The Brendan Voyage (18 page)

So we lived a relaxed existence. Edan and I divided up the cooking; Arthur and George usually did the dishes in a bucket of sea water. No one bothered to wash himself or to shave, because there was no need, and it would have been a waste of fresh water.
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’s leather and our sheepskins smelled far worse than we ever would, and it was too cold to relish the prospect of stripping off for a sea-water wash. Sanitary facilities varied according to the weather. One could either hang outboard at the stern, risking a cold slap from a wave, or in rougher seas use a bucket wedged securely amidships. But it was noticeable how reluctant everyone was to use these facilities when the wind blew strongly and the spray was flying, threatening the hapless victim with a cold shower.

Each person had his own area of responsibility. George made regular inspections of all the sailing gear, especially the ropes and halliards, which were subject to considerable wear. We were always digging out our sewing kits to mend tears or to whip the ends of frayed ropes. Every piece of the cordage needed constant adjustment, as the flax ropes stretched slack when dry and shrank into iron rods when wet. We found the best technique was to set them up as taut as possible when dry, and then keep them doused with water. Arthur was our rope specialist. His job was to keep the coils of rope neatly stowed and ready
for action, and with so much rope on board it kept him busy. In between times he spent hours meticulously cleaning and maintaining the cameras which were recording
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’s life. Arthur had taken over the photography when Peter retired sick, and our youngest crew member was developing into a first-class cameraman. The delicate cameras seemed desperately fragile in his huge fists, but he had a gentle touch and a born mechanic’s skill in keeping them working despite the salt which constantly threatened to clog their shutters.

Navigation, ciné-photography, and radio communications fell within my province. Once every twenty-four hours I switched on the little radio set, scarcely bigger than a brief case, and tried to establish contact with a shore station. On most days we succeeded and, faint but audible, reported our position, which was relayed in turn to the Intelligence Unit of Lloyds of London, who were kindly keeping our families informed. Occasionally, however, we failed to establish any contact, which was hardly surprising as our transmitter operated with scarcely more power than a light bulb and our signals were radiating from a whip antenna tied by leather thongs to the steering frame. Even in a mild seaway, the swell over-topped the antenna. The sole source of power for the radio were two small car batteries, fed by a pair of Lucas solar panels lashed to the roof of the living shelter. These panels were only designed to give a slight charge of electricity, and so our radio time was strictly limited. If I failed to make contact in less than four minutes, I simply switched off the radio and tried again next day. Much of the credit for our successful communications went to the stout-hearted performance of our little radio, and to the skill and patience of the radio operators of the shore stations who kept a special schedule, listening out for
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at a time when the airwaves were uncluttered by other traffic.

Navigation was simplicity itself. After leaving Stornoway I relied on sun-sights taken with a sextant and cross-checked on radio bearings. But once again there was no real need for great accuracy. We were interested only in keeping a general track of our progress, and allowing the currents and winds to do the rest.
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was too awkward to allow us to set a fine course or select a precise target. I was content merely if we raised landfalls, roughly where we expected them, along the Stepping Stone Route.

Edan, true to character, provided the light entertainment on board. We all knew when he woke up in the morning by the cries of “Food! Breakfast! How about breakfast!” which came echoing down the boat from his cubby-hole near the foremast. A few minutes later Gannet himself would come clambering into view, eagerly poking his nose into the food locker. His clothes were never the same two days running. One day he had his beret on his head; another a knitted cap; once a knotted handkerchief. His oilskin jacket might be replaced by an old sweater, or a furry diver’s undersuit, which made him look like an enormous baby in a pram suit. Once he showed up in a tweed sports jacket and tartan trousers, and was greeted with shouts of delight; another time he arrived in Oriental garb, a flimsy Indian cotton shirt, embroidered, and with its shirt tail flapping in the breeze like a Calcutta clerk. He must have been freezing cold, for—as usual—his feet were bare. Quite where Edan concealed this extraordinary wardrobe in the tiny space of his sleeping berth, no one could fathom. Yet he still managed to dig out packet after packet of cigars which he had laid in, duty free, at Stornoway. Now he offered them to his shipmates, who looked slightly green at the prospect, but Edan smoked them with jaunty aplomb.

