Afterwards, when everything had been carefully washed up and stowed away, Alastair said, “Right. Now for the first sailing lesson. And let’s hope we don’t make a mess of it. One generally does, trying to impress people.”
“Tell us about Ariadne first,” said Emmy, “so that we don’t look too foolish when people ask us. What sort of a boat is she, for a start? I mean, what’s the technical term?”
“She’s a six-ton Bermudian sloop,” said Alastair. “That means that she carries two sails. One little one—the jib—forward of the mast, and the mainsail. That’s the big one,” he added kindly.
“What does Bermudian mean?” Henry asked. “Was she built there or something?”
“No. It simply means that the mainsail is triangular.”
“I thought they all were,” said Emmy.
“Goodness, no. It’s quite a recent innovation. All the old boats were gaff-rigged—like that fishing smack over there. Ariadne used to be gaff before she was converted. She’s pretty ancient, poor old lady.”
Henry and Emmy followed Alastair’s pointing finger, to see a large, dignified old boat ploughing her way slowly downriver. “You see? Her mainsail’s almost rectangular—wider at the bottom, of course, but with four distinct corners, and a second boom running along the top of it.”
“So she’s a gaff sloop,” said Emmy proudly.
“No,” said Alastair, “a gaff cutter.”
“Oh, heavens. Why?”
“Because she carried two foresails—a jib and a staysail.”
“This is much too complicated,” said Henry. “Let’s get back to Ariadne. A Bermudian sloop. Six tons, you said. You mean, that’s what she weighs?”
“No,” said Alastair. “Sorry to be difficult. That’s a measurement called Thames Tonnage, and it hasn’t anything to do with weight. You work it out from a formula involving length and beam—width, to you. So the exact dimensions of six-tonners can vary, but they’re all about the same size of boat. We’re thirty-two feet long over-all, with an eight-foot beam and a five-foot draught, which is about average. Pocahontas is smaller—a three-tonner. You soon get to judge the tonnage of a boat fairly accurately by just looking at her.”
“I don’t,” said Emmy firmly.
Alastair grinned. “It doesn’t matter a hoot anyway,” he said. “The only thing you need remember is that there’s five solid feet of Ariadne under the water, so if you sail her into water that’s less than five foot deep—wham. You’re on the putty.”
“That at least sounds logical,ލ
remarked Henry, with some relief.
“Now,” said Alastair, “we’ll set the sails. It’s very simple. Each sail has two ropes attached to it. The halyard and the sheet. The halyard, as you might guess, is the one you haul it up with. The sheet is the one that pulls the sail in or lets it out, according to the direction of the wind. O.K.?”
“O.K.,” said Emmy, a little dubiously.
“Right, then we’ll set the jib.” Alastair reached down through the forehatch into Henry and Emmy’s erstwhile bedroom, and fished up a canvas sailbag. “Now,” he went on. “See this—this is the jib halyard.” He unwound two ropes from the mass of rigging secured to the mast. “It’s a single rope running through a pulley up aloft—except that a pulley is always called a block. You see? Very simple.” He demonstrated. The rope jammed in the block.
“I see it is,” said Henry.
Swearing softly, Alastair proceeded to get involved in a sort of cat’s cradle of rigging, from which the jib halyard eventually emerged, running freely. He shackled it to the peak of the jib.
“Now,” said Alastair, “we attach the jib to the forestay.” Tucking the sail under his arm, he crawled out to the end of the bowsprit, missed his footing, and very nearly fell into the river.
“Very simple,” said Emmy.
“I want no back answers from the crew,” replied Alastair with dignity, hauling himself back to safety with one arm, while the other held the precious bundle of canvas out of the water. When he had fastened one corner of the sail to the end of the bowsprit, and strung the curtain-ring clips on the length of its forward edge to the forestay, he scrambled inboard again.
“Can we hoist the jib now?” Henry asked.
“Not yet. Not till the sheets are attached.”
“Wait a minute,” said Henry. “I thought you said there was only one sheet per sail.”
Alastair looked at him pityingly. “If the jib didn’t have a port and a starboard sheet, how could you come about?” he asked. Henry said he had no idea, and watched humbly as Alastair picked up another rope from the deck. This was, in fact, two ropes, one of which ran down either side of the deck and back into the cockpit. The forward ends were shackled together, and these Alastair proceeded to attach to the third corner of the jib.
“Now,” he said. “Haul her up.”
“Alastair darling,” said a sweet voice from the cockpit, “haven’t you forgotten the burgee?”
“Oh, blast,” said Alastair. “Didn’t I tell you one always messes things up trying to demonstrate? I should have done that first.”
He took the small, triangular, blue and white flag from Rosemary, and quickly ran it up to the masthead, where it fluttered encouragingly. Henry looked round at the other boats, and said, “Every boat seems to have a different burgee.”
“That’s because they belong to different clubs,” said Alastair. “Ours is the Little Ship Club. That red and blue one is the Berrybridge Yacht Club, and the one over there is the Royal Harwich.”
“This one is just plain white,” said Emmy, indicating a small, swift boat which was skidding past.
“That’s because she’s racing,” said Alastair. “When you see that, you keep out of her way. Now, up with the jib.”
Henry, feeling very seamanlike, tugged on the jib halyard, and was intensely gratified to see the shapeless mass of white cotton on the foredeck rear up, and assume the shape of a sail.
“Tighter than that,” said Alastair.
Henry pulled again, wincing as the rope bit into his soft, townsman’s hands. The leading edge of the jib remained undulating.
“Sweat it up,” said Alastair.
“I am,” said Henry, panting slightly.
Alastair grinned. “I don’t mean like that,” he said. “Look. Take a turn round this cleat”—he passed the end of the halyard round a wooden peg which protruded from the mast—“now...”
He leant his full weight on the halyard, pulling it out from the mast with one hand, while with the other he snatched up the slack of the rope round the cleat. The sail stretched bar-taut up the forestay. “Now we make it fast—and there she is.”
Henry and Emmy looked up admiringly at the big sail flapping gently in the breeze. Then Emmy said, “Why doesn’t the boat try to sail away, now we’ve got the sail up?”
“Because the sheets are free, and we’re facing directly into the wind. When a boat’s moored, she always puts her nose into the wind or the tide, whichever is the stronger. This morning they’re both in the same direction. So long as we don’t tighten the sheets, the jib’ll flap away there quite happily forever. Now for the main.”
The mainsail was already in position along the boom, protected by a canvas sail cover, which Alastair unlaced and threw down into the fo’c’sle. “All you have to do with the main is haul her up, and then you’ll have them both flapping and ready to go.”
“But the mainsail can’t flap,” Henry objected. “The boom is fixed in that thing.”
“That thing,” said Alastair, “is the boom gallows.”
“What an unfortunate name,” said Emmy. “Why is it called that?”
“I’ve no idea,” said Alastair, “but that’s what it is.”