was undertaking this adventure. Had you not known, I could have slunk away, never having to admit that I had chickened out of something. The thought tormented me. Ms Raccoon never admits failure, that was the personality I had carved out on line, what would the anonymous hordes say?
I didn’t bloody well care. I fell asleep dreaming of fast trains and big, safe, Harwich ferries with stabilisers, and crew that said ‘Welcome aboard’, and ‘I hope you have a pleasant passage’. Maybe planes? Schiphol, that was it, Schiphol – direct flight to Norwich!!!
I awoke a brief hour later with Mrs Relentlessly Cheerful standing over me…
More tomorrow….
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September 9, 2015 at 9:16 am -
This just gets better and better. The image of Madam Raccoon as Captain Baines alone at the helm while the crew collapse like flies around her… This is the nautical equivalent of those disaster movies where a passenger takes over the piloting of an aircraft. I’m on the edge of my seat here!
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September 9, 2015 at 7:02 pm -
If any of the crew ask you to go and ‘look for the Golden Rivet’ then exercise caution…!
You may not be enjoying your ‘cruise’ Anna, but those here with a tint of schadenfreude about them definitely are!!
I am sure you will survive it all… after all, Raccoons is tough little buggers, Raccoons is.
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September 9, 2015 at 9:18 am -
Good to see that “That Nelson Spirit” is still to be found.
I never thought I’d be reading a latterday version of “two Years before the Mast”, or a kitchen-sink C.S. Forester, but this is superb stuff. I can’t wait for the next sail-ripping instalment.
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September 9, 2015 at 9:25 am -
Please make this a week-ling series. It keeps us away from the crap stuff (subject wise, not the way about which it is written!)
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September 9, 2015 at 9:26 am -
Aaach, shh. week-long
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September 9, 2015 at 9:40 am -
“Mutiny, Mr Christian, MUTINY!”
what would the anonymous hordes say?….say? We’re too busy laughing to say anything. Yes I know it is cruel to mock the afflicted but it’s your own fault , you should have gone to spec-savers/worn a condom. Mind you the only time i have ever felt sea-sick was on that Harwich Ferry with stabilisers.
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September 9, 2015 at 9:53 am -
I should add, for the sake of any readers stupid enough to contemplate travelling on a boat, that I cured my bout of sea sickness by following the advice of my then travelling companion & driver a beautiful Pre-OpTrans ‘Girl’ in a tartan mini-skirt who had only just started the prescribed 2 years of ‘living as a woman’ and who constantly grizzled about her testicles slipping out of her knickers (she not yet having mastered the art of ‘taping up’- gusset width, it’s a feminist issue people!). She formerly having been in Crown Forces and having ‘known’ several Royal Marines advised me that the cure for Mal-de-Mer was to drink beer and eat a full English with as much grease as the cooks could scrape out of the deep fat fryer.
It worked. So people, if you find yourself hurling against the wind, try some deepfried black pudding. At the very least you’ll have something in your stomach to throw up.
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September 9, 2015 at 11:11 am -
I have never suffered from mal-de-mer, which is as well, since I’ve spent the last two decades at sea as a commercial fisherman.
One remedy I’ve heard of (along the lines of that proposed by @The Blocked Dwarf’s ladyfriend) is to tie a bacon rasher to a piece of twine, swallow it down some little way, then haul it up again. I’ve never tried it, and it does seem like a waste of good bacon.-
September 9, 2015 at 11:30 am -
One remedy I’ve heard of (along the lines of that proposed by @The Blocked Dwarf’s ladyfriend)
One of the dictionary definitions of ‘feeling queasy’ is to watch a beautiful Pre-Op Tranny girl, in a tight black jumper and tartan mini-skirt, sitting across the dining table on a bucking boat carefully, surgically,peeling the skin off her blood sausage….with obvious relish.
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September 9, 2015 at 1:47 pm -
Own up now, you got that idea from “Peter Duck”, didn’t you?
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September 9, 2015 at 2:13 pm -
Actually no, never read any of the Swallows books and had to google Peter Duck. I can’t believe a pre-op tranny appears in a book published in 1932…although I always had my suspicions about George in the Famous Five.
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September 9, 2015 at 2:15 pm -
Oh sorry AD, your reply was to Suffolk, blame weary old eyes what have just gotten up from a Midday Sleep and concentrating on this afternoon’s Journey To The Dark Place aka Lidl’s in Cromer.
