9
Organize, organize, organize
In late March we had the second of our navigation classes in Galway, and I managed to get a lot into the weekend. I had dinner with Harry and Lorna McMahon, and although Bill King was away (skiing), his wife, Anita, joined us. What a delightful woman she is. We talked about her best-selling book, Jenny, based on the life of Winston Churchill’s mother. Anita’s grandmother was Jenny’s sister, and Anita had known Lady Randolph Churchill as a child. The television series based on the book was running at the time, and talk centered on that. She mentioned that Bill was looking forward eagerly to the Azores trip. I asked Harry to come as well, but he was doubtful whether he’d be able to manage the time. I had already invited Ewan Southby-Tailyour, but he wasn’t sure whether the Royal Marines would give him time to do the Azores race and the OSTAR in successive years.
Our navigation class went well, and we agreed to spend our final weekend, in April, cruising to the Aran Islands and back, putting our newfound knowledge into practice.
Back in Cork, it was time to place my order for sails, and John McWilliam and I sat down to discuss this. Getting John McWilliam to sit down is no small feat. He is the only person I met during the whole of my stay in Ireland who is visibly energetic about his work.
John McWilliam is a northerner, from the Six Counties, and after engineering school did a spell with the RAF, doing individual aerobatics with the famous Red Arrows stunt team at air shows. After that, he did an apprenticeship with the Australian sailmaker Rolly Tasker in his Hong Kong loft, then opened a Tasker branch in Ireland. By the time I arrived, he had gone out on his own, making his sails on the main floor of an old stone mill on the hill behind Crosshaven, and living in a handsome flat on the top floor.
Visiting the McWilliam Sailmakers loft is an experience. You can feel the glass vibrating before you even open the door, and inside, sound strikes with a physical force. There is a souped-up stereo system driving a series of huge speakers, and the noise which comes out is overpowering to all but the demented teenyboppers with whom John McWilliam shares his musical taste. Through two more sets of sliding doors and into the loft proper, one comes upon Mr. McWilliam, loping about the varnished floor, carpet slippers on his feet, foam rubber taped to his knees, with a grace of movement not seen since the actor known as Stepin Fetchit plied the silver screen. John moves much faster, though, and constantly.
John is also very bright, and a first-rate man on a racing yacht. He is probably the only one of the world’s top three or four sailmakers who still cuts every sail himself, assisted only by his right-hand man and a harem of local girls, who, even while bent over their sewing machines, giggle and blush constantly. John makes up for being in an out-of-the-way place by delivering his sails to customers all over the British Isles and Europe in a twin-engine Piper Apache, the flying of which gives him enormous pleasure. He probably gives his customers a more personal and more effective service than some sailmakers located in hotbeds of sailing activity, such as the south coast of England. He claims to charge less, too, and his sails are nearly as good as he says they are.
The sail plan we worked out for my boat was made up of a mainsail, a large genoa (foresail), a number-two genoa (slightly smaller than the large one), a medium-weight spinnaker for all-round use, a floater spinnaker for very light winds, and a smaller “starcut” spinnaker for reaching and for running in heavy winds. (Later we dropped the starcut, because I realized I wasn’t about to set a spinnaker, single-handed, in strong winds.) There would be no smaller headsail than the number-two genoa, because I intended to reef that sail rather than change down to a smaller one. This would be done by virtue of a device called a Dynafurl. It works this way: the sail, instead of being set on an ordinary wire forestay, is set on a grooved, solid rod forestay, called a Twinstay. In ordinary, crewed racing, a sail can be set on this stay while another one is still drawing, giving an advantage over conventional sail changing. The Dynafurl consists of two swivels, one at the top of the stay and one at the bottom. When reefing the sail, a rope is pulled and the sail wraps itself tightly around the forestay, displaying progressively smaller area. It can be reefed right down to storm jib size in this fashion.
My reason for choosing this system was twofold: (1) I reasoned that in a 3,000-mile race, an awful lot of time could be spent changing sails in changeable conditions, and the boat would be slowed during sail changes; (2) If the only sail change I had to make was from the number-one genoa to the number-two genoa, this would keep me off the foredeck in heavy weather, when it can be a very dangerous place. My only sail change would be made in less than fifteen knots of wind.
The mainsail, instead of having roller reefing, where the sail is rolled up around the boom, would have slab reefing, in which the sail is simply tied to the boom by a row of cringles (eyes) sewn across the sail. This would be faster single-handed, and the sail would set better as well.
Later, we would add two other sails to the wardrobe: one, a duplicate number-two genoa, so that twin headsails could be set when running in fresher winds, and so that I would have a spare for my principal working sail. Twin headsails are easier to control than a spinnaker and have self-steering properties, too, which would be a help in strong winds. The other addition would be a drifter, or very light large genoa, made of nylon. This would help considerably when beating or reaching in very light winds. Much later, the need for a storm jib would present itself, but I’ll get to that later.
With the sails ordered and a delivery date promised to coincide with the boat’s launching, I set about selecting other gear. I chose the well-known Hasler Windvane self-steering system. I must admit I chose it with a minimum of research. Mike Ellison, of the Amateur Yacht Research Society, which had done much research, recommended it, and so did Ron Holland. The difficult decision to make was whether to order the small or medium size of the unit. My boat fell in a gray area where the small unit might be big enough and might not. But the larger unit was twice as heavy and twice as expensive, so I took the chance and went for the smaller one. I would not know until the boat was launched whether I had made the right decision, and I was plagued by doubt.
I chose the Avon four-man life raft and the Avon Redcrest inflatable dinghy as my tender. Both were well proven, and I had been impressed by Avon quality at the London Boat Show. Life raft stowage was going to be a problem, because even a four-man raft is rather bulky, and no place had been designed into the Shamrock for it, a mistake, I felt, and one which I communicated to Ron on more than one occasion. I chose Brookes & Gatehouse electronic instruments, simply because, from everything I could gather from every source I could find, they were considered to be the finest in the world. I ordered their Hornet unit, which combines, in one control box, wind speed, wind direction, magnified wind direction (a fine display for beating to windward), water speed, and distance covered. To this I added the Hound water speed amplifier, which gives a finer display of small changes in speed and is invaluable for fine sail trimming.
I also, after much soul searching, ordered the B&G Horatio unit, which offers several functions. Once a course is set into an electronic compass on the deckhead, steering can be done by keeping a needle on a dial straight up, instead of steering a compass course, which demands more concentration and is more tiring. The unit also has an off-course alarm, which can be set for either twenty or forty degrees, important when the boat is under self-steering and will change direction automatically if the wind direction changes. Finally, there is a constant digital readout of the number of miles sailed to either port or starboard of a set course. This would be valuable when setting a course when about to go to sleep. On awaking, I would know how far off course I might have sailed. Horatio was an expensive piece of equipment, costing as much as the complete Hound, but I felt I might genuinely need it.