Round The World In 1000 Breakages
Book Extract
Many yachtsmen today are quick to call upon the rescue services when things go wrong. Frenchman Alain Gerbault solved his own problems as he endlessly sailed alone around the world
The French yachtsman, linguist and champion lawn-tennis player, Alain Gerbault, abandoned his profession as a civil engineer, to sail Firecrest a 39 ft gaff-rigged yacht round the world. Like her owner Firecrest was long and thin. And while the wiry fitness of the skipper was an asset to ocean voyaging, the narrow beam of Firecrest was not. She was a Victorian racing cruiser, plank-on-edge type, flushdecked, of heavy displacement, the sort of boat in calm weather which would bob up and down in her own hole creating endless wear and tear. Designed by Dixon Kemp, and built by P. T. Harris at Rowhedge, Essex, in 1892, Firecrest’s overall length was 39 feet, her beam 8 ft 6 in, and her draught 7 feet. She had a lead keel weighing three and a half tons, with another three tons of internal ballast.
Gerbault sailed Firecrest from Southampton to the French Riviera and spent a year sailing in the Mediterranean before setting out singlehanded from Cannes in April, 1923, to Gibraltar. He was soon busy with repairs. The gooseneck holding the boom to the mast broke; a topping lift parted; and then his jib halyard gave way and spilled the jib into the sea.
On 15 May Gerbault anchored at Gibraltar. After an overhaul of gear he left Gibraltar on 6 June, but before he’d left the Straits a gale blew his jib to pieces. Next day the patent roller-reefing gear, which had been repaired at Gibraltar, failed because of a fracture; and the mainsail began to part at the seams; thus before he was two days out of Gibraltar he was busy repairing his mainsail. Because the galley was in the fo’c’sle he found the pitch and roll too much for the gimbaled stove, so that pots and pans continually rolled off. Next the bobstay, running from the end of the bowsprit to the stem, broke, and he had to go out to the end of the bowsprit to repair it. Then the foot of the mainsail ripped.
Near Madeira the trade wind fell off. During the calms that followed, Gerbault experimented with his sails and found that by furling the mainsail, setting the trysail and trimming the jib in flat he could get Firecrest to hold her course unaided by the tiller. He was therefore able to sail round the clock, although the speed under this rig was reduced.
Before long, various parts of the wire rigging gave trouble. Gerbault found that for many purposes rope was better than steel wire, because rope will bear jerks and jolts much better than wire. One sea that broke aboard the Firecrest, burying her deck under tons of water, broke her bowsprit and caused part of the rigging to give way, so that Firecrest was in danger of dismasting.
After repairing both he was determined to make for New York, which he eventually reached 101 days out from Gibraltar. In New York the boat was fitted with a new Oregon pine bowsprit, new standing rigging, new sails, a bronze bobstay, a hollow boom and new roller-reefing gear. The original gaff mainsail was replaced by a triangular one.
Sailing from New York in November 1924 Gerbault met bad weather almost from the start. On 5 November, when he had not seen a vessel for two days, he saw that his port light was out, and went below to re-fill the lamp with paraffin. Before he could get the light re-shipped a steamer scraped the bowsprit of the Firecrest. The force of the blow tore the bitts out of her foredeck and broke the forestay and the jibstay, so that the mast threatened to go overboard at any moment. Gerbault carried out temporary repairs, but had an anxious time in the gales that battered the yacht before she anchored in the harbour of St George, Bermuda.
The crippled yacht had been reduced to a sorry state in little more than a fortnight. And as he had set out before stretching his new sails the gales had spoiled the set of the mainsail, which had to be recut. Much of the work done in New York had to be repeated in Bermuda as well as the recaulking of the hull, which meant that the copper sheathing had to be raised and then hammered down again. The repairs took three months before Gerbault sailed for Colon, the Atlantic entrance to the Panama Canal. He was towed through the Canal, and spent some time at Balboa, on the Pacific side where he met the second man to sail around the world solo: Harry Pidgeon, a Los Angeles photographer, who was concluding his voyage in the 34 ft yawl Islander, which he’d built himself.
