Stupidity, Me and the Sea

Sometimes I amaze myself at just how idiotic I can be.


Kalinka in front of the Rock of Gibraltar

The particular madness I’m about to relate took place around 1972 when I purchased a 52 ft. ex British Navy harbour launch in Gibraltar.  I’d set out to buy a sailboat, but due to some  brain damage I must have suffered as a child (perhaps I was dropped on my head), ended up with this thing.

Her name was Kalinka. She had a hull of diagonal double planked teak along with teak decks. Her engine was a five cylinder Rustin diesel that was started by a burst of compressed air.

Bringing the engine to life made the most delightful sound—a great whooosh of air then the steady thump, thump, thump of the big slow-revving diesel.

My shipmate Willy (who became the designated engineer) and I chuffed around the ports of Spain and Morocco in the old Kalinka and had a fine time of it.

Beneath the engine room floor snaked an absolute labyrinth of copper pipes, the workings of which the previous owner—a burly Irishman by the name of Patrick Rafferty—took pains to explain. I dutifully made a detailed diagram of said pipes but did not, however, trace them to check the veracity of what the Irishman had told me.  Being double planked, the hull took on so little water during our coastal jaunts that it was easier to use the hand pump than deal with a daunting number of valves.

These short coastal voyages gave me confidence. Way too much confidence—and this is where the really dumb part comes in.

Me and Willy

I decided to sail the Kalinka back to Canada.

One would think, after all the ocean sailing I’d done, that I’d be a trifle leery of taking a vessel specifically designed for harbour service across the North Atlantic.  But no—when you’re young, anything seems possible.  Besides, it was summer so how bad could the seas get?

Willy and I loaded the aft cabin with drums of diesel and, one fine morning after Rob, our third crew member had arrived, we set out—spirits high with the promise of adventure.

A hundred miles or so out to sea, with night closing in, our adventure arrived. The headwind and waves began to pick up disturbingly.

As darkness fell we commenced our staggered watch system which would have two of us in the wheelhouse at all times. Willy was to have the first couple of hours below.

Kalinka had a fine bow suited to cutting through calm harbour waters…which meant that she also cut through, rather than rose above, the rising Atlantic seas. Waves crashed over the bow and slammed into the wheelhouse.

After a few minutes, Willy came back up to the wheelhouse attired in—believe it or not—a pair of green monogrammed pyjamas, carrying a wormed toothbrush and glass of water in his hand. The moment he stepped out on deck to attend to his fangs, the Kalinka buried her nose into a wave, soaking Willy to the skin. Inside the wheelhouse, Rob and I roared with laughter.





An hour or so after a drenched Willy had gone below I opened the engine room hatch to check on the old Rustin.

Willy and me pretending we know what we're doing.

To my horror, the floor boards were submerged and the flywheel was sending oily bilge-water all over the place. Engineer Willy had to be roused from his bunk to deal with the situation. Again he ascended to the wheelhouse in monogrammed pyjamas—this time of a burgundy shade. But after a few minutes in the engine room they were blackened by the oily bilge water being liberally distributed by the flywheel. After activating the mechanical bilge pump, he returned to his bunk.

Fifteen minutes later I checked to see how the pump was faring. I was aghast to see that the water had now risen to more than half way up the flywheel—the lower portion of the engine was completly submerged.

So there we were, over a hundred miles from land, with the wind beginning to howl, the seas rising and the vessel taking on water at an alarming rate. The captain (me) assembled the crew (Willy and Rob) and—according to Willy—uttered the words that to this day he has never allowed me to forget: “We’re in a serious situation lads.”

So what was my crew’s reaction to these captainly words of wisdom? The two clowns doubled over with laughter!

Well, to lop a bit off an overly long story, there was no sleep for any of us that night. We exhausted ourselves taking turns at the manual pump and slumping over the wheel.

Around midnight, having discovered that our dinghy/lifeboat had been carried away, discretion overcame valour—we did a one-eighty and headed back toward land. Thrashing away at the hand pump with the wind and seas behind us, we almost managed to keep pace with the incoming water. We only began to gain when Willy turned off the mechanical pump.

We later discovered that the wretched Irishman had given us totally incorrect directions. In following them we’d activated the fire fighting equipment and, with no hose attached, were pumping vast quantities of the North Atlantic into our bilge.

This is a shorter version of an article that appeared in Better Boating in 1975.