The Sailor’s Code

When a fellow sailor is in trouble, you help—no questions asked.

Issue 147: Nov/Dec 2022

It has been more than 10 years since that warm summer day when I first saw a new boat at our yacht club, moored rather loosely. It drew my attention not only because I had to tighten her lines and rearrange the fenders, but because it was the same boat as mine, a Grampian 30.

However, this new boat sported some interesting alterations. A bowsprit accommodated a larger jib. An odd-looking boom carried what appeared to be a roller-furling mainsail system. The cockpit was totally enclosed in a custom-made dodger/ bimini. I made a note to come back when the owner was here to look her over more carefully.

A week later, I spotted activity on the boat and went over to introduce myself to the two men aboard, who explained how they’d come by the boat almost by default. The original owner was an avid racer but had little time for fixing things. He’d hired these two to address mechanical and electrical issues, and later, when he had trouble selling the boat, he offered her to them for a reduced price.

Although neither knew much about sailing, it seemed like too good a deal to pass up, so they bought her and joined our club. Now the boat sat at the dock while they tried to figure out how to sail her.

I looked the boat over and couldn’t figure out how the reefing system was supposed to work. Neither could they. They explained that their day job was installing and wiring computerized systems for commercial use. They weren’t even sure if they’d rigged her properly.

I assured them that they’d done a reasonable job except for the mainsail reefing system, which I suggested we convert to a more conventional and practical system. I corrected a few minor things and encouraged them to go sailing. They seemed hesitant, so I went with them the first time and helped them figure things out (although their boat did hold some mysteries for me).

Then I took them out on my boat and showed them what was possible. They enjoyed the ride and vowed to take a sailing course, learn more, and get out on the water.

One day later that summer, I was stuck inside on a writing deadline, watching the trees bending under a blustery wind and wishing I was out sailing in it, when my cell phone rang.

It was one of the boat’s owners, and he was calling from the helm of the Grampian. They had ventured out in calm weather before this big wind came up. Quickly overpowered, they dropped all the sails. They started the diesel, but the transmission linkage had broken, and they couldn’t get it into gear. The building waves were pushing them toward the rocks.

I tried to explain that with a wind this big, all they had to do was tack back and forth to get away from the onshore gale and make it back to our harbor. But in a trembling voice, he told me that his son was below throwing up, his co-owner was on the foredeck too scared to crawl back to the cockpit, and he’d just been slammed against the wheel and might have broken a rib.

I was 20 minutes from the club, and even if I got to my boat, they were another 30 minutes down the lake and drifting. Still, there was no denying that voice—a voice I and most every other sailor could recognize, a voice tense with that moment when you know you’ve gotten in over your head, when you feel everything is out of control, and you pray that if you just hold on, you might make it through.

I told him I’d get there as soon as I could.

When I got to the club, an experienced sailor who was puttering on his boat readily agreed to come with me. We headed out of the harbor and took off down the lake wing-onwing under a working jib and double-reefed main with a limiter on the boom, flying before the wind and a big following sea.

We spotted them in no time, only a quarter mile from the rocks and drifting quickly. As we closed on them, we came head to wind, dropped our sails, and fired up the Atomic 4. The swells had risen to about 4 feet and both boats were pitching and rolling.

I called on my cell phone and told them to toss us a line. The man on the bow was clinging to the lifeline, still too frightened to crawl back to the cockpit. But he caught the line his helmsman tossed, secured it to a bow cleat, and prepared to throw it over to us.

I motored close, the chop throwing my boat around, my stern coming perilously close to their hull.

The first throw missed, and I feared the line might foul my prop and both boats would end up on the rocks, but the fellow on the bow quickly reeled it in. His second attempt was more accurate, and my crew member, right next to me in the cockpit, caught it. But as it snugged up, he yelled, “I can’t hold it!”

I didn’t want to make the approach again, so I grabbed the line, he grabbed the tiller, and I held on, though the line threatened to pull me into the lake and my palms burned.

I yelled for my mate to put our boat in neutral. With that, the line slackened, and I secured it to the stern cleat.

In forward again, we began to pull away from the shore into deeper water, but the going was slow against the driving waves and gale-force winds. All the way back, I kept an eye on my gas gauge as it bounced between a quarter and empty. The engine strained under the weight of the towed boat, and I regretted those times earlier that summer when I’d said, “That’s all the gas I need. I only use the engine to get out of harbor and back in. It’s a sailboat, after all.”

Today it wasn’t a sailboat, it was a tug, and I was going to be lucky to make it back to harbor with this disabled sister ship dragging behind. For a moment we contemplated raising the sails, but the wind was right on the nose, and we didn’t know if sailing would give us enough power to tow the other boat along.

It took over an hour to get abeam of our harbor, and then we had to motor well past it to line up for the entrance and not be blown too quickly downwind. The gas gauge needle now danced between an eighth and below empty. We had to get the right angle; we’d only get one shot at this.

We guessed right, and once we turned, the waves helped us along. We slid between the rocks port and starboard and were suddenly chugging along in calm waters.

A few club members saw that we had the boat under tow and caught our friends’ lines as they coasted into the dock. On my boat, we exchanged relieved high fives as we motored to our dock.

A few days later I opened my cockpit locker to find a case of beer amid the lines and harnesses.

There’ve been many summers since then, and my friends have become much better sailors, enjoying fixing and sailing their boat. We’ve gone down the lake together on cruises, even late in the season when the winds are strong and a chill is in the air.

One season, they checked the electronics on my mast as it lay on the horses before raising it. All the lights worked. Then when the mast was up, none of the lights worked. I left the boat moored and took some time to think about what might be wrong. When I returned a day later, the lights were back in working order—they had traced everything back, found the short, and made the repair.

And that’s the way the seasons passed, until last year when, in the middle of summer, a medical condition completely derailed me. I lost mobility, and it looked like my recovery would take me long into the winter. I worried about haulout and putting my boat on the hard; derigging and demasting, prepping the engine, getting her on the slings, and settling her on her cradle, putting up the frame, and getting the tarp over her. It all seemed daunting, and I was in no shape to do it.

Then I got their email: “Whatever you need…whenever you need it… we’ll take care of it for you.”

And that is exactly what they did.

My friends had come to sailing later than most, but they understood the sailor’s code: If someone is in trouble and needs help, you help them. If a vessel is in distress, every sailor within distance will alter course to go to its aid. It’s a tradition, a part of the sailing culture for as long as humans have left shore and ventured out to sea. Amid storm, wind, and seas, we don’t stop to ask about religion, nationality, race, sexual preference, or political persuasion. We just help each other.

And if we all just followed the sailor’s code, across all walks of life, this world would be a better place.

D.B. Davies is a sailor and writer who is a frequent contributor to Good Old Boat. He sails Affinity, his 1974 Grampian 30, around Lake Ontario. After extensively researching the men and sailing schooners of Canada’s Maritime provinces, he wrote a dramatic screenplay about the famous Bluenose and her skipper, Angus Walters. You can find out more at thebluenosemovie.com.

 

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