A Ravel of Waters

Chapter 5

My state of exhaustion suddenly gave way to full alertness. Thomsen's offer triggered off in my mind's eye, like a slow-motion repeat TV run, some of the hazards I had survived in Albatros in the Southern Ocean. Beneath me again was a green and white monster wave down whose side Albatros had pitchpoled, out of control, with seventy-five knots of wind flattening its crest and searing the ocean's surface raw white, like an irradiated cancer exfoliating. Another mental picture followed: an ice-blue ocean in the vicinity of Gough and on every side a convoy of huge tabular icebergs stretching to the horizon, rearing and plunging like mobile casemates. Strangest of all, however, had been the swirling, steamy mist surrounding the bergs. It lent the scene an unreal, mystical quality, the quality of a dream. A final image was the dreaded Cape Horn itself — it had unveiled itself for an unprecedented half-hour of calm at the outset of Albatros's voyage. I had lived out these sights — alone. 'The answer is no,' I said.

Thomsen had been leaning towards me in that peculiar aggressive attitude; now at my refusal he drew back.

'Don,' he said calmly. 'Would you go and get my briefcase from the car?'

Sheila appeared at the door at that moment; Don had sense enough to sweep her away with him.

Thomsen eyed me. I saw him for what he was — tough, prepared to fight for what he wanted. His fancy diamond pin and dolphin lighter weren't part of the real man.

'So you're going to chicken out?' he said contemptuously.

'I haven't chickened in,' I retorted. 'Now look here* Mr Thomsen, I've been twenty-six days alone at sea across the wildest ocean in the world. I'm dead on my feet. I need a rest’

'Don't give me that stuff, Rainier. Sure, you've done a great job with Albatros. Now there's an even greater job awaiting you with Jetwind’

Don and Sheila reappeared. Don dumped Thomsen's brief-case and they beat a hurried retreat when they heard the drift of our discussion.

'Jetwind has lost so much time that it's hopeless.. I began.

Thomsen did not seem to be listening. He pulled a plan from his brief-case and threw it in front of me.

'Look! Jetwind! There has never been a ship like this before! One hundred and twenty-five metres long, twenty-one in the beam, nine deep. Look at her proportions! Six masts! Neither you nor anyone else has ever seen masts like those! Stream-lined, aerodynamic, hydraulically trimmed — perfect. High tensile steel for the lower, light alloy for the upper sections. The masts are designed to offer minimum wind resistance. She's beautiful, she's fast — by all that's holy, man, can't you feel what this ship is?'

I could, and I did. But my appreciation was at a distance, the distance of a drawing-board plan. I had not experienced the real thing. 'I thought her yards would be wider,' I remarked.

I was aware of Thomsen's keen scrutiny of me as my interest grew. 'They have been criticized by comparison with those of the famous clippers. They are as deep as the fastest, but not as wide. Still, that counts for nothing. As I've said, those old fliers are dead. What matters here is the shape of the aerofoil — that has been evolved by means of the wind-tunnel.'

I studied the plan further. 'I see she's got accommodation for passengers.'

'Aye, for twelve, in the stern. Well out of your way on the bridge.'

'What do you mean, "out of my way"? I said No, didn't I?' 'I was just generalizing.'

Noting the design closely, I continued, 'I don't care for all the clutter of bridge structure so far for'ard — the position of it seems to be thought out in terms of a steamship. The captain of a sailing ship must be able to see his sails in front. I would have sited the bridge much further aft, abaft the mainmast.' iJetwind’s bridge is not so much a bridge in the accepted sense as a control centre,' replied Thomsen. An imperceptible change had crept into his voice. His former aggressiveness had disappeared. Perhaps he was playing his fish far more skilfully than I gave him credit for.

'Data is fed into the controls and consoles in the wheel-house from sensors, computers, and all the rest of the electronic gadgetry located in various parts of the ship and masts,' he explained. 'Sailing Jetwind is not an operation like in an old windjammer where the skipper relied on his senses and experience. His nerve-ends in Jetwind are electronic. They are twice as quick and ten times more accurate than human intuition.'

'I'd back my own senses against electronic sensors when it comes to a Southern Ocean squall,' I replied. 'They come at you suddenly from any point of the compass. They jump about like a hipped-up bird in a disco.'

'It would be very difficult to catch Jetwind aback,' Thomsen countered. 'Her entire sailplan can be furled in twenty seconds flat. It would take some squall to do better.' 'Did Mortensen establish that at sea — or is it just another wind-tunnel print-out?' 'Wind-tunnel.'

'How much free-board will Jetwind have when she's fully laden?' I asked.

'What do you have in mind? Anything to do with the bridge?' 'Yes and no.' 'Free-board will be almost four metres.'

