Day 8

Day 8 - Tuesday, April 8 2008

Hands up all who remember ‘The Good Ship Venus’. It used to be a very popular rugby club ditty in my youth. Nowadays, or so I’m told, the insidious creep of political correctness has all but eradicated the music and poetry that had been handed down through generations of beery singalongs. For all I know, ‘The Good Ship Venus’ may well be all but forgotten. Evidently the current crop of rugby enthusiasts drink bottled water and sing new and sensitive choruses like ‘We’re all greens together, that’s why we go saving whales.’ If so, it’s a great pity. The old songs are part of a great and valuable oral tradition. Why they should be singled out for attack by the Thought Police is beyond me. Especially when they celebrate so much that the PC brigade seeks to achieve: multi-cultural diversity - ‘Haul ‘em Down, you Zulu Warrior’; gender equality - ‘Get off the Table, Mabel, the Money’s for the Beer’; minority rights - ‘The Fokawi Tribe’; endangered species - ‘The Oozalum Bird’. I could go on, but I think I’ve made my point.

Being on board the good ship Tosca, I suppose a reference to the good ship Venus was bound to arise sooner or later. In fact, the thought was prompted by a certain resemblance between the two vessels. According to the song (if I remember correctly), upon the good ship Venus were two very specific distinguishing features: ‘The figure-head was a maid in bed and the mast a rampant greenhouse.’

Tosca’s prow is so far away, I can’t speak for the figure-head with any certainty, but the greenhouse is beyond question. How else can we have such a non-stop supply of fresh fruit and vegetables after more than 4,000 miles at sea? Just one word of advice. Go easy on the cucumber salad. Awfy tasty, but my God it plays havoc with the digestive system. Eruptions and eructations that rival Krakatao. And as that’s in reasonably neighbouring waters, it’s providing very handy cover. ‘Aye, Krakatoa’s being very temperamental again today - will you have another bottle of wine to calm your nerves?’

It certainly helped matters going past Singapore, even if the Malacca Strait seemed a bit of a misnomer to begin with. What strait? Still nothing to be seen but horizon all round and plenty of sea-room, despite all the traffic. But, it’s like going down the wide end of a funnel and soon the hazards were more than evident. We’d reduced speed by 50 per cent to thread our way through a maze of islands to the open sea. Lighthouses, marker buoys, and hawk-eyed watch officers got us there. Crackly instructions from traffic control, constant switching from charts to radar, instruments to binoculars, and back again. Tiny fishing boats fighting for space with tankers. Some lit like Christmas trees, others barely visible. Beware of tugs. They’re often towing barges - trailing 200 metres behind and without lights. Didn’t choose to go astern of it? Good decision. Phew!

Many vessels have now adopted two powerful stern lights as a piracy deterrent. By all accounts, it helps, but at a cost to night vision for everyone else. We spotted a bright yellow light dead ahead just above the horizon - too high to be a beacon, too late at night to be Venus (the planet, not the good ship) - and bearing down on us. After a few anxious moments, it proved to be a helicopter. Phew, again!

Horsburgh Light was our ultimate target, difficult to pick out against the backdrop of city glare but ‘le pilot automatique’ knew the way - assuming everyone else on the water was equally certain of their course and didn’t fancy an impromptu round of aquatic dodgems. Soon, we picked up a faint flashing light that gradually grew stronger, confirming that George had got it right, even with all the manual interventions. By 0300 we were in open water again and could alter course to just a few points east of due north, giving us a clear run to Hong Kong and Chiwan. Job done. Time to stand down and go below for a meeting of Alcoholics Eponymous - Johnnie Walker, Jack Daniels, John Jameson, and Arthur Guinness are all long-time members.

I’ve been looking back at the daily bulletins and discovered calculation errors in the distance covered since Khor Fakkan. Somewhere along the way, I’ve added another 200 miles. Corrected, that would make today’s figure 4,172 miles. However, I’ve now discovered that the ship has a trip meter - and it reads 4,169. I’m still three miles out! Perhaps the error factor lies in my admittedly ancient astrolabe, and that circumstances (like AE meetings) have sometimes prevented me from taking sights precisely at noon.

However, the deviation reminded me of our famous entry to Richards Bay harbour many years ago on board yacht Mistral - owned and skippered by Captain Stuart Murray (Black Watch, retd). We were forced to come to mooring under sail (and in strong wind) because we had no fuel. Or to be more precise, we had lots of fuel, but not in the tank that fed the engine. But that’s another story. The extraordinary thing was how a floating restaurant, apparently anchored and stationary, suddenly cut across and impaled itself on our bowsprit! The folk on board the restaurant were just as astonished as we were that our respective evenings could be dislocated so rudely.

That was a navigation error of just a few yards. Now it’s three miles. Some would blame age and whisky. I put it down to climate change. You can’t rely on the magnetic field any more because temperatures are higher. Heat expands metal. The more heat, the more expansion. Compass needles are metallic. Compass needles must now be bigger than original spec. Ergo, they can’t be trusted. I wonder if anyone’s told George Bush? I’m sure he’d be delighted to know why his bomb aimers are always missing their targets.


Noon position 13◦00.82 N - 111◦09.94 E
Day’s run to noon - 582 miles
4,169 miles out from Khor Fakkan
Heading 028◦
Local time GMT+8
Average speed - 24.3 knots

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