A Ravel of Waters

'You mock, like the others have,' retorted Thomsen vehemently. 'You think I am a sentimentalist, with sail in my genes. I repeat, I am a business-man. True, the sight of an old windjammer has the power to touch something deep inside me as it did Prolss. But he – like me – sublimated the thought into a concept as new as rocket travel. I'm telling you that the great golden age of sail is dead. Dead. The sailing ship was killed by four factors: it needed large, skilled crews – and crews cost money; it had limited manoeuvrability, especially in congested ports where tugs were necessary – and tugs cost money; the sailer's speed was low; the windjammer had small hatches, which were difficult and costly to load, especially with the clutter and tangle of rigging. Jetwind’s design disposes of each of these problems.'

'Even a good business-man has been known to buy a pup,’ I remarked. Thomsen kept his cool at my lack of acceptance, as he must have done a thousand times before, trying to convince critical audiences.

'Before the 1973 world fuel crisis the sailing ship as a commercial proposition was a non-starter. It was that crisis which put it back in business. For half a century cheap fuel – coal and oil – put paid to the windjammer. It simply could not compete. It was slow, expensive, and passage times were anyone's guess. Since 1973 each successive fuel crisis has made the sailing ship more commercially viable. The actual break-even point arrived when bunker fuel touched fifteen dollars a barrel.' 'Today that price sounds like happy times.'

'Would you believe it?' Thomsen said. 'The fate of the windjammer hinges on a fluctuation of a mere two dollars a barrel.'

'You're over-simplifying,' I replied. 'As fuel prices rise, so do your overhead construction costs. The same applies to the windjammer as to motor ships – maybe even more for a sailing ship which is a one-off piece of construction.’

'That is a good point,' Thomsen conceded. 'I found it in practice during the eighteen months of Jetwind's building. Everything cost more than the original tenders. Nevertheless, the major factor in putting sailing ships back on the high seas is the cost of fuel. Wind is for free. No matter how long or how short the voyage, wind costs not one cent.' Don said, 'The papers say Jetwind can do twenty-five knots in a full gale.' Thomsen threw away his half-smoked Perilly impatiently. 'You don't want to believe everything the media say,' he put in. 'They always get it wrong, dress up the facts for sensation. Jetwind won't – can't – attain twenty-five knots. But she is capable of twenty-two.’

'No sailing ship has a speed,' I interrupted. 'A speed potential, yes, but a speed, no.'

Thomsen eyed me penetratingly. 'You must have thought a lot about these questions before you undertook the record attempt in Albatros.’

'At that stage the record also was only a potential,' I grinned.

He laughed with me. 'Touche. Unpredictable schedules killed the old-time windjammer. In this day and age things are different. Now you can keep your sailer moving because you know in advance where the wind is, and where next it's likely to blow best. One no longer has to rely on the old sixth sense the clipper skippers were said to have. The weather, the wind, is forecast for anywhere in the world, any time. The sailer can be directed literally hour by hour by satellite and other met. data to where the best winds are, what areas of calm to avoid, and so on. Weather routing is now a science. You look sceptical, Rainier.'

'You don't want to go overboard about it,' I answered. 'Weather routing has a place – within limits. It's not the be-all and end-all, I assure you. The final decision remains the captain's.'

'True,' Thomsen answered. 'Yachts – racing yachts in -particular – are comparable to the famous pace-making clippers – Cutty Sark, Thermopylae, and the rest. What interests me as a ship-owner is not a vessel which is capable – your speed potential, Rainier – of limited bursts of speed like the Cutty Sark. It is average service speed.' Don said, 'You make it all sound very down to earth.'

'That is the name of the game,' Thomsen replied. 'That is why I built Jetwind. I have put every voyage time of the Cutty Sark during her prime twenty years through the computer. Today she would be a non-starter in competition with powered ships, even with the price of bunker fuel being what it is. At her best in the Australian trade’ Cutty Sark averaged only six point five knots. What interests me far more than the lovely clippers are the great iron square-riggers which went out from Germany to Chile for nitrates at the turn of the century. That was when the day of the windjammer was, in fact, done. There was a famous Captain Hilgendorf who averaged seven and a half knots in regular voyages for twenty years between Hamburg and Chile. That is the sort of consistent speed which interests me as a ship-owner.' 'Then what do you expect from Jetwind?' I asked.