Hey Babe
By Martin van der Wal
Southerly buster warning signals displayed at Garden Island.
I learnt to sail the hard way. Probably around twenty-two years old; settling into life in Sydney after trying out all the other capitals. The owner was a mad Dutchman. Well, we had that common I suppose, except I was first generation Australian, so probably exhibiting madness in a more diversified way. He’d received his sail training while becoming an officer in the Dutch Navy. Picture tall-ship sailing in the wintry North Sea; you’ve got it ! Lovely warm-hearted man on shore, a tyrant on the tiller. Now don’t get me wrong, despite him loudly calling me the illegitimate offspring of misbegotten donkeys (in Dutch) on a regular basis and throwing the occasional winch handle at me, the man had my respect. We won races, he knew his stuff, nerves of steel, and willing to teach even someone as obviously under-water in the gene-pool as myself what he knew about sailing and the racing game. A game of Art, Science, and Chance was his summation; but you might as well stay in the Pub if you didnt learn the Science first.
One ‘scientific’ thing he said has always stuck with me. “Pigs can see the wind !” “Please explain,” I ask. “My uncle was a pig farmer, and pig farmers know this.” “How ?” I questioned. “ My uncle says they see it like coloured ribbons in the air.” Well ! It was a new one on me. These were the days before Google.; research into such a arcanity was impossible and how would anyone really know anyway ; “Try to imagine the moving air as strands of coloured ribbons. Look over there ! ” He pointed to Clark Island as we passed, “ visualise the air moving around it as coloured ribbons, different colours for different strengths. Think like a pig.” Mmmm — nobody had proposed that as a desirable attribute before. Quite the contrary had been suggested to me by various personages usually of the female persuasion as I’d grown up.
Speaking of female persuasion; Circe turns the sailors of Odysseus into pigs but history does not record if they saw ribbons in the air as Circe relents and releases them from the spell with the promise of a ‘fresh following wind’. Divine interventions litter the history of wind, its inherent mystery fascinates and bamboozles us. When I see a boat named Aeolus I wonder if the owners know how much trouble that bag of wind caused our heroes. Winds continue to cause all sorts of trouble. Some, such as the Alpine Foehn, are accepted as mitigating factors in local criminal courts, others like the Meltemi drive the poets to drink while the Santa Anna makes the baby fret and the maid sulk. The Sirocco might help explain why the Middle East has never settled down, having that blow up your arse for thousands of years is bound to have an effect.
Warning signal showing southerly buster at Wollongong
Here on Sydney Harbour our sailing sometimes gets a bit exciting as a Southerly Buster blows through. One of my more memorable moments came onboard a Mini-Maxi putting it’s spreaders in the water as a Buster swept through a lovely Friday twilight race. Another happened with the Mad Dutchman very early in my sailing days. We’d finished the race, heading back to the CYC. All sail up; a big dinner party at his place that night goading him to challenge the low dark clouds scudding towards us. It whacked us; flying spume at mast head as said head rapidly trying to assume the horizontal. “Hang on !!” he yelled. Funny how people state the obvious. We feathered up into it, “ Take the helm, let them shake. But for fucks sake don’t tack“ Well out of my depth: I managed to obey orders. Wind shrieked in the rigging, sails threatened to flog themselves to death. The skipper wrestled the little outboard down on its bracket, furiously squeezed the fuel bulb on the tank that was always underfoot and pulled the cord, and pulled the cord, and pulled the cord. Expletives in a variety of languages were snatched away by the incurious wind. I was getting the hang of it on the tiller, making slow progress away from the Bradleys Head lee-shore, finally the engine screamed into life and with a solid bang that I felt sure would shear something off the forward gear engaged.
The wind kept building: a bad sign. Most Busters blow through in the high 30’s then decrease. This one had hit in the 40’s and kept climbing. We were two up, the skipper for obvious reasons had a bit of trouble keeping regular crew. Perhaps my years in the Outback working with men of all kinds in remote locations inured me somewhat to his foibles. Our little 24 footer was taking the knock-downs in her stride. The propeller spluttered in disgust, protesting at the air it was regularly forced to regurgitate. We were just holding our own. Ten minutes passed; I shouted… “ I can get the jib down. ” — “No! We need all the sail for power, the engine alone will never do it.” It was getting darker; — time itself seemed gripped motionless by the deafening noise and breath snatching wind.
The rain came: Horizontally ! “ Put the Nav Lights on before we get run down by a ferry.” We were smack bang in the middle of the Manly Ferry channel; fighting our way with lurches and staggers towards Clark Island and the lee under Darling Point. It’s one thing to be caught offshore by heavy weather and looming darkness; quite another in what seemed like a rapidly shrinking harbour. The wind refused to relent. For every feathering scallop we took to windward, it blew our head half a scallop back. Luckily the fetch was short and the sea was largely flattened by the weight of rain or we wouldn’t have stood a chance. If pigs were watching it was rigid black ribbons streaming horizontally on a lurid orange rapidly fading western gloaming. I was settling in to it; main up — main down; our progress became surer. Adrenaline seemed to be turning into endorphins. A wild grin invaded my face and when I turned to the skipper we roared with laughter. “I’m going to be in big trouble when I get home,” he shouted against howling wind and driving rain. “That’s a fact ! ” I shouted back.“Me too ! ”
Many Thanks to Martin van der Wal for letting us reproduce his writing. You can read more of it on his substack page HERE