Solitaire Spirit: Three Times Around the World Single-Handed (20 page)

A ship's battery, something I could not take chances with, cost £80.
Solitaire
's motor can be started by hand but only with difficulty, and after months at sea I thought I might be too weak even to try swinging it. New halyards and sheets took another £75. Rome managed to buy charts, almanac, radio and navigation books through the RAF at a discount, but it was still a drain. Some of my original charts could be used again. At one stage Rome
pointed out that I had no chart of Australia, which led to our having words. ‘Since I've no intention of going within 200 miles of that coast I don't need a chart,' I told him. Rome finally walked away shaking his head after my last remark that it was six months away, and I'd worry about it when I got there.

The problem of lack of money was forever raising its head, not simply because I couldn't afford to buy the things I needed but because I had tried to prevent friends realising just how broke I was. Peter and Fanny Tolputt, who owned a local guest house, took me along to the wholesalers for stores, where I spent £120 buying the cheapest food I could find. They were convinced that I just did not like tinned steak, duck or salmon! At the very least I needed to buy double the amount of food already on
Solitaire
, the eight connections on the mast's top rigging had to be changed (say £60 for that) and I had to buy at least one used headsail for running before the winds in the Southern Ocean.

Each day I rang my solicitor's secretary (her boss had long since stopped talking to me). On June 10th, with less than £100 in my pocket and two weeks to
Solitaire
's departure, he wrote me from his office in outer space and I stopped whistling
Land of Hope and Glory.

‘Dear Mr Powles,' he wrote. ‘I refer to my secretary's recent call from which I gather that you are not minded to return the sails until the question of costs is resolved.' Then came the body blow. ‘Unhappily I have to report that the other side have not been prepared to agree costs which will therefore have to be taxed by the court. This process will take at least three months and there is not the slightest prospect of resolving this matter before your intended departure this month.'

I was no longer the angry husband slamming out of the house. Since I had been rejected I would look around for other attractive company with whom to have an affair. I remembered all my American friends and the kindnesses they had shown me on my first voyage. July 4th was their Day of Independence so it would be mine, too, mine and
Solitaire
's, the day we would sail.

Perhaps at this stage a normal individual would have considered finding a sponsor, but I was dead against it, my feelings stemming, perhaps, from my working-class background. With a sponsor's money I could have a yacht built with electric self-reefing sails, sensors that would record any strain and reef the sails while I stayed below watching the latest video, relaxed in the knowledge that our satellite navigation aid was keeping us on course for Cape Horn. Without a commercial sponsor I would be cold, hungry and afraid, but I would be using the gifts given to me by the only sponsor I was responsible to.

The closest I came to being caught in this rat race was when I met Dr Herbert Ochs, who came to see me about using a new antifouling he had invented. A chubby, jolly man, he must have been a bit older than me. I liked him on sight, a down-to-earth character I could have spent days talking to, a man I could trust to keep his word. When I told him my feelings about sponsors he said, ‘There's no question of your considering me a backer. I simply want you to put a gallon of my concoction on
Solitaire
's hull, take it round the world non-stop and let me inspect the results. Er, should you hit a reef, run aground or sink I'd be grateful for any last minute photos you manage to take.'

While we talked in the cabin I worked on my old plastic sextant, which still had the handbag mirrors I had stuck on in Panama. The adjuster had been held together by elastic bands, now perished, and I was replacing them with the finest money could buy.

Dr Ochs, or Herbert as he had become, grew more and more agitated. Unable to contain his curiosity any longer he asked what I was doing.

‘Getting my sextant ready for this trip,' I replied, whereupon he turned a lovely shade of green.

‘Not with my ............ antifouling you're not!' he exclaimed. He promised to replace the sextant and a week later turned up with a beautiful Zeiss product. After much discussion I agreed to accept it on the understanding that when I returned,
Solitaire
would be taken out of the water to have her hull inspected but that I would
not be required to express an opinion. I felt thoroughly ungrateful but I did not want to be obligated.

Lymington Yacht Marina allowed me to haul
Solitaire
out of the water early on Saturday morning and leave her in slings until Monday. This kept down the costs and was far more efficient than rushing the antifouling on a six-hour tide at the Town Quay.

Rex drove me to Birmingham to farewell my family and leave the duff sails with Tony and Irene Marshall. If they had heard nothing from me after a year the sails were to be sent to my solicitor, otherwise I'd deliver them myself when I returned and carry on with the court case.

Driving back to
Solitaire
all I could remember was my father's big, rough hands, my mother's frightened eyes and her last words, ‘Keep warm and be sure to have plenty to eat.' I would remember those words later!

On my return to
Solitaire
I entered the half world that I knew well from past voyages. Normally the transition was made one or two days before sailing; this time I had been slipping in and out of it for two years. I badly wanted to hold on to what people said to me, record them on tapes in my mind to be taken out in the months ahead to be used, gone over slowly and to enjoy when I had more time to think. But life became more and more difficult as there seemed so much to do in so little time and questions merely served to trigger more problems.

The July 4th departure had to be postponed. Keith Parris became my unpaid, uncomplaining press agent. He and Anne were two people who sneaked up on me and I can't now remember when I first met them. Both were schoolteachers who owned a boat in the marina, Keith with time on his hands. Without really being aware of it I began to rely on them more and more as my sailing date neared.

