WITH SOLACE TO TRINIDAD IN 1953

Chich Thornton

(Not many members are able to look back 50 years to their first ocean passage, but founder members Chich Thornton and Victor Clark are amongst them...)

Solace was the yacht chosen by Victor Clark, when he retired from the Royal Navy longing to sail round the world. He had crewed aboard an old salt-fishing smack in the North Sea as a teenager, and spent many years in naval ships, including action at Narvik and against the Bismarck. After he was sunk in the Repulse in 1942 he ran commando raids against the Japanese, was sunk again, and had amazing adventures in the jungle. In the end he was betrayed to the Japanese by locals, for money, and became a prisoner of war. After the war he became the dashing captain of a frigate, which is where I met him - I was the First Lieutenant of his ship.

Our ways parted for a time after I 'retired' from the Navy, but six years later he invited me to help him on the first leg of his circumnavigation, as he was new to yachting. I did not need much persuading. I arranged for time off from my job and joined him at Lymington where Solace was being fitted out. Humphrey Barton was advising Victor about suitable modifications for ocean cruising, and the work was being done at Smith and Marshall's yard.

I had been doing some racing and cruising, most recently chartering an ancient yacht on the West Coast of Scotland. I had also done plenty of armchair yachting - Slocum, Voss and many other books including Vertue XXXV by Hum Barton. This chronicled his recent adventures in 'the smallest vessel that has ever crossed the Atlantic ocean from east to west', to quote the blurb.

Compared to Vertue's five tons and 25ft 3in, Solace had nine tons, a waterline length of 27ft and was 33ft overall. She was already 26 years old, built to order in 1927 by Hillyard of Littlehampton. Her first owner wished her to look like some large Herreshoff yacht that had taken his fancy. By the time I joined in August nearly all the work had been done. "Over the financial details," wrote Victor in his beautiful book On the Wind of a Dream, "I prefer to draw a discreet veil! ... The expense was fantastic."

We sailed over to Guernsey in fine weather to apply the Kobe Green antifouling, then returned to do all the extra things which needed to be done before our departure - we were determined to sail at the beginning of September, to avoid the hurricane season in the West Indies. Provisioning was quite an experience. I had recently become a car-owner, and my pre-war Morris Minor ferried great loads of food to the quayside. I recall eggs in waterglass (sodium silicate) being stowed in large numbers, though I forget what else we had to embark.

We had a spin in the Solent with Hum, in a sou'westerly force 5-6 over a sluicing ebb, and about a week later sailed for Madeira. Kindly northerlies wafted us along, and we covered the 1300 miles to Porto Santo in just thirteen days. After a couple of days there we spent a rough night at sea on the way to Madeira. We stayed a full week in Funchal harbour, then a magical place. Friends ashore were very hospitable, but returning hospitality was difficult when the southeaster kicked up a sea in the harbour. Boatwork became tricky and seasickness was a hazard for the guests.

At that stage Victor began to have ear trouble. The Portuguese doctors did their best, but our departure was delayed. When we finally sailed for Barbados we had calms, then headwinds. A lot of water found its way below whenever the lee rail was buried as the deck canvas had not been properly fitted. Perhaps it was as well that we didn't get too far, as early one morning when I hoisted the mizzen a port shroud plate carried away, broken cleanly in two pieces. Quick action saved the mast but the episode revealed a defect which might have been tricky in mid-Atlantic - all the fine, galvanised-steel shroud plates were in fact made of elderly brass. The zinc had come to the surface, weakening the alloy and giving a thoroughly misleading appearance.

We set a course for Las Palmas in the Canary Islands, and there Victor found an engineer who was willing to refit all the shroud plates at a very reasonable price. Victor's ear was still not right, so it now had attention from Spanish doctors. The noise and stink and oily water of the harbour at Las Palmas contrasted poorly with the delights of Madeira, although we were hospitably entertained ashore several times. There were thieves to be coped with at night, and even though we had Fernando, a night watchman with a reputation for honesty, Victor found himself forestalling a raid one night when Fernando was ashore sick.

Eventually we sailed again for Barbados, this time with fair winds under an overcast sky, but Victor's ear again gave him bad pain and we had to alter course for the Cape Verde Islands. Romping along, 137 miles in 24 hours, the water level under the counter was high enough to reveal another defect which might have been troublesome in mid-Atlantic - the packing in the rudderpost gland needed attention. We found a stream of water coming from the gland, which explained the extra pumping we had been having to do. It also explained some alarming bangs we had heard when running under self-steering conditions, which was a relief.

During our week at São Vicente, the deep water port of the Cape Verde Islands, Victor's ear was attended to by Portuguese doctors - at a price, of course. The gland was repacked by a friendly Welsh engineer for free. São Vicente was an interesting place to visit at that time. It is a volcanic island with no water and had been a coaling station for ships. It had also been a cable station, where morse messages were read and tapped out again, on the next stage of their long journeys by undersea cable. A small British community still ran the cable station, and entertained us very kindly. They even had a golf course, despite all water having to be shipped in. What the rest of the population did for a living I never discovered. I think the changeover from coal to oil had left them unemployed.

