![]() “If you need to move, you clip onto another D-ring, okay? They’re in all the corners, so you’re always attached to the boat.” I wondered how many attempts it would take me to safely clip on without unintentionally lurching in the wrong direction. I practised, my dexterity challenged by the violent vibrations of the yacht. ![]() To focus on it took considerable concentration. “This is how you clip and unclip, see?” George showed me the mechanism. He then clipped a carabiner from one end of a reinforced line (why sailors cannot call a rope a rope will forever baffle me) onto a loop at the base of my life jacket and the other end to a reinforced D-ring on the deck. “It’s over sixty nautical miles from here – we would never be able to get there in time to help.” I figured observing the horizon might help reduce the nausea. “George, do we need to respond to that?” I asked, looking dead out to sea. Granted, it’s not until you reach 63+ knots of wind that you’re in hurricane territory, so perhaps I should have counted myself lucky…Ī Mayday from a fishing boat echoed from the radio as it informed the coastguard it was “taking on water”. Did I mention this was a job interview? With 42+ knots of wind equalling an amber ‘strong gale’ warning, and 48+ knots of wind equalling a storm, we were in a FULL-BLOWN STORM. ![]() So that’s how I found myself on a 70-foot yacht in the Irish Sea, with 52 knots of wind blasting in my face. The next day I filed a holiday request form for a Friday off in August, which is excellent news for you, or this book would be moderately dull and end here. I got my pay cheque, I paid my student loan, paid housekeeping, commuted a predictable bike-train-bike route each morning and evening, and had a bit of spare cash to see friends at the weekend. My strait-laced life was okay, but that was it – okay with a dollop of stress. My brain didn’t work as quickly as they wanted it to. George had received his fair share of calls while I sobbed down the phone, perilously anxious they’d fire me as I struggled to hit my targets. “You’re pretty miserable in that office.” I bit my lip and gazed into the middle distance. The new boat isn’t even fully built yet.” If we get the job, we don’t start for nine months, giving you plenty of time to get some practice in. “You won’t! If you don’t like it, we don’t have to take it. “But George – I don’t know how to sail! I’ve only been on a boat three times. “He wants to trial us on Osprey in August.” George had spent every scrap of holiday from work sailing with this yacht owner and his crew, having commissioned Viktor’s first boat, Sailing Yacht (SY) He had sailed multiple transatlantic crossings, raced in numerous regattas, and it was safe to assume that should he not be at work commissioning other waterborne beasts, playing rugby or visiting my house for supper, he’d be on SY “Yes, well he’s building a bigger boat, and he needs two extra crew.” Firmly rooted shoreside until one day George gallantly put on his best sales pitch voice. I’ll reiterate, my life had gone along as planned. “It may be four days or maybe six, we’ll see.” I was well accustomed to texts saying, “Now off to sea, speak to you in a few days,” and there our relationship was, safely, or sometimes not so safely, conducted by weather windows and sea state. He’d test the boats at sea before handing them over to the owner or crew and explaining how it all worked. When they built a new yacht, he’d look after its final stages of completion – ensuring all the equipment was correctly installed, the sails were trialled, the electronics were working and the mast was stepped (sailor speak for craning a large pole onto a boat horizontally and fitting it on its end vertically, in order for it to support the sails). While I’d torn my hair out over formulas and imposter syndrome, George was a commissioning skipper for a luxury boat builder. ![]() Film, TV, theatre and music industries seem to run by these rules too. I never needed to dock walk, because the other entirely fair method of getting a job is the whole ‘who you know’ thing. If you’re lucky and they have a job vacancy they might take you on as a deckhand or stewardess for the season. You wander the docks in beating Mediterranean heat giving CVs to boats, asking if they have any day work – usually cleaning the interior for girls or cleaning the deck for boys (yes, the industry is still like that). I got into the yachting industry far too easily, and I know this will come as a bit of a blow to those immensely frustrated by ‘dock walking’, which is the way in if you don’t have a foot in the door.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Details
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |