Mischief among the Penguins (eBook)

Hand (man) wanted for long voyage in small boat. No pay, no prospects, not much pleasure.

H.W. Tilman (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2015 | 1. Auflage
192 Seiten
Vertebrate Digital (Verlag)
978-1-909461-21-5 (ISBN)

Infos

'Hand (man) wanted for long voyage in small boat. No pay, no prospects, not much pleasure.' So read the crew notice placed in the personal column of The Times by H.W. 'Bill' Tilman in the spring of 1959. This approach to selecting volunteers for a year-long voyage of 20,000 miles brought mixed seafaring experience: 'Osborne had crossed the Atlantic fifty-one times in the Queen Mary, playing double bass in the ship's orchestra'. With unclimbed ice-capped peaks and anchorages that could at best be described as challenging, the Southern Ocean island groups of Crozet and Kerguelen provided obvious destinations for Tilman and his fifty-year-old wooden pilot cutter Mischief. His previous attempt to land in the Crozet Islands had been abandoned when their only means of landing was carried away by a severe storm in the Southern Ocean. Back at Lymington, a survey of the ship uncovered serious Teredo worm damage. Tilman, undeterred, sold his car to fund the rebuilding work and began planning his third sailing expedition to the southern hemisphere. Mischief among the Penguins (1961), Tilman's account of landfalls on these tiny remote volcanic islands, bears testament to the development of his ocean navigation skills and seamanship. The accounts of the island anchorages, their snow-covered heights, geology and in particular the flora and fauna pay tribute to the varied interests and ingenuity of Mischief's crew, not least after several months at sea when food supplies needed to be eked out. Tilman's writing style, rich with informative and entertaining quotations, highlights the lessons learned with typical self-deprecating humour, while playing down the immensity of his achievements.

Harold William Bill Tilman (1898 1977) was among the greatest adventurers of his time, a pioneering mountaineer and sailor who held exploration above all else. Tilman joined the army at seventeen and was twice awarded the Military Cross for bravery during WWI. After the war Tilman left for Africa, establishing himself as a coffee grower. He met Eric Shipton and began their famed mountaineering partnership, traversing Mount Kenya and climbing Kilimanjaro. Turning to the Himalaya, Tilman went on two Mount Everest expeditions, reaching 27,000 feet without oxygen in 1938. In 1936 he made the first ascent of Nanda Devi the highest mountain climbed until 1950. He was the first European to climb in the remote Assam Himalaya, he delved into Afghanistan's Wakhan Corridor and he explored extensively in Nepal, all the while developing a mountaineering style characterised by its simplicity and emphasis on exploration. It was perhaps logical then that Tilman would eventually buy the pilot cutter Mischief, not with the intention of retiring from travelling, but to access remote mountains. For twenty-two years Tilman sailed Mischief and her successors to Patagonia, where he crossed the vast ice cap, and to Baffin Island to make the first ascent of Mount Raleigh. He made trips to Greenland, Spitsbergen and the South Shetlands, before disappearing in the South Atlantic Ocean in 1977.

Textauszug

– Chapter 1 –

The Crew and the Ship

‘Hand (man) wanted for long voyage in small boat. No pay, no prospects, not much pleasure.’ Thus ran the advertisement I inserted in the Personal Column of The Times about a month before the day I hoped to sail. In planning a second and, fortunately, more successful voyage to the Crozet Islands in the Southern Ocean, I had run into the usual difficulty of finding a crew. A minimum of four were needed, five would be better, of whom one at least must be a mountaineer or at any rate capable of moving freely and looking after himself on easy rock, ice or snow. Ideally, of course, all should have had some sailing experience. One of them, I hoped, would have an invincible stomach and a turn for cooking on paraffin stoves in cramped quarters in a stuffy, unstable galley; and another should have some knowledge of small marine engines and the numbing effect upon them of sea air and salt water. All must be of cheerful, equable temper, long-suffering, patient in adversity, tolerant of the whims and uncouth manners or habits of others, neat and cleanly, adaptable, unselfish, loyal—in fact, possessed of most of the qualities in which the majority of men, including myself, are notably deficient.

