Conquering the Impossible (48 page)

I had to get off the boat into the icy water to brace against my trimaran. I literally used my body as a boatlift to keep the hull from tearing open against the logs and fallen branches that littered the sand of the beach.

I struggled with the boat off and on for two days. I was exhausted. In a moment of fatigue-induced distraction, I allowed an unexpected wave to throw my trimaran right at me, knocking me down; it wrenched and bruised my back. All the same, by getting under the boat, I got more leverage and was able to use the force of the next wave to haul it a little farther up the beach (it “only” weighed a ton and a half) and rest it on a log that poked out of the sand.

But the next wave lifted it still higher and then let it drop with a
Crra-a-a-a-cckk!

That horrible sound was the fiberglass of the hull being shredded by the log! As far as I was concerned, it might as well have been the sound of my own bones breaking.

The noise stirred Vasya from the slumber in which his weak heart forced him to spend much of the day, and he rushed out of his house. He shouted to me to forget about the boat and save myself. I couldn't bring myself to abandon my boat, though. It was my ticket to North Cape and victory.

The waves grew so big and so rough that they washed up onto the tundra, well beyond the beach. I was going to need more force to pull the boat ashore. To that end I drove two sturdy tree trunks into the tundra and jury-rigged a winch with ropes and a pulley system that I found in the trimaran.

Vasya did his best to help me, despite his lack of strength … and then he collapsed. I threw his limp body on my injured back and carried him into his house. His heart was barely beating. I laid him on his bed and gave him the pills that he had said he needed in case of a heart attack.

When I had done everything I could for Vasya I went back outside and resumed winching my boat up the beach. It was a long distance to dry land, and the waves were rough. It was an endless, exhausting job. I was hauling the boat about two hundred feet an hour.

After the boat was secure, I went back to tend to Vasya. I spent the night next to the old man's bed, watching as he slowly recovered.

*   *   *

The next day I dug a trench beneath my trimaran, allowing me to put the boat in drydock without moving it. There was a gash sixteen inches long in the main hull. I then called Cathy and informed her that it would be impossible for me to make it to North Cape on September 28, as planned. She would have to cancel the small festival that she had organized for all the people who were planning to come up and welcome me back from my trip.

Yvan Ravussin prepared the resin and the hardener I would need to repair the hull, and attached instructions on how to use it. He sent someone to fly the package in to me, but customs officers in Moscow confiscated it en route.

Could I buy some where I was? Unfortunately not. Polyester resin is not available commercially anywhere in Russia. In spite of this, my miracle-worker friend Sergei managed to find some. Because it was illegal for the resin and hardener to be shipped by plane, they had to send it by truck, which would take an extra three days.

Sergei himself hopped on a flight for Naryan-Mar with the sandpaper, the little electric generator, the blowtorch, and everything else I would need for the operation.

As I waited for my repair supplies to arrive, it grew later and later in the season, and my chances of making it across the White Sea dwindled. What else could conspire to keep me from completing the final leg of my journey?

*   *   *

How about the Russian border guards?

When Sergei arrived in Naryan-Mar, they refused to allow him to board the helicopter to Topseda with my package. Then, when they learned from their colleagues in Murmansk that there was a questionable boat in Tobseda, they decided to board the helicopter with Sergei and see what was going on for themselves.

When they arrived, the officials questioned me interminably about the routes that Bernard, Martin, and Jean-Philippe had taken to get here. They wanted to see my logbook. I explained that I didn't have one because I had not come by boat. They did everything they could to make my life harder, as if it was just too damned easy! Their heavy boots left filthy marks all over my trimaran, which did nothing to improve my mood.

The tension mounted, and I finally lost it.

“Get off my boat!” I yelled. “Get the hell out of here! And find your way back to Naryan-Mar on your own! That's MY helicopter! I chartered it!”

Sergei tried to intercede and get me to calm down by discreetly reminding me that the border guards had the power to impound my boat if they felt like it. One of the officers even told me so in as many words.