On our first night there some locals boarded Solace while the watchman, another Fernando, slept peacefully in the cockpit. They were getting on quite well with emptying the forepeak when Victor was woken by pains in his ear. Here was the chance for a chase, just the kind of thing Victor really enjoyed. In no time he had commandeered a boat from a nearby schooner, and he and Fernando, as interpreter, were being rowed like mad after the thieves. Victor was quite undeterred by missiles flung by the thieves, such as linseed oil (from the forepeak). To cut a long story short, they made it to the shore and Victor continued the chase barefoot. He was still in his pyjamas, by then completely soaked from jumping out of the boat too soon. Three of the four thieves got away but were later caught and questioned, the other having died from a heart attack during the chase, and we were able to recover a good many of our missing items. A full and very entertaining first hand account of all this can be found in Victor's book, On the Wind of a Dream, published by Hutchinson in 1960. Running barefoot over volcanic rock is not to be recommended, and at the end of his account Victor comments drily, "I now needed medical attention at both extremities ...".

It wasn't long before he was ready to put to sea, and this time we really were bound for Barbados. I have the fondest memories of all the weeks we took for the crossing. I loved the sun in the daytime and the stars at night, the sunsets and the sunrises. Sometimes the sunrises showed an effect like the Japanese flag. I loved the quiet of a passage under sail, and every other aspect of being at sea.

We had no problems with battery charging, as the only electrical thing on board was a fine old (valve) radio receiver. My memories of this set were that it had given up completely after the drenching it suffered between Madeira and Las Palmas, but in fact we did use it for time checks later. There were no other electrics. All lights used paraffin, as did our cooking facilities. There was no echo-sounder, no anemometer and no pilot log, still less a dial to show speeds. The old-style Walker log, towed from the quarter, was effective and reliable. Sounding, when needed, was by lead and line.

Looking at the mass of electrical equipment on a modern yacht gives one pause for thought. Is it all really necessary? We had no transmitter, let alone a fax or the internet, and GPS had not been invented. We had no electrical self-steering. We had no radar. We had no EPIRB. Indeed our liferaft, kindly donated by Hum, had been Vertue XXXV's and was so neglected by us that I do not know if it would have floated.

As for the engine, it was a large and powerful diesel which must have seen a lot of service in the days when Solace was based in the Channel Islands. I do not remember our using it at all, but Victor's book, written a few years later, includes an imaginative passage about our joint efforts to start it in the Grenadines. On this ocean passage it was just dead weight, with a large propeller which slowed us up and made an unwelcome noise if allowed to turn. A few months after I left the ship it proved useful in the Panama Canal, then "never worked again", according to Victor's book.

Progress was slow for the first week or two, mainly because of light winds, force 2-3, but also because of the modest sail area. We made measurements and found that the entry in Lloyds' Register credited Solace with half again as much canvas as she actually had. Perhaps the original sail plan had been reduced because the effect of scaling down the Herreshoff design had been to make the ship too tender. The lack of sail area had probably made little difference in the Channel Islands, with the big iron tops'l down below.

I had no complaints at all with our leisurely progress, but I think Victor felt rather frustrated. For the first few days he also had more pain from his ear, despite all the Portuguese and Spanish experts. Then he applied what he called 'granny's remedy' - a little warm olive oil - and all was well. As a diversion he had a mongrelly little puppy which a doctor at São Vicente had pressed upon him. He seemed very fond of this funny little dog, which he insisted was a 'Cape Verde Terrier' and named Yo-Yo. The little dog was certainly quite an amiable shipmate and really seemed to enjoy life on board.

For more diversion we did experiments with the twin staysail self-steering. Basically this was quite simple - just sheets rove through (almost) frictionless blocks and secured to the tiller. The sails were hoisted on two stays near the mast, with the tacks on wire pendants and clews shackled to the end of the twin booms. The heels of the booms fitted into swivels on the mast. A single guy was attached to the outboard end of one boom, then rove through blocks on the bowsprit and the outboard end of the other boom, and so back to the mast. We experimented with making this arrangement work for various wind directions. The secret was to increase the tension in one of the sheets by means of a snatch block with a rope tail. I called this an 'intensifier', but Victor didn't like that name. Later he found a proper nautical term for it, namely 'inhaul'. With the aid of this it was possible to have self-steering on quite a wide range of courses, and even to set the mizzen with the twin staysails.

We both enjoyed fixing the ship by taking sights with the sextant. For accurate time we used the marvellous, self-winding, Rolex watch on Victor's wrist. It usually had a rate of less than a second a day, but on two occasions anomalous results suggested the watch had jumped as much as half a minute, so it was useful to have the radio receiver for time checks. My favourite was a morning star sight, but this needed both of us to be awake at an early hour.

