Perfect day, perfect schooner, perfect time
Recalling the feeling of falling in love with sailing aboard the deck of the Bluenose II
Gazing out over the ocean I take a deep breath. A low fog bank hovers just beyond the Mahone Bay islands, a tangible, if not impenetrable barrier between the land and the blue sea beyond.
There is magic here and sometimes on days like this as I look out over the bay I imagine the ghost of a tall Atlantic schooner racing across the ocean.
I see her topmasts bending under a press of sail and hear the whistle of the wind in her rigging. Her huge white bow wave rolls gracefully away to leeward and I can almost hear the creak of block and tackle.
But it is no dream or fancy of my imagination, it is a memory. Looking over to the mantelpiece where the wooden ship model sits it all comes back to me.
The three-foot reproduction of the great schooner is a link to my past and she stirs powerful yearnings in my heart.
I built her over a period of years, carefully, and without haste, a labour of love.
The recollection is warm and comfortable, the hours sitting at my desk in the study pinning small basswood planks to their frames, rigging a backstay aft and a jib halyard forward.
Building her from scratch, with only my memory as a guide, the hull had emerged from the hundreds of small wood strips as if by magic, my big hands almost instinctively knowing how to shape her. Perhaps this was because I knew her so well but it had not always been so.
There was a time all those years ago when it had truly been only a dream.
I was but a youth when I went to sea in her, a young man following his heart to sail across the oceans in search of adventure. It had been a time of great awakenings, when like an open ledger, the pages of my mind were filled and what was written then has had much to do with what has since come to pass.
Taking the old leather-bound journal from the side table I run my hand over the cover. Almost 50 years have passed and the legend schooner Bluenose II that I inscribed with the tip of my seaman’s knife has almost disappeared.
However, as I tilt it slightly to better catch the light, I see that it is still there.
Smiling slightly, I close my eyes and the result is inevitable. As if caught in a time warp the years roll back and I am standing on her deck again.
I am struggling to hold the big schooner to her northerly course and my hands are beginning to cramp. The pressure of the big wheel’s thick spokes have moulded my palms into two almost paralytic claws and even though I’ve only been on the helm for 40 minutes of my scheduled two-hour wheel watch it seems like an eternity.
We are on the starboard tack under storm trysail foresail and headsails beneath an ever darkening sky and as another of the strengthening gusts hit us the big wooden schooner’s 143-foot hull heels over until her varnished cap rail disappears under the white water rushing down her lee side. The big brass compass port that we polished so religiously over the past months is now green streaked and coated with north Atlantic salt and looking inside, I catch the lubber line moving almost imperceptibly to the west. Handing a couple of spokes to port, I haul her down again.
The skipper is standing as he always does just to windward and forward of the helm position, legs spread with feet planted firmly on the deck to brace against the roll. He purses his lips slightly; am I handling her right?
Opening my eyes again, I have a yearning for more.
The pages are well worn and I finger them carefully as they will be opened again whenever I feel the need.
Reading from the beginning I relive the day I joined the Bluenose II and the voyage of 1968. I joined the ship in Marigot Bay, St. Lucia, where my father ran his schooner windjammer cruise business.
The Bluenose II was a fine vessel and I soon began to feel pride in my ship.
Whenever her tall spars glided gracefully into harbour, people lined the shore to admire her long sleek hull.
They must have felt the same sense of awe that I did, remembering a time when her namesake was the best and fastest in the world.
Ahead, the open sea is waiting for us. But before getting sail there are a number of things that we need to take care of and we go about stowing the dock lines, fenders and the like in their places.
No orders are necessary; we know what to do.
We’ve motored out from the land a ways now, at least one mile and the skipper thinks we’ve got enough sea room to make sail. As the schooner begins to turn slowly into the wind, the first mate goes below.
“All hands on deck to make sail,” he shouts.
The crew are expecting the call and come up immediately.
The skipper orders slow ahead and the Bluenose slows, coming dead into the wind. The skipper
will carefully hold her there as we go about the hoist.
The main goes up first. The throat and peak halyards are run through fairleads on each side of the deck to the big hydraulic anchor winch drums forward.
The chain clutches have been disengaged and the winch can now be used for hoisting sail.
Two men tail the halyards while a third works the winch control. I tend the main peak down haul. It’s in a coil on the deck and I must make sure that it doesn’t foul as it goes up.
The mate stands at the main tabernacle making sure that nothing goes wrong. Another crew member tends the peak guy holding the gaff from swinging too much.
I stand aft by the main sheet and quarter tackles. We’ve rendered a few feet of slack into the main sheet and the toping lifts and end lift raised so that the boom now sits a good foot above the gallows frame.
The first mate will watch the topsail sheet, which must be rendered as the sail goes up.
The skipper gives the first mate the thumbs up and he signals the winch to start hoisting. The two halyards come tight and the sail slowly begins to climb the mast. The Bluenose is awakening. She has been asleep before but now her spirit stirs.
The creaking of the blocks and the sounds of the sail going up are signals that soon she will be about that for which she was built. She shudders slightly, anticipating the moment when her wings will fill with the freshening breeze.
The big 4,800-square-foot sail continues slowly up the mast. The sail hoops slide easily on the spar, they have been well greased and don’t stick at all.
A crew member tweaks the peak guy line for a moment, making sure that the gaff goes up cleanly between the two topping lifts. Sometimes if she is rolling heavily he will have trouble with this, but today it is easy, the sea is relatively smooth in the lee of St. Lucia.
