Op Sail '92 by-way of
CAPE DORN by Ian Hutchinson In early October 1991, a special reunion of the Cape Homers Association took place aboard a British square rigger in Sydney Harbor. The ship S¢ren Larsen was about to depart on a unique sixmonth voyage to Europe that would take her across the empty tracks of the Southern Ocean and into the Atlantic by way of the infamous Cape Hom. There were some poignant moments as the old-timers walked the decks and looked wistfully up into the rigging and earnestly gave us, the present crew, the benefits of their experience in the P amir, Pas sat and Joseph Conrad and told tales of past captains, comrades and gales off the Hom. "Homeward 'Round the Horn" planned to take two ships (the wooden hermaphrodite brig S¢ren Larsen and the iron-hulled brigantine Eye of the Wind) via Auckland, New Zealand, to Montevideo, on the river Plate, around Cape Hom. The opportunity to make The S¢ren Larsen such a passage was too good to miss and I quit my job in shipbroking to join S¢ren Larsen' s crew. On the 7th of October we sailed out of Sydney Heads in excited anticipation. For Tony Davies, S¢ren Larsen's owner and captain, the commitment to bring the ship to the North Atlantic to participate in the Columbus celebrations allowed him to fullfill a lifetime ambition: to sail a traditional square rigger en route around Cape Hom. As with previous projects, the voyage costs were covered by the 21 "voyage crew," who paid for their berths aboard and stood watches alongside the captain, mates, bo' sun, sailmaker, shipwright, purser and deckhands of the professional permanent crew. Our first mate, Jim Cottier, was the former mate of the Sorlandet and a fiercely traditional square-rig seafarer. "There will be no passengers on this trip," he explained in a stem but reasonable tone as he organized us into three watches and outlined the ship's routine, sail handling and deck duties. The voyage crew were a SEA HISTORY 100, SPRING 2002
diverse mixture of backgrounds and ages. Some had sailed on the ship before and saw the Southern Ocean as the ultimate sailing challenge. Others had never even set foot on a sailing ship and looked as if they were wondering if they had made a very grave mistake indeed as they hung miserably over the lee rail, failing to get their sea legs in the first days across the Tasman. It took S¢ren nine days to cover the 1352 miles to Auckland, S¢ren's Pacific base, where the bulk of the provisioning was done for the long passage ahead. The ship absorbed impossibly vast quantities of meat and dry stores into every available compartment and locker within her hull. On deck, a brand new mainsail, upper topsail and staysails were bent on, and the deck house reinforced in anticipation of the heavy weather"down south." On the 29th of October, our fourth day out, we had NNW force 6 to 7 on our port quarter with steady rain. The still fresh crew was tested for the first time, as watches struggled to reef down the main. By mid-morning we were making 9 knots, sailing SE into the Southern Pacific. This didn't last long, and we ran into light headwinds. On the 7th of November the log despondently read "Eby N force 2-3, 48°40' South, 165°35' West. Wore ship at midnight thick fog and drizzle . . . 97 miles by log but 5 miles easting made today. Stuck in the Southern Ocean .. . ." The forties were certainly not roaring for us at this stage, and for the next week progress was painfully slow. Inclement weather kept us below decks when not on watch. For the crew this was a period of consolidation. The ship's routine slowly took over our lives: four hours on/eight hours off, the clamor of meal times, the ritual of clambering into damp oilskins to go out on deck, and the daily navigation and ropework classes held by our tireless first mate, Jim Cottier. "People come to the ship for different things," explained Captain Tony Davies. "Some to experi3l