Six months before sailing day such ideas and ideals are all very well but they cannot be long maintained. As the months pass and the men one had in mind fail to come forward, while others change their minds and drop out, such ideals are one by one relinquished until at last the modest aim of filling up the muster alone remains. Indeed, the final stage is reached when one is happy to take almost anyone who offers, regardless of his experience, ignorant of his temperament. After all, we should be away a year, time enough one might hope to demonstrate the truth of what Browning proclaimed:

The only fault’s with time;

All men become good creatures: but so slow.

For a really long voyage has the advantage that however inexperienced both skipper and crew may be, they begin learning at once and go on learning until the last day of the voyage. One expert, who has written a book about ocean cruising, starts with the premise that either the crew must be found to suit the voyage, or the voyage arranged to suit the crew. If circumstances are such that neither of these is feasible, why then, the crew must in time make themselves fit for the voyage.

Nevertheless, a voyage of long duration rules out many who would be fit to come and would like to come. And experience had already shown me that it was idle to expect any mountaineering friends to join in such ventures as ‘sailing to climb.’ The keenest mountaineer is not likely to relish the prospect of enduring several months at sea for the sake of a month or two spent in climbing some obscure, unknown mountains. Nor were volunteers from among the yachting fraternity really to be expected, most of whom would have their own boats and their own plans. Very long ocean voyages are not enjoyed by all yachtsmen, and the few who do like them prefer to choose their own cruising grounds. Sun, warmth, exotic faces and places are generally more attractive than uninhabited, barren islands, set in stormy seas under drab skies. For a voyage to the West Indies or the South Seas there might be more than enough volunteers.

But the time factor is the biggest snag. Most men have to take life seriously, and although a knowledge of the art of sailing is pleasant and possibly useful, there is no future in it. A year’s absence from bread-winning or getting on in life can be contemplated only by a man who has not yet settled down, or perhaps has no intention of doing anything so humdrum; or by a man of such carefree spirit that he is ready to throw aside everything at the rare prospect of making a long voyage under sail to remote places. I like to think there are still many such in this country—the difficulty is to make contact with them. Thus, rather late in the day, all other means having failed, I had resorted to the above advertisement.

At that time the only certain starter I had was W.A. Procter, who, having refused an early invitation, later changed his mind. As he is a married man with three children, his wife’s consent to his going showed admirable complaisance on the part of a wife towards her husband’s whims, as well as confidence in old Mischief’s ability to look after herself and her crew. Procter had been with me as mate in Mischief in Patagonian waters in 1955-56. A Civil Servant, who had been retired prematurely on account of ill-health, he was not really robust then and was not any stronger now; but a long sea voyage, he thought, might set him up, in spite of Mr Woodhouse’s conviction[1] ‘that the sea is very rarely of use to anybody.’ He was keen on boats and sailing, something of a ship’s carpenter, and a curious and enquiring traveller of an adventurous spirit. True, this enquiring nature and adventurous spirit of his had all but brought about the wreck of Mischief in the Patagonia fjords, but I was now forewarned against it. Above all, he could be relied upon to put the interests of the expedition above everything else and to see it through to the end, however rude the weather or unreasonable the skipper. Both of us knew pretty well the worst of what each was capable, knew each other’s bad and good points, and on the whole were seldom surprised by the one or disappointed in the other.

Besides Procter, there were two probable starters whom for good reasons I had not met, for at the time they were in the Antarctic. In July 1958, when on the way home after the failure of our first attempt to reach the Crozet Islands, when I was unwell, more than a little discouraged, and in half a mind to sell Mischief, and swallow the anchor, I received in a letter a welcome, bracing tonic from the Antarctic. One Lee Rice, a surveyor on one of the F.I.D.S. bases in Grahamland, who had heard of our attempt and the difficulty I had had in finding a crew for it, wrote to offer his services in any such future venture I might have in mind. Besides being a mountaineer and a surveyor, he had made a long ocean passage in a small boat—ideal qualifications for my purposes. Moreover, he had a friend in the Antarctic who would be glad to come too. Roger Tufft had had no sea experience but, having spent three years in Grahamland, was well practised in travelling on ice and snow in rough, mountainous country. They were due home in the spring of 1959. Such an offer from out of the blue was most refreshing and too good to ignore. With two such men I should have the nucleus of a strong crew for a second attempt starting in the summer of 1959.

In the end things went wrong. Owing to its being a bad season for ice, the relief ship John Biscoe in which Lee Rice was returning did not reach Southampton until mid-June. Such a late arrival, allowing him a bare six weeks to sort things out before sailing at the end of July with me, seemed likely to prevent his doing so. But when I met the ship at Southampton, Rice told me he would not in any case be able to come, having injured a knee on the way home. He did not think there was time for this to be put right and did not care to run the risk of becoming a passenger in Mischief. With him I lost my most likely man and at the same time had to drop the idea of doing any survey work on the islands.

The Shackleton, in which Roger Tufft was returning, arrived even later, for she docked at Southampton at the end of June. It was, therefore, with small expectation of success that I went to Southampton for the second time. Amidst the confusion of welcome by relatives, friends, and the Press, the turmoil of disembarkation, and what seemed to me the ungrateful and unnecessary scrutiny by Customs Officials of men arriving from the Antarctic, I began searching for Tufft. Having at last found his cabin, where, by the way, the bookshelf, slightly to my concern, held nothing but poetry, I learnt that his knees were all right and that, in spite of his friend’s decision and of his own very late arrival, he was still game to come: I might add that Tufft’s ability to do a quick turn-round and the very slight regard he has for the blessings of civilisation are exceptional. This was one instance, and I have since learnt of another. Within ten days of our return to England in July 1960, Tufft was on his way to join a party in Spitsbergen.

Thus, about a month before sailing day, fixed provisionally for the end of July, I had only Procter and Tufft. For the remaining two or three I relied upon whatever strange fish might be hooked by the advertisement. I had worded it in a slightly discouraging way in order, as I thought, to save me from being overwhelmed by too many replies. And the carefully inserted stipulation, ‘man’, would disappoint the surprisingly large number of married couples, women, and girls who lurk in the background waiting to pounce upon just such an offer. Although girls are often more enterprising and some of them more capable than men, I did not care to run the risk of being talked or ogled into an act of folly. For I had already had experience of the truth of the Chinese sage’s remark that discord is not sent down from heaven but is brought about by women.

A member of the crew, a man, who turned out to be, in my opinion, a misfit or a bad bargain, would probably be regarded with equal disfavour by the rest of the crew; whereas, in the case of a woman, where one man’s meat is another’s man’s poison, there might be some difference of opinion, and I might well find myself in a minority of one. Sanguine though I was, I did not flatter myself that any of the top people who read The Times would...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 16.12.2015
• Reihe/Serie: H.W. Tilman: The Collected Edition
• Reihe/Serie: H.W. Tilman: The Collected Edition
• Reihe/Serie: H.W. Tilman: The Collected Edition
• Nachwort: Tom Cunliffe
• Vorwort: Libby Purves
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Sport ► Segeln / Tauchen / Wassersport
• Themenwelt: Reisen ► Reiseberichte
• Themenwelt: Reisen ► Reiseführer
• Themenwelt: Naturwissenschaften ► Geowissenschaften ► Geografie / Kartografie
• Schlagworte: adventurers • baroque • Bill Tilman • boating books • Bristol Channel pilot cutter • Cape Town • climb book • climbing book • Cozet • Crozet islands • explorers • H.W. 'Bill' Tilman • H W Tilman • H.W. Tilman • Kerguelen • Las Palmas • libby purves • Lymington • mischief • Mountaineering • mountaineering book • Penguins • pilot cutter • Port Elizabeth • Possession Island • Roger Tufft • Sailing • sailing books • sea breeze • Southern Ocean • Teredo worm • Tilman • Tom Cunliffe • Travel writing • Trekking • volcanic islands
• ISBN-10: 1-909461-21-0 / 1909461210
• ISBN-13: 978-1-909461-21-5 / 9781909461215