And I roared back at him, “Just try it!”

Repairing my boat and leaving this place had become a religious mission for me. Anyone who stood in my way was going to be met with the ferocity of a cornered animal.

Eventually everyone calmed down. The border guards agreed to let me repair my boat and leave on the condition that I not stray any farther than twelve miles from the coast and that I stop off in Murmansk to report in to their main office. Their maritime patrols would help to ensure that I didn't “forget.”

*   *   *

The helicopter took off again with Sergei and the guards, and I got to work. I heated the area around the crack because the resin wouldn't set at freezing temperatures (it was twenty-three degrees). After twenty-four hours of uninterrupted work, I had repaired the hull damage and my broken anchor cables. I was ready to go back to sea. Moreover, Bernard reported that there was a three-day window of good weather, long enough for me to make it all the way to North Cape.

Now all I had to do was to use my improvised winch to move the trimaran in the opposite direction, back into the water. The sea level had receded as the storm subsided, and it took me almost two days to haul the ton and a half boat the five hundred yards back to the water. Vasya, who was feeling better, helped to the extent that his physical condition allowed. He was happy to have me there, and I felt the same way about him. In just a short time, a genuine friendship had developed between us.

To make the work easier, I moved the boat onto logs to roll it out to sea; my progress improved from two hundred to three hundred feet per hour. The sealed hole in the hull was holding, but each time it rolled over a log, the other side of the bow creaked in a way that I didn't like. Just a few yards from the water, the hull emitted an ear-splitting noise that said it all. I took a close look and saw that the crack that had opened was eight feet long!

I spent two more days winching my trimaran back up the beach to where it had been. I didn't have enough resin to fix such a large crack. And with the difficult crossing that lay before me, I couldn't afford to try a jury-rigged repair.

I could kiss Bernard's fair-weather window good-bye. And, frankly, I'd had enough. I wasn't sick of the expedition, but I
was
sick of things breaking, sick of fixing things, sick of equipment that wore out, sick of detours and the like, all just so that I could keep on going.

I called up Jean-Philippe, whom the authorities in Murmansk had finally released. He was waiting for me to arrive in Kirkenes. I asked him if he could come meet me and bring someone who could help fix the boat. My logistical supervisor found a Russian handyman in Kirkenes who demanded only one thousand dollars to do the work, everything included.

While I waited for the two of them to arrive, I dug a new “dry dock” under my boat, sanded and cleaned the crack, and cleaned out the hold of the trimaran in order to provide access to the break from the interior.

Once Jean-Philippe and the Russian arrived on the scene, we partitioned off the work area with tarps and set about repairing the boat, working from the exterior and the interior at the same time. By the generator-powered electric light, we worked all night long, blowtorch in hand, taking great care not to catch the resin on fire, and not to allow stray sparks to ignite the gases that the resin released in the enclosed space.

Without electricity and in the cold, the only way to dry the resin, unfortunately, was with a blowtorch. I crouched at the bottom of the hold with the blowtorch in hand, drying the resin, when …
Whooomfff!

The interior of the boat suddenly burst into flames! I tried to peel away the layer of burning resin, but the heat had already melded it to the base layer. I beat at the fire with the palms of my hands, but that only fanned the blaze and spread the conflagration. I sprang out of the boat like a shot, shouting, “Fire, fire! Bring water, hurry! Water!”

The closest water source was the sea, and that was five hundred yards away! Jean-Philippe went galloping down to the shore with a bucket, beat every land speed record in both directions, lost half the water on the way back, and handed me a pail containing more sand than water. I emptied it over the flames, which sputtered, sizzled, and went out briefly, only to leap up again, burning more intensely than before! I grabbed a blanket and threw it over the fire, but the resin soaked into the cloth, and the blanket burst into flames! The Russian handyman threw on a little water that he had managed to gather, and the two pails full of water formed a pathetic little pond in the bottom of the hull. I scooped up water with my hands, sprinkled it over the fire, and finally managed to put it out. A black haze of thick, toxic smoke forced us all out of the cockpit.

