Page 340 - The Tigris Expedition

The Tigris Expedition
distinct smell of jungle. A warm, spicy, botanical aroma of a
tropical rain forest was wafted into our nostrils, from India far
beyond the horizon. What was more amazing, the wind had
brought a rain of insects across the sea. Several beetles, ants, a few
big moths, a dragon-fly and some fair-sized spiders came down
from the sky to join our old company of grasshoppers who for
some time had been silenced by the storm. Seven sharks had taken
to our sides in the rough weather, and showed no sign of leaving.
The side-on rolling to the sea without sail was terrific after the
storm. I timed it; two and a half seconds between each violent jerk,
when it felt as if we dropped brutally down into a deep trench. The
step-ladder in the empty mast looked like a naked skeleton against
the grey morning sky. It was hard to keep balance around the
breakfast table. We praised the presence of the mouse as the food
that spilled during meals was not easily swept up from between the
thousand berdi stalks beneath us. The stowaway crabs, too, were
growing in size and number and helped keep the ship clean,
I continental bacteria. Soaked by seas and chilled by rain and storm,
operating like tooth-picks between the reeds.
Clearly we had not yet had time to rid ourselves completely of all
four men caught colds and were confined to quarters by Yuri, who
said that they all ran temperatures.
We hoisted the mainsail to the foot of the broken topmast and
succeeded in maintaining a fairly even southerly course, although
the north-east monsoon never showed up. The wind varied between
ese and sw, and at times we had to fall off and turn all about to fill the
sail from the opposite quarter and then continue our interrupted
course. We were masters of our progress. We could have done
better with more oar-blades or lee-boards in the water, but we were
indeed no drift voyagers. We held our own in contrary wind, and
even managed to force Tigris some few degrees against the wind
direction. The best we managed, according to Norman’s observa­
tions, was to advance 80° into the wind. We tested broad tables and
rowing-oars lashed to the side bundles as lee-boards, and we tested
similar boards lowered as centre-boards orguara in the open slots
between the twin bundles fore and aft. Any such addition to the
under-water keel-effect already provided by the large rudder-oars
and by the longitudinal groove between the twin bundles helped
reduce leeway. An interplay of guara fore and aft had an immediate
effect on the course, but although of paramount importance for
manoeuvring South American balsa rafts, and probably even South
American reed-boats, the big rudder-oars sufficed for guiding our

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