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September 9, 2015 at 8:35 pm -
That’s the trouble with this place, folk keep triggering ancient memories, some best long forgotten.
In an early life, I did very amateur dramatics, on one occasion in a drag ballet, for which I wore a delightful red tutu to perform my arabesques and entre-chats. OK so far, but the tutu had been made for a girl, not a late teenaged guy with burgeoning ‘undercarriage’.
Just as my two much larger, beefy, ‘ballerina’ mates caught my athletic cross-stage leap and carried me across the stage-apron in front of the blazing footlights, that’s the precise moment when the girls’ tutu very publicly demonstrated exactly the problem that our Dwarf’s pre-op tranny had with her narrowly-gussetted knickers. The first few rows no longer had any need to go to the Tower to see the Crown Jewels as they’d all just had a close-up eyeful of mine. And it was not without pain, both physically and to ones sensitive teenaged dignity: my eyes still water at the thought of it.
But thanks for the memory, Dwarf.-
September 9, 2015 at 9:20 pm -
September 10, 2015 at 1:01 am -
But thanks for the memory, Dwarf.
No need to thank me, ma’am…just doing my job *tips stetson, lights up and rides off into the sunset*
Funnily enough you’re right about the memory-triggering…hadn’t thought about my ‘Sic transit gloria mundi’ roadtrip ( ie with a tranny in a sick transit on a Monday) to the fair Burgh of
Düsseldorf for a whiles now. It was only the Landlady’s skill at conveying the suffering of sea sickness that induced it, as she has on more than one occasion. Pre-op trannies in a tartan mini-skirt should not perhaps try and fill broken radiators using a hub cap and water out of a puddle on the hard shoulder of an autobahn. I think the correct term is ‘updraught’ or ‘Marilyn effect’?I suppose I should add, that my own personal ‘dill’ went on to have the Op. Last time I saw her we had a long indepth discussion about the Chemical Wedding Of Christian Rosenkranz and how it pertains to Hindu spirituality, Aikido…and genital warts (that’s what happens when a pretty girl with male thinking tackle and a genius+ level IQ smokes too much damn dope and can see connections that BR look well organised).
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September 9, 2015 at 11:24 am -
Never mind all that, where’s the flippin’ treasure buried?
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September 9, 2015 at 11:32 am -
Puts me in mind of that advert of my childhood with Capt.Paedophile and his treasure chest of golden fish fingers. No I don’t know why it should either, my mind works (that’s the rumour anyways) in strange ways.
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September 9, 2015 at 11:41 am -
In a former life working in local authority, we often took group fishing trips out of Yorkshire resorts – Scarborough, Whitby, Bridlington.
On one occasion, a new macho colleague came for the first time. He was good at everything, Squash, tennis and was a fitness fanatic. As we sat in Brid. harbour in an open Yorkshire Coble, his complexion gradually faded to a pale grey. as we left the harbour it tinged to green, and out by Flamborough it became a true green. He knew that we would not be returning for four hours. He spent this time leaning over the side, honking.
Midway through the trip, the boatman, a huge yorkshire viking with flame red hair patted his shoulder, and said:
“ayup lad, cough it all up. If tha feels summat warm and furry at back of thi throat, swaller it quick, it’s thi a***hole” -
September 9, 2015 at 11:56 am -
Well, that’s good.
I’ve now had this century’s worth of sailing experience under by wing and can relax. After reading this, I can happily limit my excursions to an occasional ride on the Staten Island Ferry or perhaps a wee trip down the river on Wiel’s houseboat.
MJM -
September 9, 2015 at 12:04 pm -
This is just brilliant! You don’t do anything by halves Boss!
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September 9, 2015 at 6:58 pm -
Best way to learn, being chucked in at the deep end.
Though on second thoughts, that maybe isn’t quite the best phrase in the circumstances….
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September 9, 2015 at 1:43 pm -
Some people do really have just to much time….
http://worth1000.s3.amazonaws.com/submissions/460500/460561_27e3_625x1000.jpg
“There was a ship,’ quoth he.
‘Hold off! unhand me, grey, puking Raccoon”-
September 9, 2015 at 5:51 pm -
The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.
