In the big round-the-world races the passage from the northern to southern hemisphere is notorious for two reasons: first, the Doldrums often serve up maddening calms and unpredictable squalls, making the sailing very tricky, sweat intensive, and miserable; and second, anyone on board who has not been across the Equator gets abused by “King Neptune” in a ceremony that mimics the best and worst of college frat house hazing. Each crew cooks up its own ritual, but usually the initiate is accused of various crimes by one of the crew dressed as Neptune, and then punishment–in the form of foul smelling slop (the fouler the better)–is poured all over the quaking sap. Here’s how it all went in the Oryx Quest on Doha 2006, as described by the ever-colorful Paul Larsen:
“We are currently making 21 knots on course. Every fast mile in these latitudes is golden. The equator approaches fast and thus so does the court of Neptune. We need a trident, a beard; a Neptune for that matter…. might just go with the slops. Hmmm I won’t sign off just yet. It should all be done by the end of my watch which starts in two minutes so I might as well finish later and let you join in on the fun. Let’s face it, everyone loves seeing a kiwi get hosed. Back in a mo’….. Some 4 1/2 hours later… After a sweaty and busy start to the watch where we changed headsails once again so as to keep in the groove, we got down to the more serious business. It all came about a couple of days ago where a crafty little conversation was struck up with Stan Delbarre to determine if he had crossed the equator before. Many classic tales were told prior to this of many crossings on many boats. One in particular about a typically hard ass kiwi skipper who would have none of this messing around on his serious racing boat and proceeded to have a round the world race of misery until eventually conceding. We’re not all superstitious… more likely just looking for an excuse to pour a bucket of stinking rubbish over a mate. So the conversation went on as we glided through the humid night:
DAMIAN-“Been sailing down south much before Stan?”
STAN-“Oh yeah, all the way down to Cape Horn.”
DAMIAN-“Cool, where did you leave from?”
STAN (still unaware of the trap)-“Alaska, it was a great trip”
DAMIAN-“Wow…did you sail all the way or get off and meet the boat (nice work, never give up)?”
STAN- “No, I did the whole trip”
Hmmmm, damn, but hang on, the guy sitting next to Stan was awful quiet. Yep, Andy Mikeljohn knew what was going on and what’s more…. he’d figured that he was swimming in an ever closing circle of sharks all of whom were after blood… or cheap kicks. We were onto him. Andy didn’t sleep well in his next off watch. It wasn’t so much the heat and humidity of below decks as the knowledge of what was approaching at anywhere between 4 and 24 knots in the fickle nightime conditions. Maybe he was the only one onboard not rejoicing when the boat hooked into some fresh breeze and lunged forward towards the Southern Cross. Many hands participated in the creation of the slop mixture. A likely Neptune was found, a trident and a beard. The consistency of the slop was a source of debate. Andy came on decks when we still had about 15 miles to go. The morning sun was beginning to bight the exposed skin of those still kidding themselves that it wasn’t. With grease gun in hand he proceeded to walk towards the mast to grease the ball upon which the mast rotates. The slop stewed. With 9 miles to go, Neptune’s court was ready. Andy was still greas… hang on, where is he? “I think he’s in the galley” check, nope, “I think he’s in the heads” check, nope… We all looked at the dormant grease gun… The little bugger has taken off up the inside of the mast. With the aid of a big search light we found Andy about thirty feet up the inside of the mast determined not to pay Neptune his dues (At this point I can picture his mother reading this at home, saying “My god, is he still doing that? He used to run up trees all the time when he was younger. First day of school, first day of football training, first date with a girl). We couldn’t shake him down and Neptune’s trident didn’t have the reach to jab at his clenched hands. Real kitten down the well stuff. Eventually he was encouraged down on the premise that we wouldn’t tie him down to the nets and pour 5 litres of trash and crap all over him when the latitude hit ‘0.00’.
Fool.
So once Andy had his crimes read out to him and was given the thorough right of passage, the DOHA 2006 Bear given to us by a class of schoolchildren from Doha was also initiated. Then of course it was back to business as usual with yet another headsail change as the winds became more consistent. We didn’t get any of the rain squalls that many of us were hoping for and so it was that I gave up on my theories of bodily bacterial stabilisation and breaking the back of the hygiene hump. I admitted that I did in fact stink and that it was time to act. The ‘sugar scoop’ at the back of these boats is a superb bathing area. Like your own little private beach if the conditions are right. A great place to go and shed the second skin that accumulates in these warm climates…”
South of the Equator, Doha 2006 and Geronimo are continuing their neck and neck drag race, with Doha 2006 edging out front by less than a mile. Leaderboard here. Make sure you check out the daily video clips here. It won’t be much comfort to Andy M., but the ceremony used to be much more painful. Super-navigator Roger Nilson, sailing on Orange II right now, once told me that when he was in the Swedish navy they doused him with hot tar…
Miserable Mikeljohn: “I’m sweaty, I’m tired. And now I have flying fish guts all over me. I knew I should have taken that accounting job…”
The Earthist Chronicles 