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Overview
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780071373944 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | International Marine Publishing |
| Publication date: | 01/01/2000 |
| Series: | Daring the Atlantic, Claiming a New Life |
| Edition description: | Revised ed. |
| Pages: | 276 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.56(w) x 7.98(h) x 0.81(d) |
Read an Excerpt
Prologue
"Better wake up, Pete. It's about to pour."For the last hour we'd been sailing toward lightning so horrific it seemed alive. Some bolts drilled into the water with furious pulsations. Others streaked down to the horizon and then shot off horizontally. I'd never seen such lightning before.
"Furl the sails, Liz,"Pete said, even before stirring from his nest in the cockpit. How stupid of me! We were running before the wind with twin headsails poled out, but I'd been so engrossed in watching the approaching spectacle I hadn't thought to reduce sail. While Pete tossed gear from the cockpit into the deckhouse, I eased the starboard headsail sheet and winched in the furling line until the sail was half its original size. Before I could get to the port winch, the first squall was upon us, and Pete had to tail for me while I furled that headsail all the way in.
"What the devil's happening, Pete?"I grunted as I put my shoulders into the task. "An hour ago I was thinking this was our best passage ever."I'd been lulled half to sleep by the gentle downwind ride through the Bahamas, mesmerized by the moon's reflection upon a calm sea and the gurgle and swish of water against Usikusiku's hull. Now the wind was increasing at an alarming rate. Pete scrutinized the ominous cloud bank that had wiped out the moon and was seriously working on the stars. "Looks nasty. I hope it won't last more than a couple of hours."
A terrific gust slammed into us. The mast vibrated. Usikusiku shuddered and heeled over hard, and the rigging screeched like an out-of-tune instrument. Pete and I furled the starboard headsail again, this time all the way. In minutes we'd gone from full sail to bare poles. Then the same squall line that had brought the wind dropped its wet load upon us. We scrambled into our foul-weather jackets, a mostly useless exercise because rain and salt spray drove horizontally, streaming down our necks and crawling up our sleeves. Yuck! I hated the feel of wet, salty rubber against my bare skin.
I disconnected the self-steering and took the wheel. In order to keep us pointed dead downwind I had to watch the self-steering vane, but whenever I looked back toward it, needles sandblasted my skin and forced my eyes shut. How could mere water hurt so much? I turned to ask Pete for help. Where was he? He'd been next to me just a minute ago! Then, through the torrential, driving rain I caught a glimpse of him—still right next to me. I reached out and touched his arm; in this six-year adventure there was no place for the thought of finishing alone.
Usikusiku charged through the now starless night. "Look at the wind generator!"Pete shouted over the deafening din of wind, waves, and rigging. "It's right off the scale!"In 30 knots of wind, Pete's homemade device trickled a quarter of an amp, max, into the batteries. Now it was pegged at one amp. I pictured the metal propeller taking flight and giving one of us a slice on its way past. "Is it safe?"I yelled back. "It looks like it's going to fly off!"Since everything Pete made was twice as strong as necessary, I deserved the dirty look he threw my way.
The full violence of the storm engulfed us. The wind escalated until it sucked the air from our lungs, making us fight just to inhale. Waves piled up around the boat, and their crests blew off into the blackness. Then that awful lightning moved in, igniting the spume-filled air around us. Some bolts stabbed into the sea so close we heard the water sizzle and saw it turn a gorgeous, glowing jade.
We were scared—not with paralyzing, shake-in-your-seaboots terror but with an adrenaline surge we had to channel into actions that would keep us alive. We'd often talked about what would happen in a survival storm. Would Usikusiku hold together? Would we make the right decisions? Most crucial of all, could we physically handle the challenge? We'd always been confident we could and had meticulously planned for all eventualities. Still, I could hear the echoes of our many skeptics: "Paraplegics? Sailing? Never! They shouldn't be allowed to go!"We'd never conceded them a moment's victory; in fact, the criticism had actually spurred us on. But at times like this, when I was cold, wet, scared, and seasick, I wondered why the hell I was here.
