The Outward Leg

Next morning the crew rose early and grumpily.   It was still dark with the feintest hint of a dawn along the eastern horizon.   Emerging sleepily on deck Potkin listened for the sound of birds breaking wind, but heard nothing.

Ebenhaezer Coleye had cooked up  a satisfyingly filling Full English for the crew, to be followed by toast and preserves whilst for Potkin he had prepared pan fried Portuguese sardines topped with a Kean's Farm vintage cheddar cheese melt, lightly browned under the grill.   The moment breakfast was over and still holding steaming mugs of tea, the crew turned to on deck and Moses Smith descended into the engine room with a blow torch.   After roughly twenty seven minutes of pumping and hammering, some coaxing and cursing in his native tongue and, eventually a wheezy mechanical cough, there came the easy, hollow donk donk donk of a gently idling single cylinder marine Bolinder diesel which made the stern bounce and blew smoke rings from a nine inch diameter exhaust pipe in the mizzen rigging. Potkin tried to keep out of the way as everyone pulled on ropes and the skipper shouted orders.
The mooring lines were cast off and the Centaur chugged a slow gamelan as she followed the river down stream.   Once the tops'l and foresail were set the ageing Bolinder was silenced and the majestic barge ghosted down river in company with the other contestants.   By the improving light of morning further sails were set.   The main sheet was hauled out, hooked to an iron ring on the horse and moused securely in place. (For those of you who, like me, are finding this a bit technical: a sheet is a rope what controls a sail and a horse isn't a horse it's a big beam of wood going from one side of the boat to the other so as the sail can flap and clank along it; and I have no idea what the mouse was doing.   Or... if you are still confused, imagine a lot of fluttering sails and slapping ropes and people jumping about and a bit of shouting followed, mostly, by a period of calm and everything looking like it's supposed to.)   A stays'l thrashed it's way slowly skywards and was brought under control.   The mizzen sail was set and trimmed.   Rich taught Potkin to “tail”.   The stalwart cat was not sure what he was doing, exactly, but he gripped a rope firmly in his teeth and pulled backwards as hard as he could while Rich and the mate heaved and grunted.   Eventually all the sails were billowing out and the barge heeled to le’ward, straining in the freshening breeze.   It started to rain.
As they approached the start line they saw a mass of barges zig-zagging past each other, at speed.   There were distant multiple cries of, "Starboard!"
To Potkin's horror Absalom Rowbottom drove Centaur straight into the centre of the mayhem and joined in, "Starboard!" he cried, spinning the wheel wildly.   A dozen vast and unwieldy craft swept back and forth along the start line waiting for the gun.   They ducked under sterns, shot across bows.   As a dented, steel hulled barge named Ironsides rushed smugly by, rashly close to Centaur's stern, Absalom surreptitiously took a rusting shackle pin from the pocket of his long coat and, whistling innocently, lobbed it high into his rival's tops'l.   It rattled onto the deck where a whiskerless lad retrieved it, looked worriedly aloft and rushed with it to his skipper.
Something akin to a smile, but much more scary, split across our skippers face.
"They'll be a long time wondering where that's come from."
On the five minute gun all the barges rounded up and commenced their dash for the line.   (There is, I am assured only one gun, a little brass canon, but several bangs.   On the ten minute bang everyone must switch off their engines and the five minute bang signals frantic manoeuvring by the keenest skippers for the best position at the start.   The aim is to reach the starting line, going flat out, just as, BUT NOT BEFORE, the start bang goes off.)   Several craft, including Centaur, were neck and neck as there came another report and a puff of white smoke from the committee boat.   The race had begun.
With the leading barges clearing the mouth of the river the wind became a gale.   Dark clouds twisted and turned as they rolled past and the chill rain stung Potkin’s face.   He was glad to be wearing his waders and sou’wester.
Centaur began to pitch wildly as the lumpy seas battered her hull, great waves crashed over her bow and swept along the deck.   Potkin was cold and a little frightened.   He could taste his breakfast when he burped and was sure his fur was turning green.   He found an upturned bucket by the mast and curled up beneath it.
The crew, hunched against the wind, was still pulling on ropes called sheets while the skipper shouted, “Lee ho!” and “Leggo!” and the sails crashed from one side of the ship to the other.
As they swept onwards towards a buoy far out to sea, Eben staggered on deck with mugs of hot tea.   Potkin was wishing that he had stayed at home, but after the warming drink he felt a little braver and the queasy feeling in his stomach began to subside.   He nibbled a ginger biscuit and quickly perked up.   With barely a memory of his former discomfort Potkin was chatting to Rich about how much he was enjoying the voyage when they rounded the black and yellow north cardinal buoy which had been designated as the outer mark. 

SB Centaur of Harwich

Arriving on the scuffed pine deck of the sailing barge Centaur Rich and Potkin were met, close to the head of the gangway, by a rotund figure somewhat wider than he was tall, wearing a grease stained, woollen tea-cosy on his head and a leather apron with assorted boning, filleting and skinning knives stuffed into the waist.   He had a black, cardboard eye-patch and a peg leg made from the richly French polished leg of a Queen Anne chair, more ornately rococo than practical considerations required, but it did have a beautifully carved ball and claw foot.   He explained that he had lost his own leg at the battle of Jutland.   Potkin thought that he must have been very careless to mislay an entire leg, but perhaps in the heat of battle it was easy to do that sort of thing.   This fellow it turned out was cook aboard Centaur and revealed his name to be Ebenhaezer Coleye, plain Eben to his shipmates.   He showed them where to sling their hammocks and then introduced them to the saloon, a large, low ceilinged, heavy timbered space, dimly lit by hissing Tilly lamps and with a black-leaded pot-belly stove at its heart.   Here they met some of the crew.

First was the skipper, name of Absalom Rowbottom, unnaturally tall with stooped shoulders, a man, brooding and lonely, weighed down by the responsibility of command.   A jagged white scar ran across his brow, behind the patent leather eye patch and over one cheek to disappear into one of his bushy, greying sideburns.     He wore a towering black stovepipe hat tied under his chin by beeswaxed string and a black oilskin long coat over a pair of similarly coloured rubber thigh-boots.
The mate was a muscular, shaven headed, heavily tattooed native of the distant island of Mersea.   His scant clothing implied a disregard for our east coast chill, and his one good, black-hole of an eye sucked in the world around with all its suffering and woe and let not a glimmer escape from within.
“Moses Smith’s my name.” he said to Potkin.   He and Rich seemed to be old shipmates and they chatted of previous voyages and adventures.   There were no further introductions as, it being half past opening time, the whole ship’s company rushed ashore to the pub.
The local alehouse was called the Rotting Hulk Inn.   It had a faded sign swinging wildly in the wind and was a high, eccentric, weatherboarded building, clinging tenuously to the edge of the salt flats.   Inside the bar it was cramped, dark and warm.   Every nook and corner was cluttered with nautical paraphernalia donated  by travellers on all the seven seas, fixed to walls and ceiling by drawing pin and Blue Tack were tobacco browned paintings of ships, sharks’ jaws, blocks, fishing floats, dried fish, half hulls, the scrimshaw carved tooth of the very whale that had devoured Westward Ho Smy and postcards, many creased and dog eared, from every location with a seaboard.   There were wax encrusted Mateus Rose bottles with worn down candles on every table. The customers jostled noisily, fierce looking people, some ragged, others flamboyant in feathers and ribbons, some boiler suited or Guernsey smocked, and occasionally an embarassed yachty in yellow wellies trying to keep a low profile.   Many of the rapscallions carried cutlasses or harpoons and exuded an aroma of Stockholm tar and bilge water, mariners all.
Richard ordered pints of deep headed bitter beer for himself and the crew and a saucer of milk for Potkin. Eben smiled at the cat and poured a tot of pusser's rum into the milk. He felt kindly towards Potkin who was shy and nervous in the press of strangers.    As Potkin was lapping his milk a slim torti-shell coloured cat came up to him.
“Hello sailor.” She said, “Would you like to buy me a drink?”
Potkin thought it would be impolite to refuse so he ordered her something mauve and very expensive in a champagne coupe. It came with a cherry on a stick. When they had finished their drinks she said,
“Would you like to come upstairs for a cuddle?”
Potkin replied that he could not as he had to keep an eye on Rich. She smiled gently at him and sighed.
“You’re a sweet cat. Come and see me again sometime.”
When Potkin rejoined Rich he was sitting at a table chatting with the skipper of a local smack, Heartsease Finbow, whose jade velvet eye patch trimmed with lace complemented perfectly her shock of flame red hair
“I thought you’d scored there.” she said to Potkin with a smile and girlish laugh.
The drinking and talking, some singing  and roistering, went on late into the night.  
Finally, “That’s enough, now.” shouted Absalom Rowbottom above the din; “We rise at sparrows’ fart.”
Arm in arm they reeled back to the ship and turned, gratefully, into their hammocks.