Not going solo
Sometimes you just fancy going for a sail on your own... but having a crew isn’t so bad
Iwas in a grumpy mood. I had a headache, and though I was disappointed that it was too windy to go out and test my spinnaker snuffer, as I’d planned, I quite fancied a restful, therapeutic sail, just me and my boat, white sails only, beating up the voe in a gentle Force 3 and coming back goosewinged, jib in one hand, tiller in the other.
“Are you going for a sail?” Philip, my NSS (non-sailing spouse), asked. “I’ll come too.”
Luckily I was turned away from him, so he didn’t see my face going “Oh, but I wanted to go by myself!”
I’m sure those of you who have a NSS will sympathise. When you’ve had your boat to yourself all season, they get in the way: a body sitting on the rope you need right now, a head and shoulder blocking your path from deck back to cockpit. They don’t know enough to move out of the way to give you access to whatever it is you’re after; then, just as you’ve got the boat balanced and going nicely, they get bored and thump about, knocking the wind out of the sails. My Karima’s only a 26 (feet, not metres), and it’s astonishing how much one person shifting around upsets her trim.
Worst of all, NSSs think about time. Time like tea, home in time for; time like the correct length of time for a sail: “We’ve been out for two hours now, when are we going in?” I was planning the kind of sail that might, or might not, have me home for afternoon tea, depending on how much fun I was having.
Still, it was good that he was volunteering to come. “That’ll be nice,” I said. “Em ... why?”
“I’ve got a new microphone to test.”
Ah. Philip, you see, likes gadgets. I don’t do them myself, though I suppose one day I’ll be forced to get a Smartphone to keep in touch with my grandchildren. A new microphone should keep him happily occupied doing gadgety things, leaving Karima and I to get on with the fun stuff.
I had my sort of gadget to test too. It was another attempt at the ongoing autopilot difficulty, based on Twitcher Pattybelle’s peg rail – a bit of wood below the tiller, with peg holes. You got the tiller as you wanted it, and pegged it there. I’d made a simple mock-up, which fitted between the cockpit slats, with cut-off bits of 2x1 as pegs. It worked rather well with the engine set at inching ahead; worth doing a Mk2.
After one shot at freeing the lee jibsheet Philip decided he was better out of the way during manoeuvres, so thereafter, each time we tacked, I gave him due warning so that he could clomp down the stairs and lurk in the cabin until it was safe to return. There was only one rather close encounter with a mussel buoy when he was too busy recording to move at the point I needed to tack.
Useful crew
Once I’d got over grumping, it was companionable having him there. He’s good at making tea aboard, though I did worry a bit about letting him loose with a boiling kettle in a moving boat (watching him pour reminded me we normally heave-to), and he had no problem finding the chocolate biscuits.
He also joined in this summer’s project: counting the birds in my usual sailing territory. “There are two black ones over there,” he’d say helpfully, or “I think that’s a white one, or it may be a buoy.” He even spontaneously identified a tirrick, or Arctic tern, by the screeching noise and the swallow tail.
By way of reciprocation, I gave the new microphone the occasional explanation of what I was doing, and the water chuckled nicely under Karima’s forefoot.
One big disappointment. I’d promised him a shot of Pusser’s Navy Rum from the ship’s medicinal bottle when we arrived back in the marina; except that it didn’t seem to have made it back aboard after the winter. I was sure I’d brought it home for baking Christmas cakes, and he was equally sure he hadn’t drunk it all while it was at the house. “I don’t like rum much,” he pointed out. “I’d have remembered.”
It’ll be in a locker somewhere; or maybe I’d better get another bottle, Laphroig, say. I think he deserves it for indulging a Sailing Spouse!