Steering required absolute concentration because the wind direction fluctuated wildly, and Usikusiku responded sluggishly. Three hours later the wind decreased a little, which was good, and settled upon one direction, which wasn't good: it had swung around to the southwest, which meant we no longer could make a straight course down the Northwest Providence Channel. We'd have to put up some sail. "Time to get the poles down,"said Pete. I smiled weakly, a futile attempt to mask my concern. I lifted the cockpit seat and grabbed a safety harness. Pete put it on without protest, struggling to keep his balance while he raised his arms and dropped the harness over them. "Be careful,"I couldn't resist saying as he clipped himself in and adjusted the straps.
Because we'd built the deckhouse extra wide to accommodate our wheelchairs in port, Pete went through it rather than around it, closing both sets of double doors behind him. With each wave that thrust Usikusiku skyward, he held on and waited for the subsequent plunge. When the deck dropped out from under him, he used the momentary loss of gravity to slide on his bottom along the slippery surface until the boat slammed into the wave trough and halted his progress. Clouds of sea spray blocked my view of him through the deckhouse windows. I was never comfortable when Pete was on the foredeck. What if he should go overboard? Of course we'd planned and practiced a crew-overboard procedure, but would we be able to execute it in these conditions? I gave myself a mental slap to stop this lapse into the negative, a state I refused to enter. I just had to trust the harness and everything it was connected to, including Pete's savvy.
Once both of the 18-foot running poles had slowly slid up the mast, I could begin to relax. Even after 8,000 miles of sailing, it still amazed me how Pete had worked everything out, down to the tiniest details, way back during the designing and building stage of our boat. And before we'd sailed a single mile, he'd obviously practiced in his mind how he'd perform each maneuver.
"Well done!"I said when he heaved himself onto the cockpit seat next to me. He was winded from his effort. Paralyzed from midchest down, and without stomach or back muscles, both of us had to do almost everything with our arms. But we had an abundance of strength in those arms now; in fact, our entire bodies were a far cry from the condition they'd been in when we were confined to hospital beds back home in Rhodesia. Wheelchairs might be permanent fixtures in our lives, but we were having an adventure most people only dream about.
Table of Contents
Prologue1 The Accident
2 Rehab
3 Pete
4 Let's Build a Boat
5 Progess and Red Tape
6 Usikusiku
7 The Move
8 Durban Demons
9 Poor Neighbors
10 Sea Trials, Skipper Trials
11 The Cape of Good Hope
12 When Are You Leaving?
13 Light at the End
14 D-Day
15 We Could Have Danced
16 Making History
17 Up the Coast
18 Just Cruisin'
19 Bahama Breeze
20 A New Life
Acknowledgments
About the Authors
Illustrations can be found on pages viii, 59, 155 - 156, 173 - 174, 207 - 208, 257
Maps can be found on the endpapers and pages 60 and 226
Preface
"Furl the sails, Liz," Pete said, even before stirring from his nest in the cockpit. How stupid of me! We were running before the wind with twin headsails poled out, but I'd been so engrossed in watching the approaching spectacle I hadn't thought to reduce sail. While Pete tossed gear from the cockpit into the deckhouse, I eased the starboard headsail sheet and winched in the furling line until the sail was half its original size. Before I could get to the port winch, the first squall was upon us, and Pete had to tail for me while I furled that headsail all the way in.
"What the devil's happening, Pete?" I grunted as I put my shoulders into the task. "An hour ago I was thinking this was our best passage ever." I'd been lulled half to sleep by the gentle downwind ride through the Bahamas, mesmerized by the moon's reflection upon a calm sea and the gurgle and swish of water against Usikusiku's hull. Now the wind was increasing at an alarming rate. Pete scrutinized the ominous cloud bank that had wiped out the moon and was seriously working on the stars. "Looks nasty. I hope it won't last more than a couple of hours."
A terrific gust slammed into us. The mast vibrated. Usikusiku shuddered and heeled over hard, and the rigging screeched like an out-of-tune instrument. Pete and I furled the starboard headsail again, this time all the way. In minutes we'd gone from full sail to bare poles. Then the same squall line that had brought the wind dropped its wet load upon us. We scrambled into our foul-weather jackets, a mostly useless exercise because rain and salt spray drove horizontally, streaming down our necks and crawling up our sleeves. Yuck! I hated the feel of wet, salty rubber against my bare skin.
