LEARNING TO SAIL:Learning the language, refining the cut of your jib, knowing how to cast off and tie up - it's all part of joining the sailing set, writes Mary Russell
THE BEST PART - okay, one of them - was the point where Rathlin Island and the Mull of Kintyre faded into the darkening night and the lights of Larne and Belfast started to come on. Heading southwards for Howth across the surface of a black sea in the gallant Quetzal, we were not alone. Even without Larne and Belfast, though, there was the comfort of distant lights belonging to patient fishing boats, so still and unmoving that I had mistaken them for buoys.
In fact, I had already learned that you are never alone on a boat. On that earlier occasion, sailing between the Caribbean islands of Guadeloupe and Antigua, when I was the chief tea-maker, I had been surprised to find, while making the last cuppa, that the crew's requests had changed. One wanted tea with no sugar, another, sugar no milk. Yet another wanted coffee three sugars. Up until then, everyone had settled for the same or had politely taken what they'd been given. The skipper shrugged: "Now that we're home," he explained, "we don't have to get on with each other any more."
It was one of the best lessons I ever learned about sailing. As a survival tool, getting on with the rest of the crew is as important as a life belt.
I've always lived in awe of water. One of my books - The Blessings of a Good Thick Skirt- opens with a description of the shipwreck of Ann Davison who, in 1953, became the first woman to sail single-handed across the Atlantic using a frying pan and a wooden spoon to warn other ships, in fog, of the presence of her 23ft sloop.
Not a great swimmer and sometimes prone to seasickness, I have, nevertheless, always been drawn to water. As a child, I used to pedal from Ballycorus to do belly-flops in Dún Laoghaire Baths and then cycle back again, past the Silver Tassie and up the Bride's Glen. It was worth every push of the pedals. Now I live close to Dublin's Grand Canal which, when the sun shines on it, is like a golden road leading to the end of the earth.
Last year, kind friends invited me to sail with them around the Mediterranean. I travelled as a passive passenger, making jokes to cover my ignorance of all things marine, but vowing to do something about it. And I did. In May, I enrolled on a short sailing course with the Irish National Sailing School (INSS). Our instructor, not yet 20, had seawater in his veins and from him I learned how to tack and to reef - almost. I found I knew even less than I'd thought.
The vocabulary is all new. Why have I always thought that a sheet and a shroud are things to wrap yourself in, alive or dead? And words such as cringle and rubbing strake are great if you play Scrabble, but what do they actually mean?
"You've got to use the right words," Deirdre advised me. "It's no good saying the blue thingy or that round yoke behind you." Deirdre, my daughter, who I let sail off across the Atlantic at the age of 20, without any sailing experience or knowing if the boat was sea-worthy or the skipper trustworthy. Am I a bad mother or what? At the time, she wrote that when they were riding out a hurricane, she'd been a bit concerned: "There was nothing between us and the ocean except a plank of wood."
Now that I've grown up a bit, she can tell me those sort of things knowing I won't freak out, and indeed, when I got back from a recent voyage to Scotland, we Skyped together, talking anchors, tell-tales and genoas for over two hours. She'd been nervous that first time, sailing out of Plymouth Harbour. "I could die here," she'd said to herself; then she looked at the skipper, who was sitting back smoking a cigar, and knew it was going to work out.
She's right about the vocabulary so from now on it's fore, aft, companionway and stowage. And if you want to get in contact with a nearby boat, you shout out, ahoy! Which I always thought was something people only said in the Beano and the Dandy. Above all, it's heads and not lavatory, but don't get me going on this last point, for it's not a simple matter of pulling a chain. You have to open this valve, close that one, do the business and in the right order or we're up shit creek without a paddle and I'm not kidding.
There are three ways to learn how to sail. One is to build up years of experience so I'll have to pass on that one, this being 2008 and I only began in 2007. Two is to go on a course and three is to accept offers to come on board from generous boat owners. Two is simple enough: find the cash and the time and you'll learn a lot and have fun as well. Three is marvellous, as experienced sailors, which boat-owners usually are, can teach you a lot and always seem willing to do so.