Of all the sounds on our schooner, the creaking of the blocks, the gurgling sound of the sea as it runs aft along the lee rail; the sounds of the big galvanised hanks whizzing up the head stays are most like music to my ears.
A good pair on the halyard, working well together hands over hand and chanting as they go. “One, two. One two. One two.” “Whiz, whiz, whiz.” Each time they pull. It’s schooner music.
Now we’re ready for the jib. As it runs aloft the skipper spokes the wheel to leeward a bit.
When the sail is at the top of its hoist, we sheet it in with the benefit of having no wind in it. The other sails aft and to windward have blanketed it.
The Bluenose is under what we call the four lowers, main, foresail jib and jumbo.
The skipper brings her onto her course on the port tack and we go about trimming up for the slant. Our course puts the wind abeam and the sails need to be sheeted in or out to suit.
Meanwhile we’re beginning to trim the sheets from aft. The big schooner is feeling the freshening breeze and I am excited.
The mate goes to the big main sheet bit and slacks a few feet. There’s a slight groove that the heavy line is even now making for itself in the new wood.
The big sail and boom edge slowly out over the water. When he judges it to be right he makes fast and moves to the foresails. Each sail is trimmed to the one aft of it as well as for the wind. The foresail is back winding the main now and we slack it out until it stops. As soon as the dimple in the leading edge of the mainsail disappears we knows that we’ve got it pretty close.
The foresail boom is then set so that it is lying at an angle just slightly less than that of the main. Then on to the jumbo and finally we the jib. When the first mate’s trimmed the four lowers to his satisfaction, he comes aft again.
“How’s that look Skipper?” he asks.
Capt. Coggins looks forward for a moment, and then nods.
From our location at the stern of the schooner we can see along the deck and I see that the three booms, main, fore and jumbo all line up together, with the angle decreasing only a few degrees or so going forward.
And the jib’s outer curve follows the shape of the others exactly. The sails are well trimmed for this course and the Bluenose comes alive.
The sky is blue with a few scudding white clouds and the wind increases to a good 20 knots. The sea is moderate, but as we leave the St. Lucia coast behind us the dark blue surface begins to undulate and a gentle swell begins to roll in from the North.
Our schooner feels it. She moves now, like a thing alive. The occasional dollop of warm Atlantic spray comes over the rail and flies aft.
We laugh and wipe our faces, licking the salty brine from our lips. It is a good taste. I begin to feel that special feeling that only a sailing man knows.
We’re part of our Bluenose and she’s part of us. She’s giving us our reward now. She can’t do what she’s doing without our help and now she’ll dance for us. After a half an hour the wind is still steady and just abaft the beam.
The first mate returns to the helm. He’s made a round of the decks carefully making sure the skipper puts a crew member on the wheel so that he can take a look around himself.
“Full and by,” he tells him, “Full and by, Skipper,” the bosun repeats.
We always acknowledge orders, that way everyone knows that they’ve been heard and understood.
We’ve sunk the land astern now and there’s only the blue ocean as far as the eye can see. Our schooner is content. We give her free rein and like a thoroughbred racehorse she takes off as if the devil himself is after her. Standing on the deck we feel her through our feet as she lifts quickly to romp over the long ocean swell rolling in from the North.
Picking up speed, the knot meter reaches 10 knots and when she comes out of the roll and her 15,800 square feet of canvas takes the wind square on, she surges ahead. Then the knot meter climbs even higher. This is what we have all waited for; the schooner at sea with the open ocean in front of her and nought to halt her run. She can go for it now, there’s nothing to stop her.
The wind is on the best possible angle for the Bluenose, and it’s blowing as hard as we need for now. In fact our lee rail is near the water level and every time she takes a good roll, under it goes. The main turnbuckles drag for a moment whipping the sea into a white froth and then she lifts again, shuddering slightly, as if shaking herself before flying on. We all feel exhilaration, a quickening of the pulse. We’re standing on a live ocean Valkyrie and she’s running wild and hard. There’s a roaring white wave under her bow and all along the lee rail the foam rushes past. Inside the bulwarks the “merry” water rushes back and forth. It comes in over the rail when she dips and goes out through the freeing ports when she lifts. But some always stays to gurgle inside the lee scuppers and from the forward rigging to the break deck there’s a slosh of white water. It’s roll and go, the old Atlantic schooner dance. The ocean is the dance floor; the wind is the music and the Bluenose moves with the rhythm of sea. Every time a big swell comes from the windward side she rolls and her tall masts lean to leeward, momentarily lessening the area of sail presented to the wind. And then when the swell rolls under her keel, she comes upright again, the wave passing under her keel. When the wind takes her full on we feel her shake as she takes off again. Over and over, roll and go, roll and go. The sounds of the ocean are with us now, the hiss of the spray as it flies aft and the hissing of the sea foam as it falls away to leeward. There’s the creaking of the blocks and the cracks and groans of a sailing ship at sea. Good sounds, real and true.
Our decks are wet now and as the salt spray comes aboard the wind drives it horizontally over us. It is cold but we’re so excited that we laugh and anyway the sun is bright and the sky clear. The perfect day, the perfect schooner and the perfect time. A perfect life? Perhaps. I cannot in truth think of any place I’d rather be. All the riches in the world cannot equal the feeling that I have now. It is a feeling that only those who come to the sea before the mast can know. A special bond between a man and his sailing ship. Love? Maybe. The special feeling as she lifts unbidden to meet the oncoming sea or the thrill when the knot meters touches supernatural numbers.
And so as I close my old log book and gaze out towards the Atlantic over the waters of Mahone Bay, I notice a tear in my eye. This great schooner was my first true love.