'That's precious little when it comes to beating close-hauled in the Roaring Forties,' I answered. 'She'll be taking it green over her rails, especially if she's being hard pushed. That means a hell of a lot of sea will be coming over her lee rail — it's going to be worst at the spot where the bridge is located. That's exactly where she'll put her rail under. Any man on that long uncluttered deck will stand a pretty fair chance of being swept overboard. If the bridge were further aft, it would serve as a breakwater.'

The exchange of technicalities was establishing a closer link between us. I found myself being carried away.

Thomsen laughed. ‘I can't get you away from thinking Jn old-fashioned terms. Rainier. You're visualizing a deckful of men pulley-hauling at a spider's web of ropes. Jetwind doesn't have any men on deck in a blow. The crew mans stations either on the bridge or below-decks. Forget the word windjammer. That's what the old-timers really were — jammers into the wind. Jetwind is different.' 'In a wind-tunnel.'

'You keep saying that, and it underlines my point. That is why I built Jetwind. To prove the space-age rig by trial at sea.'

'You talk as though there were only one revolutionary rig — yours, Jetwind's. What about the Venetian Rig?'

'I know, I know,' he answered broodingly. 'It was a major decision I faced. In fact there are two splendid space-age sail systems which are exactly opposite. Both are based on sound observation and scientific theory. You can't fault either. There is the contrast between a highly efficient wind flow in conditions of flow stability…' 'Rarefied aerodynamics are beyond me,' I interrupted.

'They should not be and must not be,' he replied impatiently. 'The new age of sail is a young person's world. Everyone — men and women — involved in Jetwind is young. The scientists, the aerodynamicists, the engineers, are all young. You, Rainier, are young. Wake up and go along with it.'

'Right now I feel about a hundred,' I replied. 'I'm clapped out, as I said, dead on my feet. All this is aircraft talk…'

'Pull yourself together’ went on Thomsen in the same tone. 'Aerodynamics, flow, stability — yes, but aircraft, no. I grant you that when Jetwind is beating upwind, her sails are experiencing flow which is in some ways similar to air flow across an aircraft wing. Running downward is another story. The comparison is much closer to a parachute than a wing. You know the type of special multi-slotted ribbon parachute used to slow down jet fighters on landing? That's where the similarity comes in.'

'All this balancing of pros and cons must have given you ulcers — especially at the price of twenty million dollars.'

'The final and twenty-million dollar question was, how much efficiency could be sacrificed to improve efficiency? The aerofoil rig finally beat the Venetian Rig by a short head.' 'Then hard luck stepped in and messed it all up.'

'Hard luck, hell!' he snapped. 'It was a sonofabitch named Grohman. I can still make it. But I need your help, Rainier. You are my man. I am offering you the captaincy of Jetwind — here and now.' 'I couldn't do justice to the job in my present state.'

'Rubbish! You're a sailor. The old China clipper skippers went without sleep for three months racing home! Three months, with only a cat-nap now and then in a deck-chair lashed to the weather rail! And you've been without proper sleep for only twenty-six days! It's less than a ten-hour flight from Cape Town to Buenos Aires. You can sleep all the way, recharge your batteries. You'll be as right as rain after that. You can have a further night's sleep on the journey to the Falklands. That's more than enough for a sailor like you!'

Still I stalled. 'Fair enough. However, I've never even set eyes on your space-age marvel. By your own admission, Jetwind is a highly complex machine, all push-buttons and computers. I'm a practical sailor. I haven't a clue how to operate her. I'll probably dismast her first time out.'

As I temporized, my eye fell upon Thomsen's photograph of Jetwind. The towering aerofoil sails and streamlined masts had a stylized beauty all of their own. I remembered a similar strange exultation when I had first seen the Venetian Rig's reefing lines streaming contrary to the wind's direction — it had been a kind of mystic revelation of man's complete conquest of the wind.

Thomsen waited for the kill now he saw he had me hesitating.

'There'll be a lot of delays,' I added lamely. 'Air tickets to arrange, clearances, connections, and so on…'

'Your seat is booked on the Aerolineas Argentinas Boeing leaving Cape Town for Buenos Aires tomorrow. From Buenos Aires you will fly to Comodoro Rivadavia in the south and onwards to the Falklands. You will have my full written authority to act as you think fit — fire anyone, hire anyone, bribe anyone. Only, for Pete's sake get going?

Fatigue, they say, gives an extra dimension to perception. It was not only the challenge which influenced my decision. Jetwind would, I told myself, give me the vehicle to prove whether the awesome thing I had sighted among the wild waters of the Southern Ocean was real, or the substance of shadows, a lone sailor's hallucination. 'I'll do it,'I said.