reserve buoyancy, the horizon. As we drew S¢ren's stern rose closer , the other sharply to meet each watches were called big roller with ease. from below. By 0520 Her decks, though on December 9, our steep and awash, were 45th day out, the sheer, grey cliffs of not as treacherous as on the big metal ships. the Hom were finally By 0700 we had a two miles abeam as NNW Force 10 and we made 8 knots the reefed mainsail under an ominous Two crew aloft on S~ren leaden sky and a folhad to be handed and S~ren Larsen and Eye of the Wind stowed. Getting the lowing Force 6 wind. S¢ren Larsen had become the first Britheavy swinging boom down safely on the ish wooden square rigger to round the gallows required all the cool judgment of Hom for many a year. Twenty-six hours Mate Cottier. Running under main stays' 1, lowertops'l and fore topmast stays' 1, we later, Eye of the Wind followed suit. We romped along, making 212 miles in our paused from the celebration and photobestday's run so far. The weather was not graphs as Captain Tony Davies held a moment's silence to remember those sustained, but we were reassured to find that ship and crew were up to it. The day seafarers of all nationalities who had took its toll with various sprains and perished in these waters in the years gone by. bruises, the worst being suffered by Dick Scotland from New Zealand. He received It was three more days before we could feel solid ground beneath our feet in Port a gash to the forehead after being thrown Capt. Tony Davies and First Mate Jim Cottier into the scuppers and had to be stitched up Stanley in the Falkland Islands. We had by Cath Pigott, the young Irish doctor aboard. the briefest chance to visit the many historic wrecks there, Days and weeks rolled by. The winds were oddly variable, including the Lady Elizabeth andlhelum, before sailing to make but the temperature grew steadily colder as we reached 50°-55° Montevideo for Christmas. South. As we sailed farther from land, we were acutely aware The second leg of the Homeward 'Round the Hom voyage of the vastness of that ocean and our own isolation. One tookS¢renLarsonandEyeoftheWindeastandnorththroughthe wonderedatthefortitudeofformerCapeHomersintheselonely Tradewinds to the remote South Atlantic Islands. In three waters, without even the comfort of radio contact. For the crew, months we watched the stars slowly tum upside down, realizing their way of life prior to the start of the trip was now a dim our circumnavigation was nearly complete as we saw the Pole memory;sleepwaswonin short Star again for the first time on the northern horizon and snatches, day and night had no distinction, personal space did watched the Southern Cross not exist, tallowed and salty fade from sight to the South. damp clothes were reworn After 17,778 miles and 130 againandagain,andeveneightdays, 21 hours, we made the day intervals between freshport of Lisbon. water showers were accepted. It was the end of a unique But rather than focusing on the voyage and I knew I would rough, cold and wet, I will remiss the big ocean skies, the creak and moan of the rigmember the Southern Ocean as big-very big. ging, the exacting care of On December 6, at 58°22' working aloft on the open sea, the encounters with visiting South, we wore ship in light winds and made our final tack dolphins and whales, the ever northeast toward the Hom . It present wheeling albatross, was a fine 4°c on deck, al- "Cape Horn in sight!"-from the the aft deck the conical shape of and, above all, the comradethough Eye of the Wind had Cape Horn can be seen in the background. ship of our crew. Perhaps in some snow and hail during the night. 40 or 50 years' time I may even stand on the deck of a tall ship Twodayslater,ourfirstsightofland waslsleDiegoRamirez- with a shipmate and tell another generation of sailors of the some miles SW of the Cape where the seabed shelves steeply time we went round the Horn with Davies and Cottier in the from 4500 meters to 400 meters-where we spoke to the S¢ren Larsen, back in 1991! bemused Chilean Lighthouse keeper on VHF. The ship's bread is baked nightly by the midnight to 0400 A shipbroker, chartering bulk cargo ships, Ian Hutchinson watch, and, it being my tum, I was in the galley kneading sailed out to Australia on the S0ren Larsen in 1988 and chose dough when the door was flung open and an excited figure the Cape Horn voyage to make his return to England in 1992 . cried: "Cape Hom in sight!" Even at 0215 it was getting light For more information contact Ocean Voyages, 1709 and I could just make out a small conical irregularity on the Bridgeway, Sausalito CA 94965. SEA HISTORY JOO, SPRING 2002
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