Solitaire Spirit: Three Times Around the World Single-Handed (2 page)

A polite cough as an immaculately-dressed man emerged from a side door. ‘Mr Powles? We've been expecting you. My name is Keith Johnson, managing director. This way, please.'

And he escorted me into this derelict slum as if it was a Hilton Hotel. Inside were two enormous plastic tents. ‘This is where we lay off the hulls: the plastic prevents dust falling onto the resin.'

All was spoken in a serious voice, despite the heavy rain still soaking us. We moved further into the building in search of a drier spot where, in Nelson's time, the floor might have been of stone and was now, after centuries of dust, but a puddled dirt surface.

The managing director still rattled on: ‘We have two plugs for building the hulls, one used by the company, the other for do-it-yourself people. The company can build a hull and deck for £2,500. Have a look: as it happens a couple of our self-building customers are just about to remove the plug from their hull.' With that he pointed to the far end of the shed where a crane hovered over the vague outline of a boat.

It was love at first sight. Instinctively I knew this I had to have.

‘What's the specification, Keith?'

‘She's a Bermudan sloop in foam sandwich and glassfibre designed by an Australian, Bruce Roberts. She's 33ft 6in long, 24ft 6in on her waterline, with a beam of 10ft 6in and a draft of 5ft 6in. Classed as a cruiser racer she can sleep up to seven people.'

She would have more room than the Contessa 32 that I had seen at the London Boat Show but could not afford, but had the same clean lines as the Contessa with a fine entry, keel and skeg. Though I could not see my wanting ever to sleep seven people aboard her.

‘What will she cost complete?'

‘Around £4,000 to £5,000, but that's up to the individual. We charge a basic £1,300, which includes the use of the plug for a month, a female mould for the deck and all building materials, a set of plans and fitting-out instructions and free rent for a month. After that there's a small charge if you remain longer.'

I would need a place to live. ‘If I bought a small caravan, could I keep it alongside the hull?' I asked. A quick nod to that. ‘If I gave you a cheque for a deposit today, when could I start?'

There was a pause. ‘It's short notice but you could start in a month's time.'

I wrote a cheque for £400.

The womb that was to develop
Solitaire
's embryo would not be safe and warm, but she could still be a beautiful baby and with my £8,500 I would give her the best start I could in life. On the 80-mile drive back to my home town of Birmingham I considered two priorities: first I had to buy a caravan, second I would need help for a few days.

Having bought a second-hand caravan for £200, I arranged for a school-leaver to spend a week with me, contracting to feed him, to take him to the cinema once, and to pay him £10 in wages. A couple of home-town mates agreed to spend a long weekend helping me to fibreglass in return for a slap-up meal and all the beer they could drink. Ken Mudd and Tony Marshall were both
quality control engineers, Ken with British Leyland, Tony with Lucas Electronics. Ken I had met when I worked on guided missiles after returning from Canada in 1956 following the breakup of my first marriage. Tony came on to my scene in 1970 together with his wife, Irene, and their two lovely blonde daughters: their home was to become a workshop and a haven where I was always welcome.

The plug, or former, looked like an inverted hull built of wooden laths with half-inch gaps. While upside down, sheets of polyurethane foam (up to 3 x 4ft and half an inch thick) are sewn onto it, using a forked ‘bogger'. String is forced through the foam and between the laths, forming a loop into which nails are placed. When tension is applied the nails prevent the string pulling out, forcing the foam hard against the plug, much like a bobbin in a sewing machine.

The building of
Solitaire
, as I had already named her, went to schedule. After nine days, thanks to the help from one boy and two friends, the hull was covered with rough fibreglass, which left three weeks of my month for the miserable part – screening and sanding. Talcum powder and resin are mixed to form a paste, then a catalyst (hardener) is added with which to plaster the rough hull.

For smoothing I hired heavy industrial sanders with vacuum attachments but white dust flew everywhere. I had to dress in overalls, taping the cuffs and trouser bottoms, and wear a face mask and hat. Ghost-like figures would move as if they had fallen into flour vats, self-raising puffs for their feet or shimmering haloes round their heads, careful never to leave the building in their disguise by night lest the local people be diminished by cardiac arrest.

