One from the history books

Time's a funny thing. In August of 1979, I was a week past my 18th birthday, and while I had an ex-sailor as a father, I harboured no ambitions I can recall (pun intended) to set off to sea and, if not to challenge the elements, to accommodate them without killing myself or the family I had yet to acquire.

Last year, I met John Rousmaniere, an American sailor with a French name known for sailing in the notorious 1979 Fastnet race that killed 15 yachtsmen, and for writing the widely consulted Annapolis Book of Seamanship, now in its 3rd edition.

I met Rousmaniere at a 2010 Safety at Sea seminar I wanted to take to consolidate my safety knowledge after having a testing, if educational, heavy weather delivery in 2009 in the Atlantic. I found him a pretty sober and down-to-earth speaker, who freely admitted that after a lifetime of sailing, he didn't have all the answers, but the answers he did have might prove broadly useful.

I found myself thinking that while reading his now-"classic" work, Fastnet, Force 10. Rousmaniere sailed in that race, but on a relatively large boat and in somewhat less fierce conditions than who was faced by the IOR-design rule 35 footers. His was a challenging race, but neither a fatal one, nor one from which he required rescue in appalling, washing-machine conditions of a full gale (50-60 knots or more) coming in hard and fast over shoaling waters inbetween Ireland and Britain, an area known as the Western Approaches.

For those not familar with the Fastnet race, it is a biannual, roughly 600 mile beat (usually) from the more southerly parts of England to a designed rock off the southwest coast of Ireland and back. While not particularly long in terms of ocean racing, it has been noted as challenging and very competitive, and has a certain prestige that has attracted sailors from the pro ranks down to the weekender. Several qualifying races are required, but in 1979, the level of aptitude could charitably be described as variable, as were the presence of two-way radios and other safety gear aboard. As Rousmaniere notes, a certain gung-ho attitude prevailed, and valour sometimes trumped discretion once the story of the explosive and tight low-pressure system that dealt so much death in the Celtic Sea became known.

Earlier, I referred to Fastnet, Force 10 as a "classic". I use quotes not only because John Rousmaniere himself is neither dead nor, to my knowledge, has ceased to sail, but rather because so many other important works of sailing in the last 30 years refer to or quote from, this book. It is important and relevant because it relates a specific story (the tragedy falling on a crowded race of yachts small and large from random and indifferent Nature) to a general human tendency to sometime choose to persist in an action in the face of increasing danger. While Rousmaniere relates some tales of pure bad luck, in which experienced sailors were killed largely not via their sensible and prudent actions, but through hard chance, he also points out situations in which staying with a half-sunken boat may have been the wiser course than was launching a life raft (some of which proved inadequate or faulty) into a very confused sea. Given the attrition rates of certain boat designs (the IOR rule was prevalent at the time, with its flat bottoms and pinched ends and skegless rudders), the rules were altered to beef up certain classes, although it remains unclear if any boat could have continued in one piece in some of the extreme conditions this Fastnet race encountered.

Nonetheless, and unlike some at the time who didn't sail the race, Rousmaniere does not judge, because he did not face the very stark choices before some of the crews that found themselves half-awash, dismasted and with injured crew, watching breaking seas approach from several directions. (Sincerely, this book, like many of its similar "boat race goes bad" progeny, made me quite tense at times, but I hope to learn from the experience!).

Speaking of progeny, Fastnet, Force 10 is the granddaddy of some similar works, such as A Voyage for Madmen, the story of the 1968 solo round-the-world boat race, and Fatal Storm, about the 1998 Sydney-Hobart race, another legendarily rough passage about the same distance as the Fastnet. I have also read, and alternated enjoyment with shuddering, the very good Rescue in the Pacific, about the 1994 "Queen's Birthday Storm", a well-described if poorly predicted "weather bomb" that fatally smacked participants in a New Zealand to Fiji ocean race.

Rousmaniere was arguably the start of the modern post-race "bad storm" narrative, and his book still holds up. I am just surprised it took me this long to read it. And lest you think me a touch morbid in having read so many tragedy-at-sea stories, I must convey that I learn a great deal about everyday sailing from these books, and how much of survival at sea is less to do with the boat and the gear (although both in failure mode can be very challenging indeed), but with experience, mental attitude and flexibility. Yacht racing is a wonderful sport that few have the drive, skill and sometimes deep pockets to pursue. It attracts a "type", frequently a very driven, self-actualized personality that enjoys a bit of conquering now and then, particularly if it's the elements that need to be shown who's boss.

