Transcriber’s Note:

New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.

ALL IN THE SAME BOAT

THE FORBIDDEN VOYAGE

ALL IN THE SAME BOAT
An American Family’s Adventures on a Voyage around the World in the Yacht Phoenix

By

EARLE and BARBARA REYNOLDS

DAVID McKAY COMPANY, INC.

New York

ALL IN THE SAME BOAT

copyright © 1962 by Earle and Barbara Reynolds

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or parts thereof, in any form, except for the inclusion of brief quotations in a review.

PUBLISHED SIMULTANEOUSLY IN THE DOMINION OF CANADA

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOG CARD NUMBER: 62–18969

MANUFACTURED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

VAN REES PRESS  ·  NEW YORK

INTRODUCTION

At a party, celebrating the passage of the Phoenix through the Panama Canal, the master of ceremonies introduced our group as follows:

This is the crew of the yacht Phoenix, now on a voyage around the world.

First we have Jessica Reynolds, who is the first little girl, to my knowledge, to have attempted this feat.

Then there is Ted Reynolds, probably the first teen-age navigator of a globe-circling sailing yacht.

The third member of the crew is Nick Mikami, from Hiroshima—the first Japanese yachtsman to sail around the world.

Beside me is Barbara Reynolds, surely the most charming circumnavigating yachtswoman I have yet had the pleasure of meeting.

Finally—here is Dr. Earle Reynolds, whose sole claim to distinction is that he is the first, and only, skipper ever to sail around the world with all these wonderful people.

Fellow yachtsmen, both deep sea and dry land, both cockpit and armchair, here we are—all in the same boat.

DEDICATED TO

“All those men who want to go to sea and never do—” (Jessica’s Journal) and to their long-suffering wives.

AUTHORS’ NOTE

For simplicity, this collaboration is presented from the point of view of the Skipper

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

(between pages [182] and [183])

Map of the journey around the world

The Phoenix under full sail in the waters off Hawaii

In port, Wellington, New Zealand

Arrival in Honolulu, 1954

Japan, buying scrap iron to use as inside ballast

The timber is cut

Shaping the hull

Full-size patterns for the ribs

The Captain and his ship

Launching day

Bora Bora, French Oceania

Skipper and Mi-ke

Sextant shot on a quiet day

Mickey: Portrait of a seasick sailor

Galley scene, April, 1955

Jessica and her journal

Lassoing albatross

Rough day, Tasman Sea

Repairing sails

Marina, Staten Island

Ted refurbishing figurehead

Jessica sewing on Girl Scout badges

Reynolds family

1      THE RISE
OF THE PHOENIX

“Between a dream and a deed lie the doldrums.”

The yacht Phoenix stood poised on the launching cradle. The ways were greased, the tide at spring high, and only a single wedge restrained our newly built ketch from sliding into the waters of the Inland Sea of Japan.

Standing on deck, I looked at the crowd below, at the Shinto priest chanting a blessing at the bow, and at Yotsuda-san, my long-suffering shipbuilder, waiting alongside for my signal.

Across the bay I could see the mountainous island of Miya Jima, green and beautiful in the bright May sun. Over there, in her famous shrine which at high tide seems to float upon the surface of the sea, sleeps the goddess, Itsukushima-hime-no-mikoto, famed and feared for her jealous nature. I could only hope she would not begrudge us our brief moment of glory.

When the priest had finished, I made a short speech, and then mochi—pink and white rice cakes of ceremonial significance—were tossed to the crowd. The moment had come: it was high noon. I caught Yotsuda-san’s eye, and nodded. He smiled, bowed, and signaled to a workman. I suddenly thought, Well, Yotsuda, if this launching is a bust, I’ll be busted, too—but you’ll probably have to revive the good old custom of harakiri.