Thirty-seven days out of Panama, he reached Chatham Island, in the Galapagos, some 800 miles from Panama. Here he obtained water and fruit, and prepared for the long sail of 3 000 miles to the Gambier Archipelago.
Gerbault ran south, losing the trade wind in a week of calm. When the wind returned the rigging was in such a bad state that he lost his backstay, both topping lifts, six masthoops, and the oak tiller snapped. After 49 days at sea Gerbault anchored in the harbour of Rikitea. In the months he spent with the natives Gerbault learnt their language, and then sailed 1 000 miles north to the Marquesas, where he made many Polynesian friends. He sailed on to the coral islands of the Tuamotu group, and so to Tahiti and Bora Bora. But it was at Wallis Island that Gerbault suffered his next gear failure. A borrowed anchor (he had previously lost his own) failed to prevent Firecrest dragging on to a reef in a gale. Her three-ton lead keel was torn off and Gerbault was swimming to the shore when, relieved of the weight of the keel, the Firecrest floated over the top of the reef and joined her skipper on the beach, digging a berth for herself in the sand.
Gerbault took all the ballast out and moved his personal belongings to the homes of friends ashore. With the aid of natives the yacht was righted and shored up. A barge was floated over the keel, lashed to it at low water, and lifted off on the next tide. After many weeks a steamship with a forge aboard entered the lagoon, and the chief engineer made two iron bolts and four bronze bolts out of an old propeller shaft for Firecrest’s keel.
Once the Firecrest was repaired Gerbault put to sea again. On arriving at Suva, in the Fiji Islands, he had the Firecrest hauled up on a slipway, and further repairs were made. After having left Fiji, Gerbault continued his voyage passing through the Torres Strait, north of Australia. Here he nearly came to grief in the reef-strewn waters when his anchor chain parted, after he had lost his kedge anchor because of the warp snapping. A native sloop towed him to Coconut Island where Gerbault managed to borrow an anchor on condition he left it at Thursday Island for the owner’s friends to collect. Gerbault obtained ground tackle at Thursday Island and sailed clear of the reefs. He then sailed on to the Cocos Keeling Islands, where he saw the remains of the famous German raider Emden.
Gerbault then journeyed across the Indian Ocean to Rodriguez, and for the first time trusted himself to a pilot. The Firecrest touched the coral in a narrow channel, as the pilot had not realised that a deep-keeled yacht carries considerable way. But Firecrest was undamaged. At the next island, Reunion, he had various ironwork repaired, in preparation for the rough passage to Durban. In Cape Town, Gerbault drydocked Firecrest, finding that teredo worm had eaten away part of the rudder stock.
He rounded the Cape of Good Hope and via St Helena and Ascension Island, made his way to the Cape Verde Islands. Porto Grande, the chief harbour in the group, is in the island of St Vincent, which is separated from the island of St Antonio by a channel a few miles wide through which the trade wind blows with some force, raising a strong current.
After many attempts at the channel, Gerbault became exhausted and as the wind fell light, he fell asleep only waking up when Firecrest hit a reef a few yards fromthe beach of St Antonio. A hole had been knocked in her side, but this was plugged, and, with a crew manning a line of buckets to keep her afloat, she was towed across the channel to Porto Grande. Here she was repaired and Gerbault sailed, but she leaked so badly that he turned back and decided to stay at St Vincent for some months, superintending repairs and writing a book. She still leaked badly both on passage to the Azores and during the final leg to Le Havre, northern France which he reached in July 1929.
It had taken six years and 40 000 miles, but endless repairs.
The next time Gerbault put to sea it was in a new boat.
© Not to be reproduced without written permission from Fernhurst Books Limited.
Amazing Sailing Stories is written by Dick Durham. Dick Durham served on the last working Thames barge before writing for national newspapers and sailing magazines. He joined Yachting Monthly in 1998 as Feature Writer and News Editor and has travelled the globe in search of the best sailing stories. Still a big part of the magazine, his role is now Editor at Large. Author of three sailing titles, he is well known for his powerful and poetic writing style.