The sight of this mess on a gloomy, gray day was so depressing that we decided to leave everything the way it was. We'd figure out what to do the next morning when we could think straight.

Meanwhile, I was already casting about for other means of travel to North Cape. My other boat was in Amsterdam, and it would take weeks to get it here. I knew someone in Kirkenes who had a sailboat, but if he came to pick me up, I would have to leave with him, and the last leg of my expedition would have to be run just like the rest of my journey—solo. There were no obvious answers, so I turned my attention back to the resources at hand.

Our faces were still soot-covered when we sat down to take an inventory of the damage. The interior was nothing much to look at, but the boat was fundamentally intact! The equipment that was being stored inside was okay as well. To top it all off, our repair work had been successful, which was a good thing, because there were no more materials to fix it with.

Jean-Philippe and our Russian friend helped me to drag the trimaran back down to the water. A few hours later the helicopter came to take them back to Kirkenes, via Arkhangelsk and Murmansk.

I reported in to Bernard Stamm and Cathy that, once again, I was ready to leave. Just then, a twenty-four-hour forecast of good weather presented itself. A narrow window, admittedly, but in that period of time, I should be able to get past Kolguyev Island and round the Kanin Peninsula.

My boat was in the water. After twenty days in Tobseda, where I had hoped only to pass through, the time had finally come to get back on the road.

All that remained was to say good-bye to Vasya. The old man walked toward me across the beach, and I embraced him heartily. He asked if I would stay, and I told him that it was impossible—I had a family and a home to get back to. Faced with the despair that I saw in his eyes, I offered to take him with me as far as Murmansk.

“No thanks,” he answered. “What would I do in Murmansk but die? Here, at least, I might be able to live
my
life a little while longer.”

I set off before sorrow could overwhelm me. In my insulated suit I swam to the boat, anchored just fifty yards off shore. I set sail and waved a last good-bye to Vasya, who stood motionless on the beach in his yellow oilskin.

As I was raising anchor, Vasya plunged into the water. Soon he was chest-deep in the waves. When I set my jibsail and my trimaran began to move, Vasya, now in the water up to his chin, held out his arms as if to keep the boat from leaving. His lips seemed to be whispering, “Don't leave me!”

My heart broke, but I knew that he was right. At this point in his life, he couldn't live anywhere else. To thank him for his help and because we had become close friends, I had given him all the Russian money I had left. It would be enough to charter a helicopter if he ever decided to leave.

*   *   *

As forecast, I enjoyed twelve hours of tailwinds and sailed westward, following a course between the mainland and Kolguyev Island. At nightfall the wind shifted, and Bernard, who was navigating for me via satellite phone, had me sail around the island toward the northwest.

The next day the weather was bright and clear. I shot like an arrow toward the point where I would shift course by ninety degrees, toward the Kanin Peninsula. When I reached the appointed spot, I made the turn with no problems. “You should sail at least four or five miles off the peninsula,” Bernard warned. “The waves and currents are so violent there that there's a serious risk of being driven into the rocks.” Duly noted.

Everything looked good from my perspective, but Cathy reported that a huge storm was lighting up the Doppler radar like a Christmas tree, and I was heading straight for it. Bernard confirmed the news, “There's a big storm dead ahead. Hold tight!”

I reefed my sails as much as possible, put away everything that could be stowed, and tied down everything above the deck. My main concern was that the storm might push me too close to Kanin Point, and then I would be at the mercy of the enormous waves breaking on the shoreline.

When the first huge breakers began to smash into the boat, water poured into the cockpit and short-circuited the electrical system. I had no more electronics, meaning no more automatic pilot. Clutching the helm, dressed in my waterproof suit, I fought against the storm as it made the boat dance like a cork in the midst of the huge, menacing white-capped waves. The squall grew in intensity; it was now bearing its full force down on me and would soon paralyze my boat unless I shifted the angle of my course by coming about into the wind. But I was too close to the peninsula to make the turn. I had no idea what to do next.