Spree Lady 's Irish Cruise Day 4, Part 1 : Just another day at the office, really. Our "office" is Ralph Roberts' custom cruising Wayfarer World. We attend to the one-and-a-half-hour morning ritual of converting Spree Lady from her sleep mode to sailing mode.
There are the usual overcast skies, possible drizzles, SW winds F4-F6. Once underway the salty spray of the Celtic Sea jets up my sleeves and nose, down my neck and stings my eyes. And occasionally, just to keep the crew alert, there are the bigger bully waves that shoulder their way over the deck and into the boat.
I'm seated at my usual station on the thwart facing forward, ready to adjust the genoa sheets or reef the main as the captain decrees. All's well in our wet little world as we head for Kinsale, just one of the 14 ports we were to visit enroute to our destination of Dublin. Spree Lady is scampering along nicely in spite of the secondary waves reflecting back through the primary, Atlantic-born waves destined to hurl themselves against the Irish headlands.
Suddenly, I hear Ralph call out unexpectedly and quickly turn to see what's different. Ralph is, indeed, in the technical sense still at the helm, tiller extension very much in hand. There is, however, one aspect of this scene that is utterly shocking - Ralph is not in the boat, he's in the water! He remains attached to the boat by nothing more than the small piece of rubber which connects tiller and extension! In that split second between panic and adrenaline-fueled action, a terrifying scenario flashes through my mind - an entirely different fate which, even now, I am reluctant to contemplate.
To be continued click here for larger image. So, in June , Ralph met me at the Dublin Airport literally within seconds of my clearing customs. We headed straight away for Monica Schaefer's residence.
