The summer after my junior college year I worked at Woods Hole on Cape Cod as part of the kitchen crew at the dining hall at the MBL—The Marine Biological Laboratory—a world famous institution, attracting marine biologists from all over the world.
I worked in the serving line. It was a good spot to be, as one could chat with the people coming through the line as opposed being one of the pot-wallopers (scouring and cleaning up the cooking pots) where one was perpetually facing a tub of suds.
Our working hours were from 7 to 9 in the morning, from 11 to 1 mid-day, then from 5 to 7 in the evening, affording mid-morning and mid-afternoon two-hour breaks on your own time. It was a short walk to small, quaint Stoney beach with its public and private sections. Or, on cloudy days, one might go to the MBL Library, which was well stocked, though top-heavy with scientific books and journals. One rainy afternoon there I glimpsed at a nearby table noted physicist and prolific science writer George Gamow, author of One Two Three… Infinity, shuffling though stacks of notes, perhaps preparing a new publication.
In addition to my dining hall work, I tried out for and got a part in Noel Coward’s Hay Fever, the Silver Anniversary production of the Penzance Players, a amateur theatrical group founded and run by college-age children of the summer residents whose ample homes sat on the broad spit of land named Penzance Point or by the coast along Fay Road. The play was to be presented at the Woods’s Hole Community Center, a small century-old building on Water Street next to the old firehouse.
During one of the rehearsal breaks, Michael, a fellow member of the cast whom I’d gotten to know a bit, invited me to go for a sail on his family’s small sailboat, the Opsin, named after a substance in the retina of the eye that his father had researched for which he’d later share in a Nobel prize. I told Mike, as he preferred to be called, that l I’d love to take him up on his offer, but I didn’t know the least bit about handling a sailboat. He said not to worry; he’d teach me.
The Opsinwas a Town Class sloop, sixteen and one-half feet long, with a lapstrake hull of overlapping narrow mahogany planks, a triangular mainsail plus a jib. Instead of a keel, it had a brass centerboard that could be raised or lowered by means of a lever.
The afternoon break was better for sailing, the sun being higher and the air a bit warmer. Mike and I pushed Opsinoff from the beach, and hopped in. Following Mike’s direction, we raised the mainsail, and let it flap loosely in the wind while we unfurled the jib. We then backed the jib, holding it by its free point to one side to catch the wind and head the prow toward the opposite side. Then, setting the mainsail by hauling on the main sheet, we were underway.
We first practiced tacking, Mike talking me through the maneuver. On a tack you are sailing more or less intothe wind. On a starboard tack, the wind is coming at you over the left or port side of the bow. Conversely, on a port tack, the wind is coming at you over the right or starboard side of the bow.
To change what kind of tack you are on—either from port to starboard, or the reverse—the helmsman at the tiller will say ‘ready to tack’ or ready about,” and just before performing the maneuver will say ‘tacking,’ The helmsman will then push the tiller toward the mainsail, upon which the sail will swing over and switch sides. While this is happening, the crew and helmsman will change sides to balance the weight on the boat. When the boat is on the desired course, the helmsman brings the tiller to center.
In jibing, the wind is coming from behind the boat, with the boom and mainsail hanging out toward the left (port) or right (starboard) side of the boat. Let’s say the wind is coming from the north with the heading of the boat being southwest, and you want to change the heading to be to the southeast. To prepare for the jibe, one hauls in on the mainsheet so that distance the boom will travel during the jibe is minimized. The helmsman announces ‘jibe ho,’ and turns the boat across the wind; the mainsail and boom will swing across the boat. Finally, the mainsail is trimmed for the new setting.
Jibing is more difficult than tacking because the mainsail moves from far out on one side of the boat to the other. The boom can be moving very fast, and can be dangerous to anyone in its path. In my novel Sailor Take Warningprotagonist Bill Rundle is taken for a sail in Sydney, Australia harbor by his girlfriend’s cousin Sergei Tartarinoff and receives a violent cuff on the head during a jibe. Whether this happens by accident or is deliberate is part of the suspense of the story.
While Mike and I were sailing the narrow passage between Wood’s Hole and the eastern end of Nonamesset Island, Mike cautioned that we shouldn’t get too close to “The Hole,” a section of the strait where, at the changing of the tides, a strong current can grab you if you are, as we were, in a small boat. The current’s force can be strong enough to cause marker buoys, attached the sea floor by their chain, to lie almost flat in the tidal rush.
The tidal whirlpool off Wood’s Hole, while potentially troublesome to small craft, is as nothing in comparison to some in other parts of the world. Called maelstroms, such tidal currents can form a whirlpool of such size and strength as to be truly terrifying. One such is the Corryvrecken maelstrom off the west coast of Scotland between the islands of Jura and Scarba. Its waves can be as much as 30 feet high, and its roar can be heard 10 miles distant.
I’ve never done any ocean sailing or racing. Since learning the rudiments of small boat handling on Opisin, I rented a variety small sailboats for an afternoon’s sail at Marblehead: Lightning’s, International 110’s and 210’s, Cape Cod Mercury’s. I pretty well could handle the sails on all of these, but tides and currents always baffled me. On many occasions when returning from the outer to inner harbor at Marblehead, I took overly much time and tacking/jibing while fighting the, to me, indecipherable current.