Page 88 - The Tigris Expedition

Problems Begin

The main cabin was set aft with a window-like door-opening on
either long wall facing the sea. The little cabin was set forward and
crosswise to the first, with a single similar door opening, one metre
square, facing the central deck and the main cabin behind. A roof
platform, fenced by low bamboo uprights, added an upper terrace
to either cabin. With some imagination, in a world of fish and
waves, the reed-deck space between these two golden-green jungle
dwellings appeared like a tiny village square. The huts were only
intended as sleeping quarters and retreats in bad weather. Our daily
living quarters was the open space between them.
This was also the place where we hoisted the colourful sail on its
bipod mast. As on all reed sailing vessels of the Old and the New
World, the yardarm holding the sail had to be hoisted on a double
mast with its straddling legs resting one on each of the twin
bundles. There was no hold for a mast along the centre line where
the thick bundles barely met, so the thirty-three-foot ash masts
were set into large wooden ‘shoes’ lashed on top of the bundles.
Masts and shoes were held together by wooden ‘knees’ made from
branches naturally curved at right angles. Such small but important
details were copied from Egyptian frescoes and tomb models.
Following these prototypes the straddle-mast was drilled where its
legs met at the top to pass the halyard hoisting the yardarm.
Cross-bars held the two legs together and formed a convenient
ladder to the top.
If the reeds kept afloat our life for months ahead would revolve
around this ladder between the two cabins. In the space between the
ladder and the forward cabin we sewed nicely polished scaffold
planks together with rope to form a long table with two benches,
set crosswise to the vessel. Behind the ladder the roof and side walls
of the main cabin were extended three feet forward to form an open
alcove to serve as galley. This small shelter could hold four primus
stoves and all our pots and pans.
On the last day tons of food and water were carried aboard and
stored under table and benches, along the cabin walls and down in
the deep angular trench that ran from bow to stern between the two
big bundles. Clothing and personal property were stored together
with film and vulnerable equipment in asphalt-coated boxes set

11. Entering the gulf at the river’s mouth as the wind died down, we
were left adrift among ships of all nations, until a strong onshore
wind blew up and forced us to sail towards Kuwait.
12. A view from the topmast.
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