THE LAMENT OF A B.O.M

Roger Fothergill

(If my post contains an envelope sporting British Virgin Islands stamps it gets opened first. With luck it'll be from Roger, and though I wouldn't for a moment agree with everything he writes I know for a fact that he'll get me smiling. His covering letter explained the following as "a cry from the heart, it wrote itself. And of course it's all true, well almost. I only ever tell the strict truth if I think it can't be improved upon...")

If you had to award the title of Grand Old Man of Yachting, who would it who has made three circumnavigations and is flexing his muscles for a fourth. Should it be awarded on mileage? Difficult.

Most of us, of course, can never expect to reach so dizzy a pinnacle as the G.O.M. anyway; but personally I can, and have been able for some years, to lay claim to being a B.O.M. of yachting -- a dignity any of you may reach by sheer survival. An eminence from which you can contemplate the present day practitioners of the sport with a jaundiced, even contemptuous eye, and in return be viewed as something of a cross between a nautical Luddite and an antediluvian monster.

Of course I don't claim to be the doyen of the B.O.M.'s -- I started sailing as late as 1934, but I am still actively doing so. A photograph of my present command appeared in Flying Fish 1991/2 (page 53), and that vessel epitomizes my entire concept of yachting. In my view, overall efficiency in fore and aft rig, solely in sail, never improved beyond that point as far as cruising goes, and elegance sharply declined. The product of 250-odd years of development.

If you have an engine, of course, you can have any sort of rig you like, it ceases to be important. The modern Bermudian rig, for example, was only able to develop under the umbrella of the increasingly efficient auxiliary engine, so that today nearly all yachts are, in fact, motor-sailers. At least that is the opinion of this B.O.M.

A glance at the above-mentioned photograph will tell you just exactly what a real B.O.M. I am. Her loose-footed gaff mainsail bent to a boom which overhangs her transom, her yard topsail, her jib set flying on a traveller from the end of her bowsprit, her shrouds set up with deadeyes and lanyards. Not to mention the things which you can't see -- the stopper knots on her lanyards, the topsail sheet and topsail halliard bends (who has every heard of them nowadays, much less could tie those in?), her main track tricing line and, though the photograph does not make it clear, her standing rigging in pre-stretched terylene, not wire. A friend of mine (I still have a few) suggested that I was overdoing it a bit there, but not so -- the breaking strain of those terylene shrouds is significantly higher than the wire which they replaced, and I guarantee they will last longer.

After I bought her I approached a local marine insurance agent to get cover for her. He gave me a voluminous document to fill in which seemed to call for my life story as much as the details of the yacht. I burned the midnight oil completing it and posted it back to him. After getting no reply for some time I called upon him to check progress. He shook his head:

"No go old chap, not a hope."

"What d'you mean, why not?" He ticked it all off on his fingers. Her barely had enough.

"She is very small and will not return an attractive premium."

"She is wooden built which is unpopular these days, especially in the tropics."

"She has an unpopular rig."

"She has no engine, no radio, no lifebelts, she is going to be sailed singlehanded and, to cap it all, that singlehander is a septuagenarian! Who the hell d'you think would insure her?"

"And why d'you have to sail singlehanded. By choice?" I nodded. "Isn't that a bit rough on your friends? They might like to go sailing too."

"Well it was their choice."

"I see. Anyway, why don't you carry a lifebelt? Surely a must?"

"I don't carry a lifebelt because I sail singlehanded. If I lose my grip and fall over the side, who do you think is going to throw it to me?"

He fiddled with his pencil for a bit.

"Well you have a point I suppose, but anyway, no one would look at it. It's an underwriter's nightmare."

"If all the yachts were like mine, and handled with the skill and expertise that I have acquired over the years, the seas would be a far, far safer place than they are now. And incidentally, the company would be greatly improved."

"If everyone were like you, Roger, as anyone who knows you must agree, the whole world would be a far, far better place ..... or at any rate different." I am persuaded he meant it kindly.* Anyway, that was six years ago, and think of all the money I have saved in premiums I haven't had to pay.

I never expected that I would become a B.O.M. myself, but you can't help it. As I look around at matters maritime today, `Change and decay in all around I see'. The changes that have overtaken the yachting world since the end of the war seem endless, and each one more horrible than the last.

I have a collection of necessary tools which I have acquired over the years which I keep in a special box. There are three sizes of serving mallets and one small serving board, two heavers, a caulking mallet and several different caulking irons, fids of different sizes and my wire splicing spikes, and above them, hanging in beckets on the bulkhead, my adze. Few know either their names or purposes today. Quaint artifacts from a bygone age.

I am put in mind of an old man who reached his hundredth year and was duly interviewed by the press who, when they had exhausted the possibilities of what he attributed his longevity to -- did he smoke, drink, chase the girls etc etc -- became stuck for another subject until one young cub reporter said to him:

"Mr X, you must have seen many changes in your time."

At this the old man brightened up and replied with unexpected vigour: "I have, young feller, and I was agin every damn one of 'em."

