Jim Close: A Series of Stories
As with all ‘round the world races, the scores of days carry hundreds of sea stories, some more defining than others. Similarly, some seas highlight different elements in our humanity. While the doldrums may foster an appreciation for patience and perseverance in a tedious environment, the Southern Ocean presents a completely different personality with its often-endless grey days, huge rollers and ever-present cold. The stormy, forbidding nature of the Southern Ocean is offset by Wandering Albatross gliding between 40’ rollers in 50 knot winds, bright white icebergs on the few sunny days or penguins leaping through the waves.
What brings us repeatedly to these remote places? Is it life outside the norms of Melbourne or Chicago? Is it to enlarge the horizons of our lives, to offer a more Technicolor, larger-than-life view of reality and risk? Perhaps it’s a twisted sense of humor about convenience and comfort while setting personal benchmarks and better defining ourselves. Perhaps it’s some of these things or more, but, in any case, that was the temporary life into which Jim Close and I immersed ourselves in the ’89-90 Whitbread Round the World Race on The Card.
The layover in Punta del Este had been difficult in unforeseen ways. The co-skipper on Fazisi, the boat representing the USSR, had committed suicide, but for us on The Card, the death of Janne Gustavasson was much more personal. He was a well-liked, very athletic and talented bowman and had died in a motorcycle accident at a stop sign. He would be sorely missed both personally and professionally. Now we needed a replacement bowman.
Good bowmen aren’t always common among all sailors. Sometimes their hyperactive nature can be described as “edgy” and their levels of awareness can border on paranoia. Their attention to details can sometimes be considered obsessiveness, and when sailors ashore get into trouble, often there’s a bowman involved… usually as an instigator. They’re blessed with too much energy, and – on occasion – it turns out to be a curse, of sorts. Prior to race starts, skippers have their meetings. Navigators have their meetings. At one of the Whitbread stopovers, bowmen organized their own meeting. It was convened in a bar, later adjourned and reconvened in a local whorehouse. Now a watch leader, I understood those bowmen characteristics. I had been one for 14 years, prior to (reluctantly) moving aft in the boat. The best ones have my undying appreciation and respect. They’re the people I’d trust with my life. On occasion I have.
With Janne’s passing in Uruguay, we needed a replacement bowman just as we were to begin the longest and most difficult leg of the ‘round the world race, a passage from Punta del Este to Fremantle, Australia, deep into the Southern Ocean. Jim Close was the first to volunteer. The fact remained, though, that he was a sailmaker and trimmer, by contrast stereotypically “an artist” or someone who sees shapes and things no one else sees. Of course, the best sailmakers on ‘round the world races are often workaholics, so maybe Jim, who was obviously qualified for his current job, might be able to be trained up for the bowman’s position. It was a decision that wasn’t lacking in risk, but we’d give it a try. I would do all the sail changes with him as his Number Two on the bow, help him with the changes and in the process offer whatever training I could, and at the end of the changes we would critique each move, always looking for improvements in what we had just done. There was a lot to learn before experiencing the worst the Southern Ocean would throw at us, and he needed to learn the Irrefutable Laws of the Foredeck and they must be ingrained into every action. Our lives might depend on it.
Learning those “Laws” isn’t difficult. Making them part of every step and action taken on the bow is more difficult and takes time.
Never stand to leeward of a sail that’s on deck on the bow. Failure to do so puts you at risk of being swept overboard if a wave breaks over the bow and pushes the sail to and through the lifelines.
The first thing you do when a sail is brought onto the bow is hook up the tack to the base of the headstay. Failure to do so risks a sudden wave taking the sail overboard.
First thing you do when a sail is dropped to the deck is tie a sail tie around the luff. Failure to do so risks the dropped sail being washed aft, potentially engulfing others working on the sail who are further aft.
The luff must always be controlled. Controlling the luff controls the sail. Failure to do so risks the sail being blown or washed aft and to leeward, potentially risking others as well as delaying the sail being secured.
Always remember, “the people in the back of the boat are trying to kill you!” While this “law” is an obvious exaggeration, it highlights the reality that there are risks. If someone inadvertently releases the topping lift at the wrong time, the bowman may get hit in the head with the spinnaker pole. If someone sheets on the spinnaker before a hoist is complete, the chute can set prematurely, potentially pushing the boat into a broach and submerging the bow. Total awareness is required at all times.
Those and other things needed to be learned and incorporated into every action, day or night, sleepy or alert, sunshine, rain or snow, flat water or heavy seas. No excuses. Ever. We left Punta del Este with heavy hearts but buckled down to the tasks – and Ocean – ahead to Freemantle. Jim caught on quickly as the days ticked by and sail changes multiplied. In time, the Southern Ocean brought the usual rigors: bigger waves, more wind, wildly pitching and rolling deck, ice-cold water.