The thing to do is revert to being an importunate seven-year-old and ask any number of questions, but choose your moment. Don't ask about wind direction or tidal streams in rough seas just as the boat is heeling at a particularly interesting angle and the skipper is about to reef the mainsail. "But go ahead and ask," says Deirdre. "Some people love rambling on about boats and you often get a good discussion going about what's the best way to do things."
Books are handy sources of information too. The best are those with coloured illustrations. I got six out of the library yesterday and I'm also halfway through Theo Dorgan's marvellous Sailing for Home (Penguin), which chronicles his time spent crewing from Antigua to Kinsale. Although I'm never one to write in books, this one is full of words such as clew and cruising chute, which I've underlined to look up.
The thing is that experienced sailors can't always plumb the depths of the rookie's ignorance. On one voyage, I was told to take off the handle of the winch but though I tugged and pulled, nothing happened. I hadn't understood that all you have to do is press the little release button.
Though there's no substitute for the real thing, I've rigged up a rope in my kitchen to practise my round turn and two half hitches. There's also a website which shows you how to do knots, which is quite helpful for someone like me who is ambidextrous.
And what about sea-sickness? On a recent trip from Malahide up to Ardnamurchan at the southern tip of the Hebrides, Scotland, there was one too many of those moments when the prow of the boat rises to hang in the air, trembling slightly for an eternal moment before thudding downwards, leaving my stomach behind and my brain nauseous to the point of stupification. I devised plan A, which was that I would jump ship when we pulled in to fuel in Bangor, where, right on the harbour, would be this mirage - a silvery pink flashing neon sign saying B&B. There I would spend the night in an unmoving bed before getting the bus to Belfast and the train to Dublin, so I'd be home by tea time. Plan B was simply to die. Plan C - as decreed by the captain and the rest of the crew - was to thwart this hare-brained scheme and press on to our final port - the moonlit Scottish island of Gigha, into which we sailed calmly and at peace with the sea.
But mal de mer can't be ignored. Many people are never troubled by it but if you are, get a good strong prescription from your doctor. It'll make you sleepy so you have the choice: queasy or drowsy? Ginger is good too and after a while I found myself dispensing with the niceties of making ginger tea and simply chewing it raw. Other strategies are to either sleep as much as you can or sit on deck in the fresh air. Spike Milligan's cure for sea-sickness - go and sit quietly under a tree - is invaluable but impractical, so here's one I invented myself.
When in the heads, retching into the lavatory pan, I knelt in order not to throw up on the floor of the graceful Quetzal who was, after all, on her maiden voyage - and as the boat lurched unexpectedly to starboard (or was it to port?) the lid of the lav cracked down on my head in a sort of Laurel and Hardy way. " Ah well, that'll have cured your sea-sickness anyway, " said captain John, in that companionable way sailors have.
Living on a boat is a close-quarters thing. Everyone hears what you're doing in the heads and everyone but everyone will rush to assure you that you snore - which is funny because I always thought it was them. Then there's sailing protocol: never leave clothes flapping on handrails when the boat is under sail. Skinny-dipping is fine out at sea but not where you might frighten the horses. Don't finish someone else's crossword or, worse, their sudoku, and if you're hot-bedding, don't mistakenly get into bed with the captain's mate or indeed the captain: clamber over them instead to your own space.
Safety is paramount: if you want thrills, go to YouTube and key in "boat" and "capsize". And if you're nervous, just remember that boats are designed to heel over - it's what they do.
Finally, if you're lucky - as I was - there'll come the moment you've been waiting for when you feel the helm linking you to the surge of the sea. The jib fills with wind, the boat curves sweetly into the water, taking on the shape of a wave, and you can hear someone in the galley below putting on the kettle for tea.
Mary Russell sailed with John McSweeney and crew on his boat, Quetzal, from Malahide to Ardnamurchan, Scotland, which gave the Quetzal the traditional right to sport a bunch of heather on her prow