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September 9, 2015 at 1:49 pm -
Talking of Nelson, I believe he was always seasick at the start of a commission.
How long does “the start” take? About four or five days, I believe; if you don’t get over it by then, you never will. Most people do, apparently.
Oh, and remember the way it progresses: the first day you’re afraid that you’ll die; by third day you’re afraid that you won’t.
Sound familiar, at all?
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September 9, 2015 at 1:55 pm -
“You can’t put up the sails when the wind is coming from the opposite direction to the one you have a pre-arranged appointment with – the wind would just blow you backwards.”
Sorry Ms R., you’ve been misinformed. You tack against the wind. So progress is slower, and you wouldn’t reach your destination at the pre-arranged time. Hence using the motor. -
September 9, 2015 at 2:03 pm -
Best sea tale I’ve read for a good while.
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September 9, 2015 at 2:52 pm -
Ms Racoon (In determined ‘sea speak’) “Arh! Cap’n. It do be a turrible storm. A turrible storm, oi tell ‘ee!”
Captain. (Unflustered by forty foot waves) “Yes I know, but that’s cheap CGI for you.”I’ll get me coat.
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September 9, 2015 at 3:01 pm -
In the early sixties teenage I ventured a three week trip on a grimsby trawler, Waves Ice youve never seen anything like it! If you have ever puked up bile you will know what i,m on about, The crew said after the trip i would be back, but i ran as fast as i could away from it! The strangest thing was being awarded 50p pension a year for just one trip or take £16 now and that was the end of it, If you think your anonymous in this life well how did Norwich Union find me?
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September 9, 2015 at 4:57 pm -
I haven’t heard of the lash or the rum yet. Perhaps later on…….
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September 9, 2015 at 6:16 pm -
the lash or the rum
and where’s the sodomy? Or was “50 shades of grey” a reference to mal-de-mer?
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September 9, 2015 at 5:38 pm -
Oh, Anna! I shouldn’t have laughed, but I did. You are a brilliantly descriptive writer.
My longest sea voyage was way back: at a time when the ferry from UK took 22 hours to reach Norway. The weather on the way out wasn’t good but I was quite happy up on deck, albeit drenched by the waves. Then a crew member came and told me it was too dangerous and I must go below. So I spent the remainder of the trip below decks, being very sick. Norway didn’t live up to expectations, either. The fjords were shrouded in dense mist, so we had to imagine the amazing vistas that we couldn’t see. And everything was so expensive! The journey back was no better. I wasn’t even allowed a breathing space above deck: we were immediately herded below decks, and I spent the return journey being very sick. (Believe you me, being a Pisces does not convey any natural affinity with water.)
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September 9, 2015 at 6:33 pm -
I have been at sea a handful or two times and took to it like a mermaid. Reading these two installments are certainly making me yearn for the open waters. I am truly looking forward to the next one!
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September 9, 2015 at 6:55 pm -
At least the arrangements for normal bodily functions seem to have become more civilised than in days of old, though by the sounds of it, less reliable. The old way could perhaps be technically described as ‘bucket and chuck it’. Smaller vessels were equipped with two buckets, one for the aforementioned, and one for drawing water for spud-peeling and the like (and woe betide any crew member confusing the two). Both had their handles attached to a long length of rope, to allow ‘flushing’ in the first instance, and ‘drawing’ in the second, presumably after a travelling a suitably long distance. Care was required when undertaking either operation; loss of bucket was frowned upon, and in very adverse circumstances, the dunked bucket could drag an unfortunate crew member off the deck.
Fortunately, I have no first hand experience, though I know people who had. Very much a social leveller, I gather.
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September 9, 2015 at 10:37 pm -
I was thinking of you ma’am, t’other day, whilst sipping a pink gin on the poop deck of the Queen Bee, idling slowly up the river past the herons and grebes towards dinner . How brave, how daring of you to undertake such a voyage, I thought. I’ve been there too, lashed into a bunk with the bucket whilst my friends sailing boat clawed against the wind to make harbour.
I have blue-water hardcore sailing friends who are horrified by my opinion that the best place for a boat, is tied up safely outside a bar. It’s the reason I built the boat, for my wife and I to slowly eat our way around Europe but as John Lennon once said, “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.”
One thing I can assure you, is making landfall wil be so much sweeter.
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