Worms to Pakerort

For some time we steered north by west through a waste of water increasingly disturbed, looking south over Racundra’s stern and keeping a dark pinewood promontory on the south end of Worms just open of the slim, gleaming white tower of Saxbiness light on the N.W. corner of the island. The wind, now really blowing pretty hard, kept shifting, and more than once we had to jibe. We passed one spar-buoy, then another, then found the long expected light-buoy, and north of that a group of four spar-buoys and a solitary pair.

Spar-buoys are the loneliest things in the sea. For those who do not know them I should perhaps have said before that they are tall posts anchored to the bottom of the sea to mark the shallows. On their ends in these parts they carry brooms, one or two, and according to the number of the brooms and to their position, the handles of the brooms being up or down, the mariner learns on which side of the buoy is the danger. The brooms do not long survive the buffeting of wind and water, and these lone sticks with their draggle-tailed besoms far out at sea have a most melancholy appearance in themselves, although the sailor finding his way over the waters is glad enough to recognize them and be assured of his position. We rushed past that solitary pair, jibed for the last time, and stood away E.N.E. for the narrow passage across the reef that almost joins Odensholm to Spithamn.

The wind strengthened in successive stout breaths, and then settled down in the S.E., to blow considerably harder than Racundra had yet had opportunity of feeling. We were some eight or ten miles off the land, and the wind, blowing since the afternoon of yesterday, had had plenty of time to get up the waves⁠—nothing, of course, compared to those there must have been on the other side of the Gulf, but still enough to make a pretty fair test of Racundra’s quality. With her broad beam and heavy keel she stood up to the wind magnificently, of course, but, as she dropped between each wave, something fairly thundered within her, shaking the whole ship. It was the centreboard, and we hauled it up, for, with the wind broad on her beam and plenty of it, the difference it made to her sailing (if any, for she is by no means flat-bottomed) was fully discounted by the pounding effect on our nerves. Even so we were left with a noise to which to grow accustomed⁠—the tremendous crashing of the water under her weather bilge keel as she sank into the trough. As soon as we knew what it was, we stopped worrying, but before we knew we had crawled all over inside her, feeling her sides, inspecting the boltheads of her three-and-a-half-ton keel, and generally expecting unpleasant surprises. Once we knew what it was, it rapidly became unnoticeable, and we were able wholeheartedly to rejoice in Racundra’s manner of dealing with waves, a thing beautiful to see. We took plenty of spray on deck, but no heavy water at all. “She juist joomps out of them like a dinghy,” said the Ancient, restored to happiness after doubts, during the centreboard’s orchestral performances, as to whether the keel was adrift. In the general buffeting she got between leaving the Moon Sound and coming into shelter of the land by Spithamn, only one thing gave way. In the working drawings for her there had been a neat galvanized iron saddle and ring by way of gaff jaws, but the builder, saving money, had not bought it, and, at the last minute, had made wooden jaws, with holes for the lacing bored far too big, thereby weakening a contraption which even apart from that was rather ineffectively held together with screws. Further, the shrouds of the mainmast fell rather far aft, and the mainsail being very tall, the gaff tended to swing forward and press against the shroud, putting an unfair strain on the jaws. We had heard a loud crack aloft, but nothing had come down, and from the steering-well we could see no damage. After sighting the low island of Odensholm with its lighthouse, and finding the two buoys that mark the passage just north of the promontory of Spithamn, where more ships were taking refuge under the lee of the rising ground with its six windmills, we heard another crack. I set a course to take us north of Sandgrund and the rocks beyond Spithamn, left the tiller to the Ancient, and went forward to take a look at things. I saw at once that the parrel rings of the gaff jaws were hanging loose, that the gaff jaws were broken, and that the broken side of the jaws was jammed in place by a halyard, which, bar-taut, was the only thing that kept the gaff from breaking loose. This was pretty unpleasing, but, after watching it for a minute or two, I became convinced that nothing would shift it so long as we held the wind on the starboard side, which we should do until we came to Reval Bay. In any case we were moving finely, and this place, with Sandgrund, Grasgrund and the Locust Rock all to be avoided, was not the one to choose for a stoppage for repairs.