Late one afternoon, as the storm chute was being set, Jim, Etienne Giroire and I were on the foredeck executing the change. Apparently, someone sheeted the spinnaker on too soon and the bucket raced up. Instantly, the foreguy loaded up and broke a deck fitting as the pole slammed into the headstay, destroying the plastic Tuff Luff used for all the headsails. Somehow, the loaded foreguy broke Etienne’s arm and he slid down into the leeward rail, awash as the boat broached. Immediately, Jim lunged from the middle of the foredeck to grab Etienne with both hands before he could be washed under the lifelines. I suddenly realized that nothing was keeping both people from being washed overboard, and, with one hand grasping the baby stay, I grabbed Jim’s foul weather with the other hand to pull him – and Etienne – back up to the mast and relative safety. Had it not been for Jim’s selfless, quick action, however, Etienne almost certainly would have gone overboard into the icy waters with his broken arm. Instead of the near tragedy, I went to the back of the boat to talk with Roger Nilson, the skipper and doctor onboard. I suggested to him that I relieve him at the helm so he could make a “house call” on the foredeck to help Etienne.
Things happen fast in the Southern Ocean, and the implications can be far-reaching. With Etienne safely below and arm tended to, reality set in regarding the destroyed Tuff Luff. Kringles would need to be pressed and sewn into the luff of all the headsails and the sails would need to be tied to the headstay with strips of sail ties after we removed the remnants of the Tuff Luff. Down below, Jim worked around the clock to put kringles into the luffs of the headsails.
Tying the sails to the headstay with sail ties was grueling work as the icy waves crashed over the foredeck. Using fids and screwdrivers to untie those knots after they have been tightened under load while the sail was set was worse. Ice water poured across the deck for most of the sail changes, rendering fingers simultaneously numb and burning from the cold. Whether fitting the kringles to the luff or tying the knots, Jim was there for all of it, and the sail changes were now tediously slow in the freezing conditions.
As the days ticked by, winds continued to howl, and headsail drops were harder. During drops, even a spinnaker took on the texture of fiberglass, as it flew off to leeward in 50 knot winds. With the chute hovering just above the waves, we scrambled to get it in and secured before the chute dropped into the water. That relatively lightweight spinnaker material could pull a man overboard if the sail went into the ocean and he was tangled up in a portion of the sail.
When racing, time is your enemy. We all wanted things to go faster, but sometimes haste can come into conflict with the Irrefutable Laws of the Foredeck. In one particular exercise, after taking the storm chute down in particularly difficult circumstances, it was suggested that Jim and I hoist the reacher without tying it to the headstay; we should merely free hoist it, loose-luffed. Standing there on the foredeck, considering the conditions and what we had just gone through with a storm chute drop, I thought it was one of the most absurd ideas I had ever heard. Was this self-diagnosed “genius” from the back of the boat completely stupid or just out of his mind? The three of us, Jim, “Genius”, and I, had a meeting on the bow.
“Once we start to hoist, the loose-luffed reacher will fly off to leeward at the speed of light in the 60 knot winds!” I told him. “It will hover flat over the waves for a few seconds until a wave inevitably takes it into the piss, and with the boat already moving at speed, the halyard attached, and the reacher now acting as a sea anchor, it might bring the damned rig down!”
I wasn’t impressed with the idea.
“If you do it quickly, it will be OK,” suggested the Genius.
“Did you see the shit-fight we had with the spinnaker drop?” I retorted. “If we do this it will violate everything I’ve ever learned or known as a bowman. Always, ALWAYS control the luff! And we’re going to just toss it in the air in 60 knots of breeze. Ridiculous!”
“Just do it fast. It’ll be fine…”, he said again, as if he’d ever done this stunt before himself.
I was thoroughly enraged at the stupidity of the “order” at this point, “If we do this, it will certainly rank as the second dumbest thing I’ve ever done in my life!”, I yelled back at him.
Jim, who had been watching this discussion-turned-argument, suddenly and calmly asked, “Wow! So… what was the dumbest thing you’ve ever done before?” The discussion ended, stupidity avoided. Jim’s ability to change the direction of the conversation, seemed to highlight the absurdity of it all.
Weeks later, in a bar in Freemantle a friend of mine who had served as bowman on other Whitbread boats came up to me. Without greeting or provocation, he abruptly asked, “So, what was the dumbest thing you’ve ever done?” We both laughed. Apparently, he had stumbled down a few wrong paths himself. Absurdities in a surreal world.
Back in a more civilized world, I’ve heard it said that we live in a time in which people know the price of everything and the value of nothing. I know that at times like those we occasionally faced in the Southern Ocean, in which people’s lives were sometimes at risk, where the price of a mistake could be drowning in an icy ocean. The value of someone leaping to save a person or raising a question to avoid a larger problem is incalculable. Jim was there for all of it. He did the leaping and posed some questions.
Bill Biewenga
Cape Cod USA
Bill Biewenga has sailed more then 400,000 miles offshore while racing, cruising and delivering sailboats all over the world including many professional round the world yacht races.
1989-90 Whitbread round the world yacht race – short cilp
Photo Rick Tomlinson
