Day 11

Day 11 - Friday, April 11 2008

The weather has turned sour on us. The misty moistness that prevailed in the Hong Kong approaches held good until we got back on board from Chiwan, but just after casting off warps in the early hours of yesterday, the fog closed in.

The poor visibility meant we couldn’t clear the coastal traffic with the required degree of safety - even with radar - so there was no option but to heave to and wait for better conditions. We eventually got under way to the open sea about 0600.

I was not to know this, as at the time I was snoring merrily after all our email exertions in Chiwan and a stress-relieving reunion afterwards with the newly-landed Wee Low Flier. On surfacing for breakfast, we were in hazy sunlight but our horizons had shrunk considerably, just a shimmering grey wall in all directions.

Looking out the porthole after my post-breakfast snooze (it’s important to adhere to a strict daily routine, otherwise standards just go by the board), even the hazy sunlight had deserted. We were now blanketed in dense fog and couldn’t see for’ard past the first few stacks of containers. This did not look at all encouraging for shooting the noon sun, so I’d have to rely on the deck instruments. Just hope the skipper got it right with the compass correction drill. Still, better go topside and have a look.

We’d only covered 157 miles, when all going to plan it should have been nearer 250. What’s going on here? That’s when I learned about the time lost on leaving Chiwan, but we were making up ground - fast. Despite the fog, we were touching 27 knots at times, the highest logged so far. I should explain that’s the SOG figure (speed over ground) and includes a helping hand from the current. SOW (speed over water) just tells you what it says. You might be reading 10 knots SOW but if the water’s running at five knots in the other direction, your SOG -or true speed - is only five. Conversely, with 10 knots SOW and a five-knot current in your favour, SOG becomes 15. Simple, isn’t it?

SOW was the base factor before the advent of global positioning systems that now determine SOG so precisely. Back then, navigation began by throwing a knotted log-line over the side. The knots - tied at precise intervals - were counted against a known-time sandglass as they ran past. The more knots counted, the faster the SOW. Hence ‘knots’ as the unit of measurement for speed at sea. Nowadays, it’s a short form for ‘nautical miles per hour’.

If you haven’t got modern gadgetry on board, SOW is still important in making DR (dead reckoning) calculations. With surface speed determined, you can make adjustments for known or probable currents and lateral drift, and combine that with sun and star observations to work out where you are with reasonable accuracy. That’s how Captain Bligh made it from Pitcairn Island to East Timor in one of the greatest feats of navigation in maritime history.

But I think I might be digressing again. Why did Linda leave that Mariposa card on my desk? The laptop’s working perfectly as you can see. Even if it wasn’t, swimming ashore for assistance is beyond me right now. Although I do feel a wee bit guilty about that poor wee lassie still running around in denim shorts and threadbare T-shirt with the weather turning so cold.

So where were we? Ah yes, today’s weather. That must also have turned my thoughts to Mariposa, even if my starting point was not so much the cold but the fog that besets our ship. It lifted slightly as the day wore on (the fog, not the T-shirt), but still ruled out any prospect of being able to undertake the day’s brisk 5km walk back and forth on the promenade deck after lunch. It’s these bloody health and safety regulations again.

Supposedly, in the all-round mirk you could trip over a stanchion, walk into a container, or fall over the side. Nonsense! We’ve groped our way home from the Old Vic often enough in worse conditions than this without doing any self-inflicted damage. (OK, apart from the night that Linda dropped me, and that doesn’t count as it wasn’t self-inflicted.)

Health and safety regs are frustrating, but what can you do? I blame the all-pervasive nanny-state tendency, especially as the Tosca is French-registered and new EU directives keep streaming in from the bureaucrats of Brussels and Strasbourg. Just receiving them keeps our wireless operator occupied most of the day with the Morse code key. That’s why I’m so restricted in ship-to-shore comms with CSO McLaughlin.

With a walk out of the question, and nothing more that could be done on the navigation deck, this seemed an excellent opportunity to go below and catch up on lost sleep. At sea, it’s always a golden rule to seize every chance you get to recharge the batteries. You never know when the next 48-hour unbroken watch is coming up, so it’s important to make the most of whatever horizontal time becomes available.