We held on, and Racundra, settling down to her work, justified our trust by the speed with which she hurried eastwards. At 6:05 we had Grasgrund abeam and saw the lonely rock, well out to sea, where in fine weather there is often a broad space of visible ground. On our starboard bows were the islands of Roogö, off which we had been becalmed one summer’s night in Kittiwake. There was Pakerort Lighthouse, tall on its cliff, the witness of how many of our struggles in the recalcitrant but lamented Slug. In the bay on the higher side of Pakerort was Baltic Port. We were already in familiar waters. And, with the thought of Baltic Port, our pleasant anchorage of last summer, came doubts as to the wisdom of standing on for Reval in the dark through what in any other boat we should have called a storm, with so serious a piece of trouble as broken gaff jaws awaiting attention aloft. We should have to beat into Reval Bay anyhow, when the gaff jaws would infallibly come down. It would then be dark. Better beat into Roogowik, to Baltic Port, here, now, in daylight, when, if anything went wrong, we could see what we were about. So, rather nervously, we hauled in the sheets, put the helm down for a moment, and stood close-hauled into Roogowik. But we were already too late. The deep bay running S.E. into the land left us again without protection, we were bucketing into a head sea, Racundra’s speed fell off, and the twilight was upon us. It became imperative to have a look at those gaff jaws while it was yet light enough to see. The Ancient lowered away the peak, which stuck, of course, in the makeshift blocks, then loosed the throat halyard, when the whole thing came down in a tumultuous and entangled rush. Within a minute we had learned that with her staysail and mizzen setting as badly as they then were, Racundra would have a very difficult time beating against a heavy sea under those two sails alone. She absolutely refused to stay (I hasten to explain that now, since we have put things right and given her the tackle she deserves, after generally clearing up the abounding errors in her rigging, she stays with the utmost regularity). We had to wear her each time we went about. Now, Roogowik is a narrow inlet deep to either shore, but with rocks along both sides and an awkward reef running out north of the harbour, which is well into the inlet on the eastern side. It grew perfectly dark. The harbour lights appeared, but there were no lights whatever on the Roogö island shore opposite the harbour. We could not tell how near we were to the land when on the tack that took us in that direction. The wind was extremely strong (indeed, if it had been weaker our position would perhaps have been worse); our sidelights would not burn, and the binnacle light blew out every time it was lit. We found ourselves not snugly making repairs in Baltic Port, as we had hoped, but rushing wildly in the dark from one side to the other of the bay, desperately wearing round when we thought we could afford to go no farther, and gaining absolutely nothing in our struggle towards the green light which meant, as I thought then, a well-known harbour.

Providence, perhaps, was with us, for, as we were to learn a fortnight later, if we had gone in there with the wind behind us, as it would have been if only we could have made the entrance, which is from the south, we should almost certainly have been smashed up. The harbour had been halved in size since last year. The open space through which I should have tried to go to my old anchorage had been blocked by a new pier of black tarred timbers, quite invisible at night, and my old anchorage, behind it, was high and dry out of the water. I do not like to think of what would have happened if, with that wind, we had raced into that blind alley in the dark.

However, we had no chance of doing any such thing. With the darkness the wind increased to a gale and our position became rather seriously uncomfortable, for it became clear that, so far from gaining, we were actually losing ground, and that with each tack we were coming nearer to the reef instead of farther into the bay beyond it. At this point, the Ancient and I had our only quarrel. He wanted to get as near the harbour mouth as we could, drop anchor and try to get a line ashore. I knew the place well from other years, and so knew that the depth was far too great to give us a chance of doing anything but lose an anchor, and that if we got anywhere near the shore, unless actually in the harbour mouth, we should infallibly go on a rock. I was therefore for admitting that Baltic Port was a mistake, for wearing for the last time, getting well out into the middle of the bay and clear of the reef, and then putting the helm up and running out to sea until beyond the precipitous point of Pakerort, when I should bring her up to the wind and remain so till morning. There was a little breathless bitterness on the subject as we shouted at each other and tried to hear what the other was shouting back, and it ended in Racundra pretending she had never wanted to put her nose into Baltic Port at all. She stopped bucketing into the wind, and with sudden restfulness and three times the speed, flew out of the bay with the wind at her heels to the open sea, where she was more at home. The Ancient watched Pakerort light till from the cliff-top it looked down over our stern, and then went below and to sleep. There was, after all, nothing more to be done.