And of course Edan always had his schemes. Each one was more unlikely than the last, but advertised with the same boundless enthusiasm. Daily there was some new dish he promised to cook us—only at the last minute he found he lacked the vital ingredient, or, more likely, there was none left after he had finished “tasting” it in the pan. Twice a day he devised an ingenious new sort of bait for his fishing line which trailed forlornly over
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stern, but the only fish he ever caught was a single limp mackerel, half-drowned by the time he pulled it in, rather to his own surprise. Once he very nearly made his own curtain call, cigar in mouth, when he managed to refill the water jug with cooker kerosene instead of fresh water, and on another occasion he blithely hung up his homemade sleeping bag liner—the product of another scheme—to dry in the riggings only he forgot about it, and saw the liner twitch itself free and go dancing off across the waves like a runaway parachute while the rest of us chortled. Edan, in fact, was our tonic. His bubbling spirits enlivened even the dreariest intervals.

Arthur and Gannet were both avid bird-watchers, and
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gave them ample opportunity to indulge their hobby. The farther north we
sailed, the more varied became the bird-life. Scarcely a day passed without sighting some uncommon species, and the reference book of birds was in constant demand. Halfway to Faroes we had recorded fifteen different species and we spent hours watching the behavior of the gulls and terns which constantly tended us, shrieking and twittering, or staring at us as they wafted past
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ploughing quietly on her way. Our most elegant companions were the fulmars, the premier aero-bats of these waters, who glided in endless loops and circles around us for hour after hour, riding close to the waves on stiff wings, their fat fluffy bodies like huge moths. For some reason we always seemed to attract a pair of Arctic terns which took up their station over us, fluttering nervously and cheeping anxiously to one another as the other seabirds came near them. Occasionally they would break formation to search for fish in our wake, and once we witnessed a terrific air battle when our two small terns drove away a hulking skua which came marauding in our direction. Gallantly the two smaller birds hurled themselves into the attack and drove off the intruder with much shrieking, before they returned to their mast-top station, and we could distinctly hear their chirrups of pride. But their victory was brief. Scarcely ten minutes later, a pair of skuas arrived and this time there was no contest. The two terns fled for their lives, jinking and turning at wave-crest level as the powerful skuas struck at them.

For two days
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made steady progress northward. The radio continued to give gale warnings, but the wind held fair and my calculations put us halfway to the Faroes. Daily George or I inspected the condition of the leather skin, poking our fingers through the wooden frame to see whether there was any deterioration. By now the leather was completely saturated with sea water, which seeped gently across the membrane and trickled down to join the inch or two of water constantly swirling along the bilge. But the leather itself seemed to be holding up well, except for two patches which worried us near the H-frame. These two patches were in identical places, one each side of the boat, and by sighting along the gunwale I could detect that
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curved stern had begun to droop, flattening the profile and wrinkling the skin. This was a pity, for it made the vessel less seaworthy in a storm, and the oxhides in this area were no longer stretched tight over the frame but bagged and corrugated like an elephant’s posterior. Prodding a finger against the skin, one could easily pump it in and out
like a soft balloon, but this did not seem to affect the material. Our medieval leather was holding up remarkably well, and I suspected that the increasing cold was a help.
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was now in chilly waters, and the lower temperature would be slowing down the rate of any decomposition in the leather, stiffening the oxhides, and hardening the layer of wool grease into a protective coat. Here again, I suspected, we were learning another reason why the Irish could have chosen to sail to their Promised Land by a northern route: the sea conditions might have been cold and stormy, but they suited their skin boats and made them last longer on sea-voyages. In the warmer waters of a southern voyage, the protective grease might have washed away, and the leather begun to rot.