A couple of nights before I sailed, Rome and Annegret threw a party for me at which were his mother Grace, his sister Terry and her husband Martin. All had presents for me which, since it was late, Rome would bring to
Solitaire
the next morning. Sure enough
Rome and Annegret turned up and loaded an unending stream of parcels. I could not really appreciate it all, staggering over water containers and trying to store the presents on top of the bunks. Annegret excitedly tried to explain that for weeks Rome and she had been making ten of the parcels, which were to be opened at different stages of the voyage. One was marked ‘Crossing the Equator', another ‘My birthday', besides ‘Rounding the Five Southern Capes', ‘Christmas', and so on. Over the coming months I tried to log just what these parcels meant to me. At one stage tears of frustration streamed down my cheeks, unable to transcribe my feelings into words. In the end all that would be written was, ‘God bless them'.

On my last day there was another rush of gifts, mostly paperbacks and food. A parcel from Peter and Fanny included a tin of salmon and a bottle of champagne for rounding Cape Horn, and two fruitcakes, ideal for the early days at sea. A Dutch friend had somehow obtained ten boxes of NATO army rations, each box supposed to last 24 hours. From the local bakery I had bought 70lb of flour housed in two 5-gallon sealed containers. Another container held 5 gallons of sugar! A last minute purchase of 30lb of onions, another of potatoes. Fanny gave me three dozen fresh farmhouse eggs. I had food enough for a six-month voyage. With help from my guardian angel I would be at sea for nine months... I was saying ten, by the end of which I would surely end up looking like Twiggy.

The morning of July 9th, 1980, brought light northerlies and a few scattered clouds in an otherwise clear blue sky. I had been up since dawn,
Solitaire
becoming the stage for a farce I played every time we sailed. Before learning this game I would get into all kinds of trouble trying to do three things at once while carrying on as many conversations. The engine had been run and was still hot, but this did not prevent my remarking, ‘I hope the motor starts, otherwise you've come for nothing.'

Rigging, halyards, sheets and sails had been checked a dozen times but I still walked the decks, pulling and kicking things as
though seeing them for the first time, allowing me to concentrate on the things that really mattered. Will the wind push
Solitaire
onto the berth or away? How will the current affect her until she attains speed and can be steered? I wanted to say nothing that would leave behind a bad impression because the next day I would not be there to say I was sorry.

In Tahiti I became close to an American family whose daughter would row over each day while I was at work and put a letter on the chart table for me to find when I arrived home. On the morning I sailed she was there with a garland of island flowers. As I put out to sea I turned for a last wave, the flowers still around my neck, and remembered that today was her seventh birthday. I had planned it for ages but at the last moment had forgotten. I could not turn back, too many people had come to see me off. The voyage to Australia lasted 69 days and that's a long time to be sorry.

After preparing
Solitaire
for her departure it was the crew's turn, another ritual carried out before each voyage. My thinning ginger hair had given up the ghost the night before when Annegret had butchered it in (what else?) a crew cut. The pasty white body scaled a grossly overweight 14 stone – for the first time something to be pleased about since it could live off its own blubber during the early stages of the voyage. And it had delighted in its last soaking in fresh hot water, where pores had opened and been cleaned. From now on there would be showers direct from the sky but the pores would always contain salt. I dressed in clean clothes. The day before, my laundry had been done. I wore my oldest gear, keeping the best for the long months ahead.

At 8.30am on July 9th, I walked down the pontoon to
Solitaire
. All I had in my pocket (in fact all I had in the world) was £60, of which £40 had been given by a TV company a few days before. They had promised £20 at first but after the recording had doubled the amount. With a few violins it might have been further increased. On my return I learned that they had interviewed another singlehander at the same time and put us both on the same show. The
difference was that the other chappie was sponsored. His yacht had cost £350,000 and a further £40,000 a year to run but the funny thing was that after all the money and shouting he never even sailed!

Solitaire
waited for me to step aboard, her old red ensign now a faded orange, her spray dodgers dirty and rust-streaked, her new golden boom with an unused mainsail, her old number two genoa hanked on to one forestay, the new working jib on the other.

These I could see as the visitors saw them, perhaps shaking their heads, believing me foolish to set out on such a voyage so ill-equipped. It was what they could not see that would have convinced them I was mad, the equipment I lacked that most sane yachtsmen would require for a voyage across the Channel, let alone around the world: liferaft, radio transmitter, barometer, flares, charts, wind speed indicator. The list was endless. A sane person would work out stores he needed, then double them. I had worked it out and halved it, not from choice, but because I had stopped being rational after depending on others for justice and fair play.

Aboard
Solitaire
things speeded up. A quick interview with a TV crew, Keith Parris saying they would follow me downriver in the marina launch for last pictures, them asking if I would put full sails up to leave the mooring, and I explaining that I would have a following wind and could not. Once clear of the berth I would put up the genoa, leaving down the mainsail until we reached the Solent.

I looked for people I could trust to let go and spotted Peter Tolputt and Margaret Brown. A shout to Peter, ‘Will you take in my fenders?' then to Margaret, ‘Please take in our springs.' A dash to start the motor. Back on deck, collect the fenders, drop them below. ‘Peter, the motor's on slow ahead. Will you let go our bow line then come back for the stern?'

At 9.15
Solitaire
severed her links with land for 329 days. A quick wave to Rex and Grace. ‘Tell Rome I'll see him in ten months' time.' (He had a flying detail that morning and could not be present.) Hard over with the rudder to pass between the other
row of berths, then heave up the genoa which, with my excess weight, went up easily without need of a winch handle. A quick chase up deck when its sheet snagged. Waving to friends on other yachts then into the river, pursued by the Yarmouth Ferry and the TV crowd, trying to take instructions from one while not being sucked into the other.

Then my own request to Keith, the last for 329 days: ‘Phone Mom and Dad and say I'm on TV tonight.' Their shouts of ‘Good luck', before they turned back to their safe homes.

Lymington – South Atlantic

July – September 1980