It goes without saying that "the elements" will provide an unshriven burial at sea at unpredictable intervals to even the most confident Master of the Universe and that turning back or heaving to or even running back to England might have been the prudent choice. Many did, and unfortunately, we barely hear from them, the "retirees", some of whom might have provided insight as to at what point you decide to let the sea have this round. Still, an exciting and relevant story I was glad to read.

A tale to tug at the heartstrings

Most Canadians are familiar with the work of Farley Mowat, a populist historian and tale-spinner whose fictional, historical and reportage work featured in my school days, and likely many others. Americans and other foreigners may know of him from the films Never Cry Wolf and Lost in the Barrens.


I thought I was pretty familiar with his books, but I recently stumbled upon an early (1958) non-fiction entry of fairly specific nautical interest called The Grey Seas Under: The Perilous Rescue Missions of a North Atlantic Salvage Tug. "Perilous" is somewhat of an undersell; the ice-crusted, gale-lashed, and eventually U-Boat infested voyages of Foundation Franklin, an ocean-going salvage tug powered by steam and the near-infinite capacity for hardship of her various crew make for exciting page-turning. Part of this is because Mowat vividly brings to life the desperate poverty of the Great Depression in maritime Canada. The purchase of Foundation Franklin, originally built in 1918 as a Royal Navy tug intended to tow damaged destroyers to safe harbours, but superannuated by peace, gave the Foundation Company of Canada a new trade as ocean salvors, a dangerous but potentially lucrative sideline to dredging and running harbour tugs.

Once refurbished, Franklin had a less than stellar early career, as there was no real tradition of ocean salvage in Canada, and her skippers and crew had to learn on the job after many failures, some harrowing. Soon enough, however, it was Franklin that would venture out in the most appalling conditions to expertly lay messenger lines over the bows of disabled and sometimes actively sinking ships, and would, under threat of fuel exhaustion and with no hope of others rescuing them, get the ships back to Halifax or St. John's.

The salvage business is legalistic and highly competitive. Salvors have specific rights and duties, but the actual process was, in the days before easy radio communications and navigational beacons, also highly speculative. A disabled ship could issue an SOS, but might refuse to take a tow if the salvage tug could even locate them. Locating a drifting ship was a black art of the salvage skippers, who might have a rough bearing to go by thanks to primitive radio direction finding...but only if the ships afflicted could themselves continue to transmit. Some American ships wanted American tugs to take them to American ports, even when this course layered on extra hazards. Others would decline to take a tow because of the contractual obligation. Some ships were able to fix their problems and did not need assistance, leading to a wasted trip and tons of coal burnt for nothing. Others would simply disappear beneath the waves before the tug could arrive.

The Second World War brought added drama. The German subs were everywhere in the first years, and defence against them was weak at first. The tug itself was a legitimate target, but Franklin, despite some very close calls, still managed to bring dozens of ships with vital fuels, foods and war materials back to port. The job was so rough, it became hard to attract crews: overtime and regular meals in a nice, warm war factory must have seemed better than sidling up to out-of-control freighters in 25-foot seas and 80 knot storms.

The fact that I knew very little of this story is particularly poignant to me as my late father was a teenager in the British Merchant Marine during this time and it is quite likely that some of the ships damaged by enemy action or disabled by terrible storms were taken in tow by this little if powerful and hardy vessel. The role of the Merchant Marines of Britain, Canada, the U.S. and Norway is not nearly as venerated as is the role of the fighting forces, and yet to my mind, it takes greater nerve to crew on a single-hulled tanker filled with aviation fuel through the U-Boat "wolfpacks" than it did for large proportions of the armed forces, who, after all, may have served proudly without ever getting near the front.

So the story of the salvage tugs that saved these ships and their crews is perhaps doubly unknown, and at the time of this writing, May 8, 2011, the 66th anniversary of the allied victory in Europe, it seems fitting that Farley Mowat wrote such a fabulous and inspiring account of men who worked through the entire war as more or less sitting ducks, and yet did not hesitate to venture out in service to others. This review also notes that Mr. Mowat is still with us and still writing, and this week will celebrate his 90th birthday. My wife's grandmother died last year at age 93, would occasionally mention Mr. Mowat as she was his babysitter around the year that Foundation Franklin came to Canada for a long and eventful career. Small world, but I'd hate to take it under tow.

Highly recommended if you can find it.