As the weeks passed the weather warmed and more people started building. The shed became a village community with its own characters: some, like driftwood, bumped alongside briefly, leaving but a faint impression before disappearing. Others would weave themselves into the fabric of my life with acts of kindness and consideration. I would make my own voyages and have my own moments of glory but without such friends it is difficult in retrospect to see how.

Stan turned up one morning in a 20-ton tipper to build his hull. Until then there had been no facility for removing the mountain of rubbish in the middle of the floor. The rats that infested it grew tame, no longer scurrying away at the approach of a human but stopping to clean their whiskers, lift a paw to their forelocks and give an apologetic half smile, as if to say, ‘Morning, gov'nor.' This always started my day well, for I would nod and even consider raising a hand in the weak-wristed wave favoured by royalty.

The yacht builders arranged for a tractor to load our mountain onto Stan's truck, to be carted away when he left. From then on we threw our waste directly into his lorry. At the end of ten days, Stan's hull looked great. He and his father had worked hard and had benefited from the experiences of previous builders, even using steel rollers to smooth out the raw fibreglass. Glittering, it stood there, still wet, waiting for the catalyst to dry and harden it. Next morning it was still golden, gleaming and wet, but streams of yellow syrup were falling from its edges into gooey pools. After a week of trying everything including heat and nearly pure hardener, it was finally agreed that the resin was faulty. Since Stan had already lost three weeks' work with his truck, he asked for a replacement hull already brought to the same stage as his own. The company offered to supply a man and materials, whereupon Stan rebelled. Next day his tipper had gone, having upended our mountain on the floor, bigger than ever. Only the rats were smiling.

Bing, a scientist, was helped by two teenage daughters. His keel had been formed along with the hull and was a box section some 8ft long, 3ft deep and 9in in the middle, tapering to rounded ends. This box took two tons of ballast which would prevent the yacht, with sails raised, from flopping onto its side. In theory you could stand the boat on its nose, roll it upside down, or simply drop it from an aircraft and it would still bob right side up. There was a disadvantage: if you ever put a large hole in the bottom of your craft, your life savings would go down like a brick.

At this time we could use two materials for the keel: iron or lead. The first to build a hull (Berny and Vic) had made a plaster mould
of the inside of the keel from which a local foundry would make a 2-ton iron casting for £90. Lead, which took up less room and gave a lower centre of gravity (thus making for a stiffer boat), would have been preferable, but the price was more than double – £250.

Bing called a meeting and described how we might use the non-active atomic waste, heavier than lead, which the British government was dumping in the North Atlantic. Bing thought we might get a load cheap. We were all keen on the idea until someone asked, ‘Since we will be walking over the stuff, what would happen if it became active?'

Without hesitation Bing replied, ‘It would have the same effect on your sex life as the loss of your testicles.'

As I hurried away I said to a newcomer, Rome Ryott, ‘I don't mind risking one but not both.'

‘I'm risking neither!' said he.

Rome had arrived in my life with dash and style, driving directly into the building in a sporty red Capri, complete with beautiful blonde passenger. He was tall, broad-shouldered, narrow-hipped and as he walked in with quick, bouncing steps, full of purpose, I fully expected to hear James Bond theme music. His first words were not ‘Anyone for tennis?' as I had anticipated, but enquiries about the boat he was due to start building the following week. His soft, educated voice had a Wodehouse stutter assumed to give him time to choose his words. He became my closest friend.

The yacht's deck was made from a female mould, a process that took only a few days. The principle was much the same as housewives have used for years to turn out fancy jellies. First you coat the mould with wax (release agent) which in turn is given a heavy coat of paint (gel coat). The laying up, as for the hull, starts with very fine lengths of fibreglass, looking much like tissue paper, and is built up to heavier grades, with a layer of woven rovings. Water is then forced between the deck and mould to break it loose, and there is your completed deck, already smoothed and painted.