Our daily inspections also revealed that the sea had been taking its toll on the wooden framework. The steering paddle was held in position by a cross rope which fastened to the opposite gunwale. The strain on this rope was so great that the gunwale of seasoned oak, an inch and a half thick, was literally being torn apart. A jagged pattern of splintering cracks had begun to appear. George lost no time in shifting the rope to another strong point, and he doubled the lashings which held the steering frame together. Later, I crawled forward to inspect the mainmast and found that the main thwart had been bent upward in a curve, probably by the same forces which were causing the stern to droop. It was inadvisable to poke and pry too closely with one’s fingers near the mast for the gaps between the thwart and the mast were opening and closing like giant pincers with the motion of the boat, and threatened to crush one’s fingers.

Thoughtfully I crawled back and considered our position.
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was changing her shape. I did not believe it was yet dangerous, but it was very evident that we were dependent on the quality of our basic materials: the timber had to be strong enough to withstand the constant whiplash effect of the flexing hull, and the leather thongs which tied the framework together had to continue to hold. Above all, the leather skin needed to be tough enough to survive the increased sagging and wrinkles, and the miles of flax thread were now under greater strain than ever before, and must not snap. In a strange way I was reassured. It occurred to me that what a medieval boat-builder might have lacked in his knowledge of naval architecture, he gained in the quality
of the materials he used, materials which he had selected critically and then prepared with the utmost care. Aboard
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we were learning this lesson for ourselves in a host of small ways. Item by item, our modern equipment was collapsing under the conditions. Our shiny, new, modern metal tools, for example, had virtually rusted away, despite their protecting layer of oil. After a month aboard
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a tempered saw blade simply snapped like a rotten carrot; a miner’s lamp, which I had hoped to use as a night light, was useless. Tough enough for a lifetime’s use in the mines, its metal gauze had corroded into a solid mass, and its iron rivets dropped streaks of rust. Of our modern materials, only the best stainless steel, the solid plastic, and the synthetic ropes were standing up to the conditions. It was instructive that whenever a modern item broke, we tended to replace it with a homemade substitute devised from the ancient materials of wood, leather, and flax. These we could work and fashion, sew and shape to suit the occasion. The product usually looked cumbersome and rough, but it survived and we could repair it ourselves. Whereas when metal snapped, or plastic ripped, the only choice without a workshop on board was to jettison the broken item.

It all added up to the realization that the sailors of Saint Brendan’s day were in fact better equipped materially—as well as mentally—than is usually acknowledged. The early medieval sailors had access to superb materials which lasted well, and, if they failed, could be repaired with simple tools. Even their clothing was admirably suited to the conditions, as all of us on
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were finding. As the weather turned colder, we had replaced our clothes of artificial fiber in favor of old-fashioned woollen clothes, reeking of natural wool oil. We may have looked and smelled unlovely, but our oiled wool sweaters, thigh-length wool sea-boot socks, and cowl-like woollen helmets were not materially different from the garments available in Saint Brendan’s day.

A calm day, June 19, provided a good demonstration of the shortcomings of some of our modern equipment. After breakfast George went forward to dig out the day’s food pack.

“Ugh! Look at this!” he called out, holding up the plastic sack with an expression of disgust. It looked like a putrid goldfish bowl, half full of slimy brown water which dripped from one corner. Blobs of food floated by in a soupy mass inside. “How revolting,” muttered Gannet,
and then more hopefully, “Let’s open it and see if there’s anything still edible.” George ripped open the bag. Despite its double sealing, a leak had somehow developed in the plastic, and the bag had absorbed a couple of gallons of sea water and rain. Disgustedly, George poured overboard a foul-smelling mess of tea-colored water, which splattered out wet lumps of sugar, sodden tea bags, soggy shortbread biscuits and gluey lumps of porridge, all totally ruined. Gannet hopefully seized on a packet that looked less damaged than most.

“Oatmeal biscuits,” he exulted. Then he took a bite. “Foch!” He spat out the mouthful. “They’re saturated in salt,” he complained.