Audrey Liza – Chapter 13
Sunday Girl
‘All hands on deck! Make ready to hoist sail, boys!’
Jamie tipped the dregs of his thin breakfast coffee down the sink and scrambled to answer Skipper Ana’s call. A chance to salvage some last shred of credibility as a sailor, perhaps?
After a grim first day he’d fallen into a deep, exhausted sleep – and awoken to feel much, much better. Wrung out like a dishrag, but no longer spewy. The fuzz had gone from his head, too.
Stu was already on deck, busy with ropes. Lines, sheets, halyards, preventers, vangs, stays, warps or shrouds, who knew?
‘Jamie – on the halyard winch, mate,’ called Stu. ‘That’s the one. Crank away! Clockwise, then anticlockwise when you need more power.’
He did as he was told.
The mainsail ascended steadily into the sky. Up and up, until its head reached the top of the impossibly tall, slender mast.
‘Easy now … One last turn … That’ll do us.’
The heavy white fabric ruffled and flapped in the breeze – the same stiff southeast trade they’d had all day yesterday. Then Ana put the helm to port, and it filled with moving air.
She put the engine into neutral, then turned it off. Silence!
No, not silence. As his ears grew accustomed to the lack of that steady throb, he could hear the slap of each wave on the bow, its fizz down the side; the thrum of the wind in the rigging and an occasional snap from that great white wing, angling up into the azure sky.
‘Make ready the genoa,’ instructed Ana. ‘Jamie – port sheet winch.’ She indicated which one she meant.
Jamie cranked the winch while Stu paid out the line which had kept the big headsail tightly rolled. The perfect twisting curve of the mainsail was joined by another: scooping the wind, funnelling and accelerating it through the gap.
Jamie watched Stu trim the sails. Though he’d never sailed in his life, instinct told him that the set of the two big fabric triangles was right. Every force, every tension, every curved plane – they were beginning to work in harmony. You could feel it.
Sunday Girl heeled, gathered way, and lifted to the swell.
She was transformed. From a sleek piece of engineering she became a living creature. A thing of courage and grace, eager for the open sea.
His heart lifted with her.
His Audrey Liza would never do this. She would always have to shoulder the waves aside, butt and bash her way through them. She would never fly across the face of the deep like a great bird.
His boat was a different species entirely, a forest creature afloat. She smelled of tar and pine and diesel. She would creak and grumble, mutter and groan. The light inside her hull would be a soft twilight, not bright tropical sun filtered through smoked polycarbonate. Every inch of her was shaped with adze and saw, plane and sandpaper – not premoulded then assembled in a factory. She spoke not of luxury but of hard lives lived in toil: grim-faced men leaving their anxious women and children ashore, going out to snatch a living from a violent sea.
He knew which he preferred – but this was still a glorious thing.
Ana answered his exalted grin with her own. ‘Good to turn off the motor, yes? We made good progress yesterday, but not so fun, bashing into wind. Now we have sea room, and the sails they need the air, the ropes they need to work. And you men need to work too – use the muscles, not get lazy and fat!’
Stu pointed out the triangular peaks to starboard: Palm Island. Mounts Bentley and Lindsay vivid green in the morning sun, washed clean by the heavy overnight showers.
‘Now, Jamie. If we were going to put you ashore on Magnetic, we’d run down due south on port tack, be there before lunch. What’d you reckon?’
‘Stuff that!’
‘That’s the way.’ Stu patted him on the back. ‘Reckon we’ll make a sailor of this bloke yet.’
Whatever Ana thought, she hid it behind a flash of white teeth.
‘How you feel? No more spew?’
‘Nah, reckon I’m right as rain, thanks. Sorry about yesterday.’
‘No, no, no. Not your fault! Never apologise for being seasick. Can happen to anyone.’
‘Ana’s right, mate,’ said Stu. ‘You can never say “Never.” There’s a motion of the boat for everyone. Probably your early start yesterday, then a touch of nerves. A spell down in the galley, lost sight of the horizon – and bingo.’
It wasn’t an auspicious beginning, though, was it? For a bloke who was planning to circumnavigate Australia in his crayboat. He’d been no bloody use yesterday. Unable even to think – just that fuzz in his brain and utter misery.
Hopefully he’d got it out of his system.
‘Nice.’ Stu handed back the phone. ‘Lot of work but.’
For the umpteenth time, Jamie had been playing through the videos Leigh had sent, of the launch of Audrey Liza. Good of her to make time to be there. There were tens of photos too, from her and from the yard. A long email from Doc. Progress: fair. Prognosis: excellent.
‘You’re not wrong. Glad I didn’t know what I was taking on.’
‘You didn’t?’
‘No bloody idea, if I’m honest. The scale of it’s just beginning to dawn on me now. So, while it’s great in some ways, being up north again …’ He waved around at the view.
‘Yeah, I get you. You want to get on with it. But she’ll be a month, probably, taking up, and there’s not much you can do while that’s happening. Just keep the pumps going, fingers, toes and everything crossed, be ready to haul her out again if it goes tits up … Yard knows what it’s doing, I take it?’
‘You betcha. They’re the best, far as I can judge.’
Which wasn’t actually very far, when he thought. He had confidence in Doc and Stan, though. Less confidence in his own caulking.
‘The best don’t come cheap.’
‘Like they say. “Fast, cheap, good. Pick any two …” To be honest though, it’s more like “any one.” They’re good, but perfectionists: slow and not cheap. I sometimes wonder whether it’s over the top, this much attention to detail – on a working boat. It’s not like she’s an Edwardian gentleman’s yacht. Everything’s gotta be done the traditional way. The slow way.’
‘Yeah, but you’re gonna be glad of the attention to detail, when you’re out in Bass Strait, or facing a buster up the east coast, or fighting the current in Torres, or bashing across the Bight.’
‘I guess.’
‘You’re going about it the right way, mate. One step at a time. Getting your sea legs, learning the skills, doing a proper job on the boat. Taking it slow and steady.’
‘If I ever get there.’
‘The joy’s in the voyage, Jamie, not the destination. Haven’t you realised that yet?’ He spread his arms as if to say: look around you. ‘Once you’re sitting on a boat, you’ve arrived. Anywhere you get to from there is a bonus.’
It was a good way to look at it. And relatable at this moment, as Sunday Girl sliced yet another foamy crest. Being right here, right now, was bloody magnificent.
But on the other hand …
‘Don’t think Dad would have agreed with you. I told you he was a cray fisherman, didn’t I?’
‘Yeah, you did. And it’d be fair enough, from his point of view. It was dirty and dangerous work. A bastard of a job. But I bet he loved it sometimes, too, just being out there … nobody to answer to but the wind and the waves. Anyhow, you’re not him.’
‘I’m not.’
‘And you’re not a lesser man for it – just a different man.’
Coming up:
This Friday in The Last Orchard: The unknown shooter turns out to be up for a yarn. (Paid subscription.)
Next Tuesday in Audrey Liza: Jamie gets an interesting offer at the family Christmas lunch.