A Ravel of Waters

'You made the correlation between the theoretical performance of the Venetian Rig and its practical one look a bit battered. Captain Rainier,’ she said. 'We tested your rig at the Schiffbau Institut. If we had had Albatros's actual performance figures then, we could well have plumped for a Venetian Rig for Jetwind’

Tideman added, 'It takes a sailor to achieve Albatros's results, Kay.'

Then she asked me with the same eager air as Tideman had shown previously, 'Now that you're here, will we be sailing soon?'

I dodged the question. 'Mr Tideman has given me a rundown on Jetwind’s controls. Now I want to see the sails themselves – the real power house. I would also like to see the exact place where Captain Mortensen met with his accident.' She flashed a glance at Tideman. 'John?'

His voice lacked any inflexion. 'I considered you'd be the best person aboard to explain the merits of the sails.'

'Let's make it as quick as we can,' I said. 'I have to see the chief magistrate shortly after lunch.'

She gave Tideman another inquiring look and then said, a little uncertainly, it appeared to me, 'Let's go.'

After operating one of a bank of switches on a nearby console, she led me down a ladder to a central well immediately abaft and under the wheel-house itself. The mast ran through it. Access to its interior was via a steel door which slotted into the curvature of the mast. Kay explained that this servicing door was held shut magnetically until released by the bridge control she had manipulated.

She put on the lights. I was surprised at the diameter of the mast inside. There was room for two people abreast, although it narrowed higher up. A steel ladder was clamped to the wall and a trunk of intertwined copper tubes, which combined were thicker than my leg, sprouted skywards out of sight above. These were the hydraulic pipes to control the yards. They were linked in twin, each pair with dials and valves. It looked more like a plumber's paradise regained than a ship's mast. 'Come!'

Kay started up the ladder. Her sneakers made no sound on the rungs. Within seconds she had outpaced me. Up and up we went, Kay drawing ahead at every step. Finally, out of breath, I reached her, perched in a compartment on what looked like a tiny steeple-jack's seat. This compartment was the juncture point of topsail yard and mainmast. Higher, the diameter of the interior narrowed to become the top-gallant mast, and the material changed from high tensile steel to light alloy. The top-sail yard-arm itself was largely hidden from view except via slits through which the sail rolled in and out along stainless steel runners.

Kay followed my inquiring scrutiny of the gleaming mechanisms and valves.

'These hydraulics are basically the same as are used to operate the rudders of large ships – suitably adapted, of course.'

I said, getting back my breath, 'I heard you're called the Old Lady of the Sea. If old ladies go up ladders like that, give me the advanced generation any day.'

She laughed with a mixture of humour and reserve. 'The guys all think I'm crazy. I have an exercise routine. I run up this ladder to the crow's nest every morning before breakfast.' 'What's that in aid of?'

'All day I sit at a sewing-machine stitching sails or at a desk doing maths. Put simply, the bottom doesn't benefit by it.'

I gestured at the servicing compartment. Its most unusual feature was a pair of what looked like gigantic vertical roller-blinds, about nine metres tall, tightly wound with sail.

'I suppose I'll get used to it,' I said, 'but at the moment it all seems like black magic to me. Strangest is having hollow masts.5

'They're correctly termed unstayed rotatable profiled masts,' she answered seriously. 'They've been custom-made by aircraft manufacturers.' She added with a touch of anxiety, 'You're going to try and make time, aren't you? Sail her?'

'My brief is to reach Gough Island within a week. I intend to.'

She considered my statement for a moment, then answered, 'You'll need all the luck.'

'Isn't it a tradition that any sailor who has sighted Cape Horn will have good luck for the rest of his – or her -career?' Her face became expressionless. 'It didn't bring me luck.' 'Meaning?'

She shrugged and was silent. Then she resumed in a different tone altogether. 'It's also a legend that anyone rounding Cape Horn has the right to have a pig tattooed on the calf of the right leg.'

Her amusement had an infectious quality, contrasting with her serious, sombre air of a moment before.

'I did.' She reached down and pulled up the leg of her corduroy pants. 'There. It's mainly gone now. It wasn't a real tattoo, only a kind of self-eradicating transfer.' Her mood changed mercurially. 'Louis thought it was disgusting. How could a lady go out to a party in London with a pig tattoo showing through her stocking?' 'Louis?'

'Husband. Ex. I did it for a laugh. Strangely, it was one of the things he battened on for the divorce.' 'I expect it was only a symptom.'