Snippets
JABA
Basil Panakis
Sun 22 Jun 2014 10:31
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38:08N 29:55W
This will take me about an hour and a half to type.
Practically every word gets corrected. I do not have a stable platform. On
Cunard's Queen Victoria I went to see how they put the shows on, talk to the
stage manager and dancers. The strange thing was when and how they decide not to
put a performance. The dancer takes off the boat moves down and he/she has to
come down a longer distance or if the ship I should say moves up they come down
with a thump. It is the same with the keyboard.
My sleep pattern is terrible, come what may I wake up
the most strange hours to attend to the sails. No different last
night.
As Jackie insists that I should keep on this blog
despite the fact I talk to her on the phone here are some snippets today from my
days as an instructor.
Spare shackle. This lady was a nurse from London and she
had very soft hands. Some work needed to be done in the bows and I sent her
there. It took a very long time so I went to investigate, apparently she was
puzzled as there were two shackles there and did not know what to do with the
second one. May be they put it there as a spare I said. So to my amazement
she threw it overboard.
During a rather rough weekend in the Solent a
young pilot comes to me and says he wants to be sick. We also had a banker
from somewhere in the Gulf onboard, both inexperienced. I said to the pilot to
go and help his colleague at the bows with the sail change and he can be sick
afterwards. Later he came back and said I do not feel sick anymore.
Ann the dentist from the Isle of Wight. The young lady
got into her oilies did the Fastnet race, say 6/7 days and never once took her
gear off. I would imagine she got undressed to go to the heads but that was
always behind closed doors. Slept, ate, stood her watch in the same outfit.
Never seen it before or since. She did sail with me a number of times. I leave
the Fastnet stories separate, but this one just come to me.
A party of young grads came one weekend and wanted to go
across the Channel. Checked their experience and I think it was only Kathy that
had been on a boat before. You are the watch leader I said. We went to Cherbourg
and then to Alderney, the passage back was going to be rough so while we were in
harbour put a third reef and left. Not long after, I was sitting on the
companion way and all of them were in the cockpit behind me. A sudden gybe and
the sail rips just above the third reef. I look behind and their faces are all
blank. I said nothing and kept looking forward. Eventually I turn around
and say when are you going to get it down then? We came back on the headsail
alone. Alison was sick and I told them to hold her when she was feeding the
fish. The same group kept on coming and sailing with me. One of the guys was
learning Japanese at the time. They were young bright people. Eventually Kathy
become a skipper, I see her now and then with her
husband/partner.
Students from Portsmouth Poly came along one weekend for
tuition and fun. Organised by a young then Richard. I took my group
out and treated them with kid gloves. Everything nice and gentle as the weather
was rough. We stopped for lunch in Cowes and a few of them came up and they
asked me whether I can make it a bit more exciting. Took the reefs off
and out we went, bashing about, waves washing over us, spray everywhere. It was
fun but, and this is the big BUT, four of them left us that night, the ones that
asked for excitement.
Jeronimo. One weekend I was given a Sweden 36 that
belonged to a titled individual and asked to take a few people out. There was
not a full crew and the weekend was going to be rough. I took my son with me to
help out. We ended up in Hamble and by Saturday morning a six was blowing.
Onboard was the manager of the Marriott Hotel in Athens, who owned a boat
down there and kept her in one of the marinas. He was concerned that we
were setting to go out. Apparently the harbour master where he was moored would
not allow them to leave harbour. I explained that I had to go through a syllabus
and anyhow how was he to learn how to cope with in bad weather? Off we went
practicing man overboard etc . He was most impressed, he was shouting Jeronimo
as the waves were washing over us. I used to shout Jeronimo myself when I was
doing dinghy sailing in rough weather, people that were overseeing us came out
and towed us in.
We are becalmed.
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