Geoffrey Jenkins: A Ravel of Waters

Classified: Top Secret. Red Code. Office of Issue: Task Force 24, Atlantic Fleet HQ, Norfolk, Virginia.

Monitored exchange of final signals between Orion T-3 on maximum-range search of Southern Ocean and Commander, US Naval Securities Group Activities, South Atlantic, Sector T-G-F South (Tristan da Cunha). Location of missing aircraft: Uncertain. Last position and intended movement reported on entering Southern Ocean Air-Launched Acoustical Reconnaissance Zone SSI on an effective air path of 220 degrees (true) between Lat. 440 South and Long. 140 West, approx. 850 sea miles SSW Tristan da Cunha. Time: 21’2’81 Mission: Top Secret. Acoustic Intelligence. Crew: 12 Report Orders: Special visual flight rules. Air reports in plain language. Weather at time of loss: Force 9 gale, severe maritime polar air mass (analysis by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency). Course, directional controlled automatic meteorological (special Antarctic compensations). Visibility, poor. Intercept Tracking and Control Group: Detached unit, US Naval Securities Group Activities, Tristan da Cunha. Surface Observation Report immediately prior to loss: Yacht in full sail, mysterious type of rig. No Mayday Evaluation of loss: Possible enemy underwater-to-air missile.

MONITOR: Tape input begins. The following is a verbatim reel of the cockpit tape of missing Orion T-3, the last flight deck conversations between Captain Bill Werner and his crew, as well as verbal reports by Captain Werner to Commander, US Naval Securities Group on the island of Tristan da Cunha, South Atlantic. Reel commences…

'Hello, NSGA, Bill Werner reporting, Orion T-3. Do you hear me?'

'I hear you. Bill. Readability, strength and tone okay. Shoot.'

"Fine. "

"Fine. Time 0100 GMT. Estimated position 850 miles south-southwest of Tristan, approximately 600 miles south-southwest of Gough Island.'

'What the hell's wrong with your navigation. Bill? Can't you do better than that? Be exact. You could be anywhere.'

'Maybe I am, fellah. You should be here. I'm flying blind, dead blind. I reckon the top of the overcast could be anything up to 30,000 feet. There's a 50-knot gale. I'm plugging right into the teeth of it. Air speed is down to 200 knots — plane's guzzling gas.'

'What's your visibility?'

'Nil. I couldn't see another plane if it came into me. It's nine hours since take-off-and this ship can stay in the air for seventeen. Not at this rate though.'

'You're not going to crap out of the mission because of that, are you, Bill?'

'Who said I was crapping out? You should be here to see for yourself. This is one hell of a cockamamie search — acoustical reconnaissance, Jeez! All the acoustics I can hear is the sound of the goddam gale!'

'Nothing on your anti-sub plot? No malfunction of your electronic data-gathering gear? No intercept?'

'You're making my co-pilot piss himself laughing, fellah. I said, you should be here. This sort of flying is poker with everything wild. There isn't a damn thing from here to Cape Horn. Not a ship, not an island — nothing! It's all sea and gale and icebergs. As for a Red sub…!'

'What is your estimated time to the turn, Bill?'

'Could be anything. Depends on how much gas she consumes how far south I get. I'm at 10,000 feet now. I've been right down to 2000 and up to 20,000 looking for easier conditions. It don't make much difference to the gale. Hey, wait a moment…!'

MONITOR: Crew report. Surface radar and navigation operator to pilot. Pilot's voice resumes.

'I've got a surface intercept on the radar! Can you believe it! Out here!'

'You sure, Bill? It's not a radar angel — an iceberg?'

'No. We're holding the image. It's a ship, for sure! Looks like a small one.'

'Maybe it's a sub sail, Bill?'

'I'm going down to investigate. Keep the line open, fellah!'

'For sure.'

MONITOR: This section of the tape has been shortened. It covers the descent of the Orion through heavy overcast with nil visibility and Force 9 gale to zero altitude above sea surface. There are no reports of instrument or mechanical failure from the aircraft. Pilot's voice resumes.

'Three hundred feet — two fifty — two hundred — cloud's clearing — it's clear — Holy Mother of God!'

'What is it. Bill? What is it, man!'

'It's enough to blow your mind — I've never seen anything like this!'

'Bill! Report, for Chrissake!'

'Sorry. It took my breath away. I'm at 200 feet. As far as I can see the water looks like calf slobber — there are icebergs everywhere! Like huge meringues! Every goddam iceberg you ever saw! Whole clusters of 'em! There's also one hell of a berg — yeah, it's all one berg — it goes back clean to the horizon…'

'You're crazy. Bill! One berg that big!'

'I'm flying alongside it now — it's higher than our altitude — the top of it is lost in the overcast…'

'What do you estimate its size to be. Bill?'

'I can't.'

'Whadderyemean, you can't?'

'See here, fellah, I've never seen a sea like this. The whole ocean's like a vast Shivering Liz pudding made out of icebergs — the sea's all slushy in between — it's steaming mist and fog — and I'm manoeuvring round the shoulder of this great berg now — there it is! Surface observation, visual! It's a sub sail… no, hold it! It is a boat! A yacht! A yacht, do you hear? Here! She's travelling fast, too. She's planing down the waves like a rollercoaster — I can see her wake — I'll be over her in a moment. Say, there's something wrong! I can spot the sea through her sails — they're not ordinary sails — they're sails with slits in 'em — looks like a kinda Venetian blind turned wrong way up…'

MONITOR: What follows is a flight deck conversation between pilot and crew.

'Captain! Captain! Visual! There! Starboard! Coming up out of the sea… ‘

'Captain here! Missile alert! Stand by everyone! Emergency evasive drill! Underwater-to-air missile tracking radar on! Jesus! It's too late! We've bought the farm! It's going to catch us right up the ass…

MONITOR: Tape returns to zero. No further contact.

Windeater. That should have been her name.

Her sails were six pairs of lips, parted now like a woman's in passion. Six on the main, six on the jib. Each pair seemed to drink in the wind, swallow it and, by some magic of aerodynamics, regurgitate it as energy to thrust the yacht's lean hull through the sea at speeds unheard of by conventional rigs.

Both sails, the main and the jib, were, unlike any others, split into segments lengthwise to the top of the mast. Each strip had transverse battens fixed at intervals to make for easy handling.

This was a space-age rig. Named the Venetian Rig, in memory of the Venetian Republic's great sailing past. Into the design of the wind-filled dacron segments above my head had gone all that man had learned of aerodynamics. Solar energy, in the form of wind, was being converted into thrust in a way which made the conventional sail as out of date as the Wright Brothers' first aeroplane compared to a Concorde.

Those dozen cross-battened strips of dacron had gunned me from Cape Horn to the Cape of Good Hope in record time for a single-handed sailor: 4200 sea-miles in twenty-six days — an average speed of seven knots.

Now Albatros and I were at the end of our journey. At about 10.30 in the morning, I looked up, the way I had checked those newfangled sails a thousand times during my race across the world's wildest ocean. Suddenly, the high rocky cliffs of the coast-line, backed by bush-covered hills, opened like a gate. About a mile away, bearing about ten degrees, was my landfall, my home-coming from an epic journey. These were the Heads of Knysna, entrance to the small port on the Cape's southern coast where Albatros had first taken the water. She was the third sailing ship to carry the famous name. The first had been a schooner which had brought a family of boat-builders, the Thesens, from Norway to Knysna over a century before. The second had been a Cape-to-Rio yacht race winner. But my Albatros had proved to be the fastest sailing boat afloat between Cape Horn and the Cape.