Skip to main content

Sailing Cape Horn


Good evening…we’ve survived the storm. The 6 p’s of preparation worked. We had to shovel and plow. Plowing was amazing. I’ve never plowed snow and walls of water before. The ground is still frozen and all the rain on top of 9” of snowfall made mucking about the grounds difficult. Our boots were just tall enough to reach the barn and still stay dry. Roads have been flooded out in our area and the fog as thick as the soup we sail thru in the early part of the season. While driving yesterday I found myself secretly wishing for the schooner’s compass and GPS.

Looking thru old photos on hand, this photo reminds me of the time Irving Johnson made his voyage aboard the Peking. The other evening we showed the crew the Irving Johnson film, Around Cape Horn. Which I’m sure many of you know about. It’s a wonderful classic that we show the crew every year with the disclaimer “this is what you won’t be doing in the rigging” as it shows Irving coming down one of edges of the sails pinching it between his fingers only, all while the Peking was underway!

If you haven’t heard of Irving Johnson here’s a tidbit for your morning coffee:

Irving Johnson was born in 1905 in Hadley, MA and had always dreamed of sailing from reading many seastories as a youth. Being far from the sea he had to come up with a way of preparing himself to become a sailor. Doing a headstand ontop of a rotton telephone poll and making it swing from side to side was one of his many interesting training techniques.

In late November, 1929 Johnson joined the crew of the 377(LOA) foot 4 masted barque Peking for a voyage around Cape Horn. Johnson had always dreamed of such an adventure. Little did he know the adventure it would become. He was lucky enough to bring a camera and film a home movie to capture this historic event. Irving was able to capture the crew’s daily life & activities and amazing images of a (typical) dangerous storm as the Peking sailed the tretcherous waters of Cape Horn. Some of his footage was shot from up in the rigging! Johnson narrates the video which makes the movie a well worth event. The Mystic Seaport Shop has the video available at:
(www.mysticseaport.org/index.cfm)

Today the Peking can now be visited at the South Street Seaport Museum in New York City.
(www.southstseaport.org/street/peking.shtm)

So we leave our crew for the evening with great thoughts of historic sailing adventures that have been made and thoughts of ones that lay ahead of us this summer…

Have a great day! Be well. Do good. And hang on tight! ("Why would you let go" as one wise captain would say.)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Hail Mary

My heart is heavy with sadness as I write this particular blog. Since the beginning of August our dear friend and cook for the last 12 years, Mary Barney, had been struggling with cancer. I have intentionally respected Mary’s privacy and I apologize to you for not sharing any news about Mary’s health sooner. On Monday afternoon Mary passed away very peacefully at home, surrounded by friends and “family”. Her departure was as graceful as the rest of her life. Many people, including Jen, have been doing heroic work to support Mary these last few weeks. Oddly enough Mary was never very excited about transitions though this was about the fastest transition she ever made. And as I struggle to let go of Mary I realize I am terrible with transitions as well. We used to joke about how we liked things just the way they are, thank you very much, so why change what is working already even if it might be less labor intensive. Hard works is its own reward. I used to joke about getting Mary a Cui...

We are Nuts

Good morning everyone. Well I just had to say it before you did. Yes, we are truly nuts. Now we have gone and added one more adventure to our already full lives. As you can see she is some cunnin'. We have named her Colby. We had a sign... literally. We were in the car brainstorming names on the way to get her at WalMart (yes, you heard it right) and there at the Waterville exit was a sign for Colby College. Colby just happens to be dear Mary's alma mater. It is also the name of one of my favorite ledges in Jericho Bay, the Colby Pup. It just seemed to fit just like the way she came to us. Nothing about our Sunday was going to be different than any other except that I just happened to be helping a friend get her generator back in the barn while Jen and the kids met her new puppy Sherman. They fell in love... so easy to do. We called and there were had two pups from the same litter available... no commitments yet. We had been having the long family debate for weeks about the k...

Darkness and Light

Good morning everyone. OK, so this blog does not have a whole lot to do with schooners or windjammers or sailing vacations so if you want to leave now I will not be offended. Today is the winter solstice, as you know, the shortest amount of daylight in our calendar year here in the northern hemisphere. Of course it is the summer solstice on the other side of the equator. So I guess if you wanted to celebrate the summer solstice you wouldn't be at all in the wrong. I would applaud your ability to see outside the box. Map from Wikipedia commons Living and sailing in the mid latitudes (remember, Maine is half way to the North Pole) as we do, we experience a balance that spans a year's time, maybe many years' time. To feel the darkness of winter creeping quietly into our homes is not as bad it may appear from the outside. This is our season to rest... emotionally if not physically. We know it takes more physical energy to live and work here in winter. But when the sun goes down...