A Life Afloat (Maybe)

Chapter 16

till, not having heard from Alec, Peter continued to study as much as he could, during the next couple of days he went through items he had in some part studied before, but they were still basic parts of sailing language. Peter decided to take them alphabetically so he started with aft, simple, inside the boat at the rear, ahead, in front of the boat, astern, behind the boat, bearing away, more complicated, it is when the boat is turned away from the wind, bow, the very front of the boat, fore or for 'ad, is the inside part of the boat towards the bow, leeward is when you sail away from the wind, luffing up, weird word, means turning the boat into the wind, port is the left hand side of the boat, starboard is the right hand side of the boat, stern is the back of the boat, what else, yes, windward is sailing towards the wind, he thought to himself, a lot of these words he had read in naval books about the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries British navy so he was becoming familiar with them at least, they were becoming almost natural to him and that may make it easier for him to talk to Alec about sailing in general, when he returns, was a brief passing thought. Onward's and upward's was his muffled cry inside his head, more and more studying to do before the day was out.....

Before that though, he had to look up one term that he had come across but didn't understand, that was that topping lift thing, he couldn't get the words out of his mind, going back, over and over his notes he went and there it was hidden away in the general wording of parts of a boat, it was a line that went between the aft end of the main sail boom to the head of the sail and it was used to hold the boom in position while the sail was lowered and was normally loosened or removed after the sail was lowered. Another bit of knowledge to keep my little grey cell occupied he thought, enough bits of information to keep them active for a hundred years was a fleeting thought that he had.

So, what else can I get stuck into was his main thought as he looked down his list of things to be studied, a list that seemed to get longer and longer while he looked at it. He was not really looking forward to the next items on his list that came under the general heading of communication, this was where he may struggle a bit, the first item appeared to be Morse code, a relic of years gone by he said to himself, almost everyone remembers, SOS, three dots, three dashes and three dots the universal emergency, what was it, oh! Yes, call sign, looking down at the notes he had taken from the website, every letter in the alphabet had its own sequence of dots and dashes as well as the numbers zero through to nine also three or four punctuation marks, did he really have to know all of that, especially when there was no way of using it, you needed a transmitter, special receiver as well as that key thing they used to make the dots and dashes, it could be that knowing about it was enough, or maybe it could be used between boats at close quarters using a torch, the same as the servicemen as they had done during the wars, another thing to query with Alec, with a gentle sigh he thought Alec is going to be a very busy man when we meet up next, I've got more questions for him than he will have for me, I hope, wincing at the thought. Putting that thought to one side, he looked at the next section of brainteasers, which was phonetics, that he said to himself is no problem, I know the phonetic code from my days in the forces so I can blast right past that and come to a screaming halt at semaphore, now this was a toughie, he had seen it in use by the navy sailors when he was in the forces, even then it looked a little crazy, two men waving flags at one another, it only made sense to the flag wavers but there were times he knew and understood that there was a need for something like that, especially when there was no other way of communicating, like in a war zone when radio silence was essential, it seemed as if there were positions, both clockwise and anticlockwise, one flag in each hand and the position of the flags gave the letter or number being given, again he thought, is that something that I really need to know or just again that it is there, should it be needed. In today's world he could see no real need for it but maybe it was something that one would need to know, again, for emergency use only. Deciding to take a short break and giving his brain a bit of a rest, it was cup of tea time, at least that's what he told himself, with a touch of relief, so he set the kettle to boil, what would he do if they ever ran out of tea leaves, it could signal the end of the world for him he thought, no tea, not worth living was his final thought before he returned to the pile of notes that lay before him.

All this just to sail a boat along the coast, was it truly necessary he wondered!

The short tea break had given him some form of relief from his deliberations, if you could call his studies deliberations, more like mental anguish was his thought, another of those little messages he sent to himself was, come on then get on with it and stop messing about, a message he seemed to be sending to himself more and more often, there's only one more section of this communication stuff he muttered, signal flags, another couple of words that he had read before, quite a lot , frequently they were used in the books he loved about life in Royal Navy in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, those novels by Alexander Kent, gave a picture of a very hazardous way of life for those who were forced to work as sailors back then, come on, get back to your own tortures he grumbled to himself, stop day dreaming and get on with it, signal flags, looking down at the list of flags, which were part of what was called, the ICS system, or International Code of Signals in which it appeared that each flag had two meanings, flown on their own they had a specific message, whilst flown in groups they spelled specific words, another complicated piece of information but probably more essential than the semaphore flags because by flying one flag you could give one specific message of great importance to other vessels who were within sight, such as a white background with a red diamond means', I am disabled communicate with me, or, a blue square with a white square inside it and a red square inside that means I require medical assistance, now those could be very useful, especially if you had no other way of communicating, well, well, am I beginning to see why all these different ways of being able to contact another boat are necessary.

Turning to the next series of notes, he uttered what was more of a groan than a sigh, navigation, oh! Boy, this was going to be hilarious, Alec had once shown him an Admiralty navigation chart and had tried to explain what all the different little marks were, it all went straight over his head but now he had to face it full on. This really is going to be hard work and he knew that he would struggle with it, however he was determined to give it all he could and do his very best but just looking at them all he was going cross eyed, let's get started then, buoys are floating markers and there are six types used to aid navigation and came under the control of the International Association of Lighthouse Authorities, so his notes said, starting with the cardinal marks, these apparent were named after the compass points, north, south, east and west were coloured yellow and black with different combinations of them, north and south opposites east and west opposites all had flashing lights with again different combinations as with the colours, another gentle moan came from his lips, direction of buoyage was it seems defined on those charts by a large purple arrow and defined which side you should pass the lateral buoys which were either red for port and green for starboard, it's going to explode he said, my brain is going to blow up, talk about confusing, it would seem, he read, that in general it is that the direction of buoyage when entering a harbour is into the harbour from the sea or when a river, in the direction of the rivers source. Enough, enough for today or I won't get a wink of sleep and he abruptly put his notes away