One Sunday night at the end of his month, Rome, packed and ready to set off, called at my caravan. ‘I have to be at work
tomorrow morning,' he said. ‘Since I've just had one leave I'll only manage to get here for long weekends to build the deck. I... I... was wondering if I gave you a hand to build your deck, would you help me to get mine finished?'

‘Sure, Rome,' I replied. ‘By the way, what
do
you do for a living?'

‘I'm a pilot in the RAF,' he answered.

From that moment I knew Rome would not figure as one of my pieces of driftwood: it was perhaps because I had always wanted to be a pilot but more, I suspect, because with his quiet unassuming manner Rome accepted me for what I was, ignoring my background, lack of education, working-class accent and financial standing. Rome was someone I could always look up to, yet he never once looked down on me. His father had been a silent movie actor (hence the son's exotic name) who had died leaving a widow, Grace, with two young children, Rome and his sister Terry, to bring up. After a short period in the Merchant Navy, Rome joined the RAF, where he learned to fly first helicopters, then jets. Interested in sailing since an early age, he had already owned several boats, which he changed regularly along with sporty cars and even sportier girlfriends.

I was born in Birmingham which, for an Englishman, is about as far from the sea as you can get, on October 24th, 1925, and was brought up there, living in a small terraced house with parents and young brother, Royston. We were a normal working-class family, never well off, my father employed as a foreman at the Rover car factory. During the Depression the rent man would bang on the door while we cringed inside: they were terrible years for my father, a proud man who stood on his own two feet and never failed to pay his debts.

The Second World War broke out when I was 13, and the following year I went to work in an aircraft factory as a machinist on Pegasus aero engines. But my ambition was to be a pilot. As a boy I had spent hours at the local airfield watching Tiger Moths, Hawker Hinds and Gloucester Gladiators drop over the boundary
fence. Aged 17 I joined the RAF, not as a pilot but as a wireless operator/air gunner.

Having completed the training I became a sergeant but the war was over before I could join an operational squadron. My service career ended running a station laundry in Italy, with 12 lovely young women to look after – an occupation in which I upheld the finest traditions of the British Empire but for which, unfortunately, no medals were awarded. Since then I had had many different jobs, in many countries. In my time I belonged to four skilled unions, only because I had to in order to work. I had had my own businesses including a garage, a haulage firm and shops. I was always a loner, never feeling I belonged.

My introductions to the opposite sex started with Nancy in Crewe, courtesy of two American Eighth Air Force bomber wings. As I had just been promoted to sergeant Nancy came in the form of a celebration and I shall always remember her with gratitude for her understanding, kindness and tuition. ‘Navigator to pilot, left, left a bit. Hang in there old buddy... bombs awaaaaaaaay!'

I married two charming ladies and was divorced from two charming ladies. No children came from these associations, only cocker spaniels whose custody was fought over with more bitterness than the D-Day beaches of Normandy – the battles were always lost when it was pointed out that I was a wandering soul, unable even to provide a proper home for them.

Brian Gibbons reached Liverpool to build his boat – by Jaguar. He owned a factory in the Midlands (not far from my home town). He was a boss who wasn't frightened to get his hands dirty and, without doubt, the finest all-round engineer I have ever met. Married, in his mid-thirties, his friendly, rugged face was topped by a mop of unruly hair. His clothes, like his hands, were likely to show oil or grease stains and he spoke with assurance and authority in a Midlands accent.

Brian had bought a finished hull and deck and would turn up with lumps prefabricated in his garage or works which slotted precisely. He overtook us all: I was for ever seeking his advice
which he seemed to encourage, mulling over problems with the same sort of concentration some people show for
The Times
crossword. It was never long before he would return, a stub of pencil and scrap of paper in his hand. ‘This is what you do, our kid.' And you had your answer.

Once the plug was removed, the hull was placed in its cradle. Then 3in channels were chiselled out of the foam to form stringers and bulkhead recesses. The plans called for three layers of 2oz fibreglass to be laid up inside the hull but I went way above this specification, trying to build more strength into the boat. As bulkheads were fitted and glassed into position we started to use new terminology: we would be working in the forward compartment, the heads, or main cabin.