By Chris Doyle
The first race was ideal. The course was from St. Vincent, round the windward side of the island of Bequia to finish in Port Elizabeth. This meant reaching on port tack, our best point of sailing, with only a few miles to windward at the end.
Race day was fine and about 25 boats from 28 to 40 feet vied for a starting position. The only other multihull was a 30-foot Piver trimaran. Freedom’s Child was a little hairy in a crowded start with her tendency for unpredictable accelerations, so we didn’t hoist the main till moments before the gun.
No sooner had we raised it than a gust swept us up to the line to make a good start. We were confident, but we hadn’t expected to pull away so dramatically. We had a genoa up and were able to keep everything pulling with one crew on the outrigger, our float just above the waves. We pulled ahead, and soon were sailing at about 10 knots, while the rest of the fleet had become specks in the distance. By the time we reached Bequia, the spectators weren’t sure whether we were in the race or not, but they cheered and waved anyhow. The final beat was mainly on our slower tack with the outrigger submerged, but it was difficult to work up much anxiety when the opposition is not in sight. We scudded across the finish line in 2.5 hours, giving us ample time to tidy the boat and walk back to the line and see the next boat arrive half an hour later.
“That boat too fast mon,” the locals said. “There’s a move afoot to have you made ineligible for the big prize,” one yachtsmen told us. The next day was a rest day, and we watched the local open fishing boats race with their pretty sprit rigs and long narrow hulls, near relatives in spirit and construction to our boat.
We went to party after party and by nightfall staggered back merrily to lie happy on our hard wooden planks under the open sky. Then the rain came, that heavy tropical rain that gushes like a waterfall. I abandoned ship and jumped onto a schooner across the dock, stumbled below in the darkness to fall over numerous sleeping bodies. I found a small place somewhere and slept. The schooner left at 0530 but the crew were kind enough to wake me first. I clambered out and looked at the proa in the cool early morning light. Peter was alone on board. He lay huddled under a sail which clung tightly to him, forming a number of creases and hollows to the contours of his body. Each one was full of water. Beneath he lay damp, but blissfully oblivious.
We cooked coffee and scrambled eggs with Peter’s blowtorch which he otherwise used for making gold fillings and prepared for the race back. A bad night and lack of a decisive captain hurt. We were still at anchor by the five-minute gun and ended up two minutes late for the start. We didn’t get ahead until south of Bequia, then suffered in the light headwinds which put us mainly on the “wrong” tack. We dropped back, tacked too close to the shore in a foul current, and dropped back some more. As the beat turned into a close reach we started to pick up, but the wind was too light for high-speed sailing and we only finished third. Still, on corrected time on the combination of two races, we were first. Although the host club members were most hospitable, the more loquacious of our own club’s yachtsmen were unhappy with the results. They mumbled and muttered through the prize giving, and one tore his third prize up in protest.
We had won the big prize of some $1,000 EC, along with a giant trophy. I had dreams of lashing this to the bow and sailing back down with it, but alas, they kept it. Our name was engraved later.
At first light the next day we set sail for Grenada with bright sunshine and a strong reaching wind. We started to fly again, racing with the puffs and pausing in the lulls, sheets of spray covering us the whole way. The tops of the waves would smash into the crossarms, disintegrating to spume which flew with the wind. It was a perfect sail marred only by the forehatch coming unsecured unknown to us and the front 10 feet, which is separated by a watertight bulkhead, filling up. She started nose-diving in a rather alarming fashion. It did not take too long to heave to, bail and make way again, completing the 80 odd miles in 8.5 hours. We averaged 10 knots to the north end of Grenada.
We raced quite a lot after that but were banned from prizes unless we could muster a class of three multihulls. We once did this but somehow got forgotten in the prizegiving. Still, it was satisfaction enough to move fast. Sometimes we achieved what seemed incredible speeds, overtaking a whole racing fleet in one reach. To windward, in good winds, we could beat the fastest racing monohull around our size. But when the winds became light, we would lag behind and wish for better sails.
The next season’s winds were lighter. We all seemed involved in other things, and the proa sat like a discarded toy. Eventually we mustered some energy and took her for what was to be our last race.
This race started in St. Vincent and was to a small island called P.S.V., some 36 miles to the south. We had real competition this time. Two new Spronk catamarans had come on the scene. They were twin giants, 48 feet long weighing a mere four tons and carrying, by our standards, a huge sail area.
We had two things going for us. One was a spinnaker requisitioned from my boat, the other was that the whole race was on our fast tack. Peter and I were on our own this trip; we were unable to find anyone mad enough to sail with us. The wind was rather light, but after the start we managed to get the spinnaker aloft, and Peter handled its sheets from the outrigger.
The race soon broke into two. There were the multihulls and the mighty Ticonderoga, the 72-foot Francis Herreshoff ketch, while the rest faded into the distance. We were alongside one of the cats for a long way. Once again, we went faster in the puffs and fell back in the lulls. But the wind dropped a little more and she pulled steadily ahead. We stayed with Ticonderoga till we reached Mayreau. Ticonderoga took the lee passage and we took the reef-strewn route to windward through the Tobago Cays. The sun went in, we aimed to cut fine around a reef, when an almighty crash indicated we had misjudged it at eight knots.
Freedom’s Child was at a standstill. We dropped sail and inspected the damage. The plate had been driven hard through the housing, causing a major leak. To move the plate was impossible, so we caulked it with rags as best we could and made sail again; one man bailing, one man steering. We could nearly keep up with the incoming water — but not quite. As we covered the last few miles the level rose steadily. The finishing line came into sight, the water was up to the seats. Just to make things more difficult we now came onto a short beat. We just made it across the line and ran her up the beach and went to the bar. A little rum helped our attitude, and we watched the next boat, the first monohull after Ticonderoga, arrive an hour later. Somewhat revived, we abandoned ship, rescuing our clothes and the blowtorch, and begged shelter on one of the cats.
The next morning, bright and early, we bailed the hull with the help of local fishermen, who are always kind and helpful to any seafarer in trouble in the true comradeship of the sea. They helped us bash the centerboard out of the wreckage of its housing, and we made a temporary repair.
The weekend had been too much. We had been fairly beaten by even more diabolical speed machines. Someone said: “Dick the maintenance man is looking for a boat.” We cornered him as quickly as possible, hijacked him for a trial sail to Carriacou, plied him with sales talk and completed the deal. We returned in one of the other cats and dreamed of building the ultimate seaworthy speed machine.
Freedom’s Child lived up to Russel Hawn’s original expectations. His design was excellent. She was a thrilling boat to sail: fast, wet and exciting, with great surges in speed, and always a feel of being on the edge. Local fishermen never showed any interest in the design and had soon ditched sail for outboard engines. She did draw a lot of attention wherever we went, and one person in St. Vincent was inspired to build a proa of sorts, but it never seemed to sail well. Dick sold her to a Grenadian businessman with little sailing experience, who sadly never got round to using her, and she was left ashore in Prickly Bay, where she rotted and was then burned to retrieve the fastenings.