And no one nowadays can row, have you noticed? But of course you haven't, you can't row yourself.* Everyone uses an outboard even to go from one yacht to the next anchored a biscuit's toss away. The spectacle of a modern yachtsman rowing his dinghy -- in cases of the direst necessity such things have been known -- is like a panic-stricken water beetle in its death throes.

Standing by a dinghy dock recently, with boats busily plying to and fro, I chanced to notice one being rowed, and rowed very well too. And furthermore, the sole occupant was quite plainly a young man. I couldn't help speculating on how he came to be so expert. As his boat came into the steps I caught his painter, and when he stepped ashore I asked him where he had learned to row. Probably the Sea Scouts, I thought, or one of those famous English rowing schools. Possibly Oxford, or even Cambridge of course. He eyed me for a moment, but taking in my lined and aged countenance and shrunken frame, presumably decided I was harmless.

"Wall Suh" he replied in the most delightful South Carolina accent, "Ah di-ud tay-un years in the US Coast Guard Service."

You can't always be right, of course.

The British Virgin Islands, where I live, are arranged loosely around a stretch of water called the Sir Francis Drake Channel. It is approximately fifteen miles long by about three broad, and has features which invite a comparison with the Solent. But the differences are greater than the similarities, chiefly of course the climate. It lies approximately along the 18N parallel and enjoys endless summer. In addition there is little tidal stream, the spring rise is about fifteen inches, the neap rise nine. In the memory of the oldest inhabitant no one has ever experienced a fog. We occasionally get dust in the atmosphere which has blown across the Atlantic from the Sahara (unbelievable, but that's what the experts say) and this might reduce visibility, in extreme cases, to as little as five miles. There is also minimal commercial traffic.

These idyllic conditions, coupled with its many sheltered anchorages and backed by an expanding infrastructure geared to the supplying of the tourist trade, have made the area a Mecca for cruising yachtsmen and led to the claim that it is the Bareboat Capital of the World -- a claim that is almost certainly justified. And though since Hurricane Hugo when, in the triangle formed by Tortola, St Croix and Puerto Rico, some 600 yachts were sunk, totally destroyed or blown away beyond recovery, followed by the Gulf War and, currently, the recession, the number of yachts have thinned a bit, the area is still gravely overcrowded in the season.

The Bareboat sailors are a curious breed, even the ones who have actually been afloat before, and many tales are told. There was one current recently about a radio conversation intercepted between a Bareboat and its base which ran along the following lines:

"Paradise Charters, Paradise Charters, this is the yacht Boojum."

"Boojum, Boojum, this is Paradise Charters."

"Paradise Charters from Boojum. We need some more anchors and cables."

"Boojum from Paradise Charters. You had three anchors and three cables when you took over."

"Boojum to Paradise Charters. We did, but we have spent one night in Norman Bight, one in Peter Island and we are now in Trellis Bay. But there are four more days of the charter left so we need at least four more anchors and cables."

The other day, for the first time, I had an opportunity to inspect a Bareboat. These vessels are now built specially for the trade, mostly by French firms, and embody the principle of `Instant Yachting'. I had met her temporary captain in the bar the evening before, and Hiram H Hickenlooper (call me Hi), had extended an invitation to me to visit his ship the next morning. I accordingly presented myself at the appointed time.

"Hi, Hi" I said, as I looked up at him standing at the top of the ladder. He beckoned me aboard. I climbed up and finally gained the deck, puffing a bit after the stiff climb up her cliff-like topsides, and found myself surrounded by seemingly acres of stainless steel and plastic of a distressingly sterile appearance. It put me in mind of a clinic. I walked forward to inspect the mast, one of those musical metal masts, which soared upwards into the sky giving off lovely bell-like twanging sounds at every movement of the ship. I looked aloft expecting to see the fall of a loose halliard tapping against it, but there were none -- I mean there were no halliards visible, or anything else for that matter. I turned to Hi.

"How do you hoist the mainsail?" He pointed to a slot in the base of the mast out of which a short length of fibre rope found its way around a mast winch, the end being belayed on a cleat.

"This here is the main halliard", said Hi.

"Then there must be a rope to wire splice inside the mast."

"Huh?"

"Well, the part of the halliard attached to the headboard and going up into that little sheave hole at the top of the mast is wire, but where it comes out at the foot of the mast it's rope, so somewhere in between there must be a union of some sort between the rope and the wire, probably a splice."

"Well I never really noticed it, but I guess you're right."

"Don't you think that's rather a risky arrangement? I mean, if anything happened to that splice there's no way you could renew it without lifting the mast, I should think."

"Not to worry, nothing like that's about to happen."

"How can you be so sure?"

"Well, you have to take seamanlike precautions. When we rented this boat we signed an agreement, see. This agreement says everything is in good condition and fit to go to sea, see. The ink ain't dry on it before I fax a copy to my lawyer back home, so if anything like you say goes wrong, I sue, see. They know that, of course, so they watch it."

"Besides" he went on, "all these sails are just fun things, just for the laughs and the photographs. We never stop that engine at any time, it wouldn't be safe to rely on these flappy old sails now, would it?"

