GREAT SEAMANSHIP
MAJESTIC SQUARE RIGGERS REQUIRE A FEARSOME HEAD FOR HEIGHTS, AS WILL SOFRIN DISCOVERS
The world of square riggers is obscure to the vast majority of sailors today. Yet nautical literature is rich in fine works describing the minutiae of what went on – and still can go on – aboard a real sailing ship. Anyone with a genuine thirst for knowledge in this regard would do no better than scour the internet for a copy of Eric Newby's The Last Grain Race, an insightful and often hilarious read.
Where this genus of book differs from Will Sofrin's new volume about sailing Rose, the replica of a Nelsonian frigate, is in the way the tale is told. Rose's crew are a very different bunch from the eclectic mix of volunteers and pressed men on HMS Surprise in the days of Patrick O'Brian's Jack Aubrey. The interaction of Sofrin's shipmates with each other and the ship's officers is explored in some depth, making this a very modern book. Where Newby takes going aloft more or less in a day's work, Sofrin gives us the full drama. In this account he makes his first acquaintance with the alarming reality of tackling a problem up on the yards under the caring eye of the chief mate.
Around 1030, the starboard side of the fores’l started to come loose. It didn’t take more than a few seconds for the sail to begin flailing around like a bedsheet on a clothes line in a tornado. It was evident that if left alone, the sail would shred itself to pieces and possibly cause a dismasting. The wind had eased a bit and was hovering between 35 and 50 knots and gusting past 60 knots. We were in between squall lines, which offered us a brief opportunity to contain the sail before the wind picked back up. The only option was to climb aloft and shimmy out to the end of the yard to wrestle the sail into obedience. For some reason, Tony grabbed me and told me to go aloft with him.
I followed Tony forward to the base of the foremast shrouds. The sail was 50ft up in the air. The waves we were climbing were still topping out at 20 to 30ft. Falling from where we needed to get to could end up being a drop of 70 to 80ft. I read somewhere that window cleaners know falling from a height above five stories, or 50ft, is fatal. As far as I knew, only one person had ever fallen from the rig of Rose, and it happened at the dock in New York Harbour. The chief mate, who was on deck, saw it happen and broke her fall by body-checking her into the water before she could hit the deck. She fell from a height of 50ft and cracked some ribs and a wrist but lived.
Before sailing on Rose, any work I performed aloft was always done from a bosun’s chair, which is generally how people go up a mast today. A bosun’s chair is a seat-like harne