I disconnected the self-steering and took the wheel. In order to keep us pointed dead downwind I had to watch the self-steering vane, but whenever I looked back toward it, needles sandblasted my skin and forced my eyes shut. How could mere water hurt so much? I turned to ask Pete for help. Where was he? He'd been next to me just a minute ago! Then, through the torrential, driving rain I caught a glimpse of him-still right next to me. I reached out and touched his arm; in this six-year adventure there was no place for the thought of finishing alone.
Usikusiku charged through the now starless night. "Look at the wind generator!" Pete shouted over the deafening din of wind, waves, and rigging. "It's right off the scale!" In 30 knots of wind, Pete's homemade device trickled a quarter of an amp, max, into the batteries. Now it was pegged at one amp. I pictured the metal propeller taking flight and giving one of us a slice on its way past. "Is it safe?" I yelled back. "It looks like it's going to fly off!" Since everything Pete made was twice as strong as necessary, I deserved the dirty look he threw my way.
The full violence of the storm engulfed us. The wind escalated until it sucked the air from our lungs, making us fight just to inhale. Waves piled up around the boat, and their crests blew off into the blackness. Then that awful lightning moved in, igniting the spume-filled air around us. Some bolts stabbed into the sea so close we heard the water sizzle and saw it turn a gorgeous, glowing jade. We were scared-not with paralyzing, shake-in-your-seaboots terror but with an adrenaline surge we had to channel into actions that would keep us alive. We'd often talked about what would happen in a survival storm. Would Usikusiku hold together? Would we make the right decisions? Most crucial of all, could we physically handle the challenge? We'd always been confident we could and had meticulously planned for all eventualities. Still, I could hear the echoes of our many skeptics: "Paraplegics? Sailing? Never! They shouldn't be allowed to go!" We'd never conceded them a moment's victory; in fact, the criticism had actually spurred us on. But at times like this, when I was cold, wet, scared, and seasick, I wondered why the hell I was here.
Steering required absolute concentration because the wind direction fluctuated wildly, and Usikusiku responded sluggishly. Three hours later the wind decreased a little, which was good, and settled upon one direction, which wasn't good: it had swung around to the southwest, which meant we no longer could make a straight course down the Northwest Providence Channel. We'd have to put up some sail. "Time to get the poles down," said Pete. I smiled weakly, a futile attempt to mask my concern. I lifted the cockpit seat and grabbed a safety harness. Pete put it on without protest, struggling to keep his balance while he raised his arms and dropped the harness over them. "Be careful," I couldn't resist saying as he clipped himself in and adjusted the straps.
Because we'd built the deckhouse extra wide to accommodate our wheelchairs in port, Pete went through it rather than around it, closing both sets of double doors behind him. With each wave that thrust Usikusiku skyward, he held on and waited for the subsequent plunge. When the deck dropped out from under him, he used the momentary loss of gravity to slide on his bottom along the slippery surface until the boat slammed into the wave trough and halted his progress. Clouds of sea spray blocked my view of him through the deckhouse windows. I was never comfortable when Pete was on the foredeck. What if he should go overboard? Of course we'd planned and practiced a crew-overboard procedure, but would we be able to execute it in these conditions? I gave myself a mental slap to stop this lapse into the negative, a state I refused to enter. I just had to trust the harness and everything it was connected to, including Pete's savvy.
Once both of the 18-foot running poles had slowly slid up the mast, I could begin to relax. Even after 8,000 miles of sailing, it still amazed me how Pete had worked everything out, down to the tiniest details, way back during the designing and building stage of our boat. And before we'd sailed a single mile, he'd obviously practiced in his mind how he'd perform each maneuver.
"Well done!" I said when he heaved himself onto the cockpit seat next to me. He was winded from his effort. Paralyzed from midchest down, and without stomach or back muscles, both of us had to do almost everything with our arms. But we had an abundance of strength in those arms now; in fact, our entire bodies were a far cry from the condition they'd been in when we were confined to hospital beds back home in Rhodesia. Wheelchairs might be permanent fixtures in our lives, but we were having an adventure most people only dream about.