The mournful echo of foghorns must have acted as a cross between an alarm clock, dinner gong, and call to action. Once more unto the trenchers! As Shakespeare would have said, had Verdi given him the job of writing the libretto for Tosca.

But before donning No 1 mess rig - de rigueur when dining with the skipper (or Commandant Auvinet to give him his official title) - time to take a turn on deck for a proper check on the weather. Bugger the health and safety bollocks.

The fog had lifted a bit and passing ships could be detected in the fading daylight, but the wind had strengthened and the sea was becoming decidedly choppy. A southbound container carrier was fairly ploughing through the swells, every now and then throwing up a plume of spray that broke over the forepeak. Presumably we were doing much the same, but we couldn’t tell from our position so far aft and with so many boxes in the way. If this carried on, we could be in for an interesting spell, so the stomach had to be fortified.


I’ve already done enough banging on in food critic style, so we’ll skip the details of last night’s culinary offerings. Suffice to say that everything was up to the usual high standards, though the gigot of lamb was particularly worthy of mention. (Burp!)

Apres le dejeneur (et encore repos petit), our ride was definitely getting bumpier. Perhaps I could risk a wee bit more exercise and go up to the navigation desk and see what was going on.

Jeez, the wind was howling - pumping a fierce 35 knots right on the nose, and gusting even more strongly. In my square-rigger days we’d have been close-hauled with the decks awash, but Tosca just took it in her stride. Everything seemed under control, so there was nothing more that could be done except go below and catch up with despatch writing. The outcome was your Day 10 bulletin, even if most of it was devoted to Day 9.

It’s now Day 11 and conditions must have eased during the night. Although we’ve still been blanketed by fog for most of the day, accompanied by a persistent drizzle - occasionally escalating into a downpour - the wind has dropped and so far we’ve had a calm and uneventful passage. Not much to see or do in this weather - apart from getting ready for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; disposing of breakfast, lunch, and dinner; and then setting aside recovery time.

Lunch today was confirmation that we are well and truly in Chinese waters, heading north through the Yellow Sea. The main course promised ‘Espadon Sauce Chien’. My French doesn’t stretch to an exact translation of ‘espadon’ but I have no doubts at all about the meaning of ‘chien’. It derives from the Latin ‘canis’ and has an English relative in ‘canine’. Dog sauce? Bloody hell! Has to be a Pekingese, logically, but then again the Chinese aren’t known to be cannibals. Of course they wouldn’t eat their own kind. But are the Frogs so fastidious?

In the end, it all proved a bit of a disappointment - linguistically, if not in the eating. ‘Sauce Chien’ turned out to be a compound of onions and tarragon, well peppered, with just a hint of lemon. If this is what a Pekingese tastes like, why did I waste so many years raising Labradors? Oh, and ‘espadon’ is a fish - one of the barracuda/tuna/kingfish family, judging by the shape and texture. Wouldn’t be dogfish by any chance?

While we’ve been living a shipboard life where the self-evident watchwords are restraint and discipline, profligate hedonism among our friends in Dubai is even more rampant than usual, according to the CSO’s reports. No space tonight to deal with them all, but Linda’s calming influence is obviously being missed, and in the absence of my pastoral ministrations the flock seems in danger of going astray altogether.

Tomorrow’s bulletin will therefore contain a remedial sermon as well as the usual details about speed, course, and weather conditions. I’ll be writing on Shabat, but you’ll be reading on the Sabbath. How appropriate. Even so, there seems little point in relying on the time-worn threats of hell, fire, and damnation. They’ve obviously had no effect so far. More salutary retribution is needed, so I’ll sign off now and devote myself to the required period of spiritual contemplation and meditation. This has always been a reliable aid to stimulating the profound philosophical and theological insights so treasured by those close to me.

Linda-a-a-a …!!! Why the blistering barnacles are you being such a demented anally-retentive houseboat-keeper? Is this some kind of atavistic or intuitive English perversity, or do you do it deliberately just to get on my tits? Where the hell have you hidden that bottle of Famous Grouse?

Noon position 30◦12.95 N - 123◦12.90 E
Day’s run to noon - 560 miles
5,570 miles out from Khor Fakkan
Heading 018◦
Local time GMT+8
Average speed - 17.3 knots

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