After Losing a Propeller, Finding the Spirit to Sail On

While crewmember Mailys d'Hauthuille trims the sails, Bruno Trouble steers Wanaka during four quiet, blissful days of open-ocean sailing en route to the Bahamas. (By Angus Phillips For The Washington Post)
Buy Photo

In one lull we dropped all sail but the boat rolled horribly in the swell. Little zephyrs came and went. We aimed the bow south when we could, knowing that somewhere around Latitude 30, about where Georgia meets Florida, easterly trade winds would kick in, if we could just get there.

Puff by quixotic puff our crew of six, standing two-hour watches, inched along. Flying fish skittered along, dodging hungry predators. Portuguese men o' war bobbed on the surface, their tiny, iridescent sails seeking out the breeze.

At last came the trades, pounding in from the east at 14 knots right on schedule at Latitude 30. The breeze quickly built to 16, 18, 20 knots, and Wanaka heeled, churning along at 9 and 10 knots.

In short order, the skipper went from fussing about making too little speed to worrying about making too much. Marsh Harbour in the Abaco chain is no place to approach at night. "No navigation lights down there," Trouble said. "We have to arrive in the daytime to see the shoals and reefs."

He went below to e-mail to his son, Roman, back in France. "He knows the boat well. I asked, 'Where is the brake?' We need to slow down."

Meantime crewman Christian Fournier, a former French submariner and student of the sea, proposed a solution from the days before engines, when sailors hove-to if they needed to stop, cleating the mainsail to one side of the boat and the headsail to the other and lashing the helm down.

Under a starlit sky, we set the sails that way and the way came off the speeding vessel. With the lights of Marsh Harbour appearing on the horizon, Trouble locked the helm down and awaited dawn, still hours away.

Daylight lit the way to Man o' War Cut, where seas break over treacherous reefs on either side. Soon we were through to placid waters behind the island. It was another four or five miles across a shallow bay to Marsh Harbour, where the final challenge lurked.

It's one thing to cross an ocean with only wind for power and quite another to land safely at a dock with no engine. Trouble took the helm with a gleam in his eye. He charged ahead, dropping sails at the last and pointing the bow at a narrow slip workers on shore urgently waved us toward.

In came mighty Wanaka at a brisk three knots. With just a few yards to go, the big boat seemed destined to plough through the docks and into the crowd standing by. But as if by magic Wanaka shuddered to a stop, inches from disaster.

How had he brought 18 tons of rampaging fiberglass to heel on command?

"I found ze brake!" said a triumphant Trouble.

With a deft flick of a switch, he'd dropped the keel from its lifted position into the mud below. We were hard aground right where we needed to be. Breakfast beer beckoned. This adventure was complete.