We also honed our galley skills on the single gimballed primus, quite a new experience for Victor. I had brought one of the new-fangled pressure cookers with me, and it proved invaluable. It was amazing what a variety of tasty meals one could produce with it. I always knew when I had produced a chef d'oeuvre, because Victor would then want an extra helping. Particularly delicious at breakfast time was the occasional fresh flying fish, cooked in a pan. We also started with an oven, but luckily the thieves at São Vicente disposed of that, using it as a missile during the chase. Baking might have been more difficult.

Eventually we reached Barbados and brought up on the gorgeous coral sand near the yacht club. The brilliant colours in the water seemed too good to be true. Lush green ashore was also very noticeable after the blues and browns and yellows of the past 26 days. Later, when lecturing to sailors about this trip, I used to compare the experience of our landfall after sailing a long way with that of arriving at a pub after walking a long way. It seemed to strike a chord.

The yacht club members were tremendously hospitable, and even though we were only there two days they made it seem much longer. I remember being rather disappointed to learn that nine transatlantic yachts had already arrived that year. I remember also the delicious taste of freshly squeezed West Indian lime juice, and discovered why the commercial lime juice in Britain in those days was so poor by comparison - it was, of course, the added oil from crushed skins (crushed, not squeezed) which made the difference.

From Barbados the aim was to sail to Trinidad and find a ship which would take me back to the UK. I needed to be back in six weeks, and voyages by ship take time, so we did not have too much to spare. At St Vincent, Victor piloted us into a deserted anchorage on the south side, and I landed and walked into Kingstown while he relaxed. It was fascinating to see and hear a Caribbean steel band in Kingstown, and to see how they made their instruments out of the 44 gallon drums which abounded at that time.

Then we headed off for the marvellous Grenadines, mostly quite deserted in those days. Two incidents particularly impressed me. One was anchoring off an uninhabited island in the cool of the evening, with virtually no wind but quite a strong current running past the ship. It occurred to me that falling over the side would simply be fatal. I could not remember being in such a situation before.

The other incident was more congenial. We were anchored in a bay, with hills quite close to the east and west and no lights at all on the shore. The night was moonless, with magnificent stars. It was an amazing experience to see the rising stars suddenly appear, at full brightness, from behind the hill to the east. In the same way the setting stars suddenly disappeared behind the hill to the west. The effect was to create a strong sensation of the rotation of the heavens (or the earth, according to taste).

South of the Grenadines lies Grenada, with its beautiful harbour of St George's where we lay for several days. The whole place was visually attractive and seemed unchanged for decades, if not centuries. There had been a heavy rainstorm just before we arrived - 9 inches in 24 hours - which impressed me. Then the day after we arrived Victor fell sick and had to go to hospital. Again the yacht club members were very friendly. One of them told me, perhaps more than once, how he had an (extramarital) child conceived during a game of cricket, while he was retrieving the ball from long grass.

When Victor recovered we sailed for Trinidad. Our passage through the Dragon's Mouth into the Gulf of Paria was spectacular. With high land on each side and no wind we were treated to the blackest thunderclouds I have ever seen, accompanied by vivid lightning and torrential rain. We manned the halyards, prepared for anything. But nothing happened - a helpful tidal stream carried us through.

As a retired Naval Officer I was entitled in those days to passage in Fleet Auxiliaries. Victor went ashore, used his remarkable talents for dealing with people in ports, and found me a berth in an Admiralty tanker about to sail for Gibraltar. Luckily the destination was later changed to Plymouth. I was less lucky with the attitude of the captain, who had had more than enough of retired admirals and their wives taking free passage from wintry Britain to sunny climes, and return. Despite my comparative youth and amiability I was totally banned from the bridge, and told I should keep well away from him at meals. The other officers were very friendly, however, and used to smuggle me up to the bridge from time to time.

The ship docked just a few days before I was due back at work. It had been a wonderful few months and I was very grateful to Victor for having me as his guest. Later he met up with a young West Indian who wished to crew, took him on board, and trained him up in all things nautical as they went on round the world. Stanley is now a retired ship's captain, I believe.

As for Solace, in the South Pacific a sudden change of wind wrecked her while she was anchored in the lee of Palmerston Island, outside the reef. The amazing tale of the islanders dragging her across the lagoon and rebuilding her is told in Victor's book. Further work was done in Auckland, and Victor continued his voyage. Now, 50 years on, she has been taken over by a nephew who hopes to get her sailing again. Victor, who is approaching his 95th birthday and is believed to be the club's oldest member, lives in Somerset.

(I was lucky enough to acquire a copy of Victor Clark's On the Wind of a Dream recently, and would be happy to lend it to any member willing to pay the return postage - and to swear on oath that it WILL be returned. Ed)

(3221 words)

THORNTON CAPTIONS

01 - Solace dried out for antifouling in St Peter Port, Guernsey

02 - Solace under sail off Porto Santo, north of Madeira

03 - Reid's Hotel, just outside Funchal, where Winston Churchill used to stay

04 - Under all plain sail, looking aft down Solace's port side deck

05 - Approaching the Cape Verde Islands

06 - Arrival at Barbados

07 - A schooner under construction in Bequia

08 - St George's, Grenada

09 - Solace at anchor