"You're absolutely right, Hi, I'm happy to hear you say so."

I studied the mast again. "Where's the jib halliard?"

"The jib don't need no halliard. It stays right up there on that roller thing."

"But doesn't it have to have a halliard for when they want to get it down, like to make a repair for example?"

"I guess that's their problem. I'm only renting the boat."

"Amazing! Apart from the main halliard, which anyway is not visible, absolutely no other piece of gear on the mast. Not even a topping lift."

"What's a topping lift?"

"It's that line that leads upwards from the end of the boom, but it must be secured permanently aloft, so actually it's a standing lift. Let's take a look at the cockpit."

"The what?"

"The cockpit, where the steering wheel is and the sheet winches and all that gear." I walked aft.

"Oh, you mean the Command Deck."

"I'm sure I beg its pardon. Good heavens, there's a regular instrument panel here. What are all those dials for? What's this one with some boat-shaped thing and this arrow pointing at it?"

"Well that shows you where the wind is coming from. If it gets ahead of those marks either side of the bow you know to start the engine."

"Marvellous! Of course you can achieve the same end, and at far less cost, by tying a piece of ribbon to the running backstays."

"A piece of ribbon?"

"Well it doesn't have to be ribbon. Actually a strip of old nylon stocking is better, it's lighter. But the supply is a bit difficult out here because in the tropics the ladies don't wear stockings."

"So what do you do?"

"Well, chap I knew cut a piece out of his girl friend's ....., but that's another story. Had most unlooked for consequences though."

"It did?"

"Yes, you see she was wearing them at the time and in the ensuing struggle it led to a certain amount of ..... However, like I say, that's another story. What's this dial for?"

"Well that there dial tells you the depth of water."

"Does it give you the depth from the surface of the sea or from the bottom of the ship?"

"I don't recall being told that."

"Well you should find out -- it's important. You can easily check it with the lead line."

"The lead line?"

"And this final dial with two pointers, one long and one short. What does that tell you?"

"That's a clock, for Heavens sake. It tells you the time."

"Stone me! So it is. I wasn't expecting to find an ordinary old clock among such sophisticated company. And is that the time! I must be on my way, Hi, but many, many thanks for showing me over your ship, it has been an education, and so totally different to my own vessel. But you know what they say, "Different ships, different long splices".

"Different whats?"

"Different long splices."

"What's a long splice?"

But don't misunderstand me, Hi was alright, I wish they were all like him. It's the ones who think they can handle those flappy old sails and whose enthusiasm, sadly, so often transcends their expertise that are given to cutting swathes of destruction through the surrounding yachts.

The ownership of a wooden ship along, these degenerate days, puts one in a different, and lower, category. You cannot hold a sensible conversation with anyone because nobody understands the terminology any more. To talk of bilge stringers, beam shelfs, horn timbers, carlins etc etc elicits but a blank stare; and should you be sufficiently ill-advised as to mention such esoteric subjects as breast hooks or futtocks you'll find people actually backing away from you.

When I first became the owner of my present yacht, a survey had revealed that a number of the frames in the after part of the ship were badly cracked. The treatment for this condition is to fit `sister frames' alongside the damaged areas of the originals, all well secured to the planking. These days the sisters are made up of laminations using an epoxy glue and, when all has hardened, screws are driven into them through the planking, working from the outside of the ship.

Since there was no one in the island who knew anything about the matter I perforce did it myself. (When you become a B.O.M. you tend to think that no one else can do anything as well as you can, and even if they think they can, after a fashion, it's never done like those departed craftsmen did it in the G.O.Ds.*). And often, of course, you're right.

The job proceeded successfully and reached the final stage where I had to lie on my back under the hull and drive in the screws, working with a screwdriver bitt and brace, lying in the dirt with the sweat running into my eyes. A very tiring job -- it took most of the working day.

That evening I had been invited to a party on a large and splendid yacht which was lying in the nearby marina. Having removed the stains of toil I duly presented myself and flopped into a seat, staring at my feet and aching in every muscle.

"Cheer up Roger" said my hostess. "You look absolutely worn out."

"I am" I said "exhausted."

"What have you been up to then?"

"I've been screwing those sisters all day, and it really takes it out of you when you're as old as I am."

Conversation ceased, to be followed by profound silence. Becoming aware of it I looked up and found myself the target of all eyes, staring at my ancient form with evidences of what I can only describe as Wild Surmise. Something was wrong, what had I said? I cast my mind back and recalled my unfortunate remark. "Oh! You misunderstood me. I didn't mean they were real sisters."

It just made things worse. One of the male guests dropped an eyelid, "Just looked alike, eh?"

I stumbled into an explanation but no one listened. The nicer people had already got up and left anyway, and the rest talked to each other in loud voices with their backs towards me trying to pretend I wasn't there. In the end I slunk guiltily away.

I am now reckoned to be a D.O.M.

* But I'm not sure.

* I think we must assume that Roger's momentarily forgotten his readership. Ed

* Good Old Days.