“Ikimasho!—Let’s go!” I shouted. Then everything happened very fast. Jessica, standing on tiptoe, cut with a tiny golden ax the ribbon which symbolically bound the Phoenix to the shore; Barbara swung mightily and broke the traditional bottle across the bow, cutting her finger in the process; a workman knocked out the last block. We paused for a breathless moment, and then began our slide, picking up speed as we descended rapidly, until we hit the blue waters of the Inland Sea with a grand and noble splash.

From the boat Ted and I could hear mingled American cheers and Japanese banzais floating out across the water, as our Phoenix glided, riding free on the placid bay—where she promptly rammed into the side of a Japanese sampan, and spilled the too curious occupants into the drink.

So now we had our boat, and she floated. It was another stage in a long-term dream, a dream which had been born in my seventeenth summer. With my first pay check from my first job I had bought a book: Joshua Slocum’s account of the building of the beloved Spray, and of his singlehanded voyage around the world. That was the beginning.

But between a dream and a deed often lie decades of doldrums.

During the next two decades I lived what might be called a normal academic life, acquiring three degrees (all in anthropology), one wife, a daughter, two sons, a growing waistline, and a suspicion that life was pulling a fast one on me.

It was not until 1951 that my dream of ocean cruising returned in strength. At this time I was associate professor of anthropology at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio—where the nearest body of water is the local pond, three feet deep—and head of the department of physical growth at the Fels Research Institute.

That year the National Academy of Sciences asked me, as an expert in the field of human growth and development, to set up a scientific study in the atom-bombed city of Hiroshima. I accepted and went to Japan, together with Barbara and our three children: Tim, now fifteen; Ted, thirteen; and Jessica, seven. For the next three years I studied the effects of atomic radiation on the growth of the surviving children of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Now, for the first time in my life, I lived within sight and sound of the sea, even though it was the relatively gentle Inland Sea of Japan. Every day, as I drove to the laboratories of the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission, I passed busy shipyards, where wooden ships, both large and small, were being built with age-old skills. Oyster boats, fishing sampans, and trading schooners dotted the blue waters of Hiroshima Wan. Gradually, as I settled into my research and got my bearings, I began to look about with a very specific purpose in mind.

There is a poem by Browning whose lines are haunting: “Never the time and the place and the loved one all together!” At last it seemed that these three magic elements might possibly be combined. We had the time—a two-year contract, with an option to extend it for a third year. This was certainly the place—the magnificent Inland Sea, unrivaled for beauty, with plenty of opportunity for sailing—while just beyond lay the vast and challenging waters of the Pacific. Moreover, there were skilled Japanese shipwrights here, with centuries of tradition in the building of wooden craft.

As for the loved one—she existed as yet only in the notes, sketches, and pictures I had stored over the years, but which I hoped might be assembled into the plans for the ideal boat.

Finally, for the first time in our lives, we had a chance to accumulate some capital. At last, and for once—the time, the place, and the loved one seemed to have met.

The type of craft that evolved in my mind was a heavily built ketch, stressing the factors of safety and simplicity. I knew about the pros and cons of light-versus-heavy displacement cruising boats, and had compared modern and old-time designs, rigs and methods of construction. One fact was all-important: styles in boats, like everything else, may change, but the sea doesn’t. Boats built along traditional lines have made long voyages in safety and relative comfort in years past, and they can do so today, even though they may be scorned as “old-fashioned.”

With this idea in mind, I made a few contacts with stateside designers and ordered a number of stock plans. I came across some very fine designs, but none completely suited me. One very real problem was the particular circumstances under which this boat would have to be built. I would have to use materials and equipment now available in Japan. The boat would have to be built of Japanese woods. Would a foreign designer know which to recommend? Also, there was the matter of the local boatbuilders, who didn’t take too kindly to plans and blueprints, to say nothing of the English language. Would an absentee designer be able to anticipate and provide for all the problems that were bound to arise?

Reluctantly I had to face the facts: if I wanted a boat built in Japan, by local shipwrights, I would have to design it myself and supervise every detail of its construction. If I didn’t think I could do it, it would be better not to start.

I settled myself to the task. For the next year all my time and energy outside the laboratory were devoted to the labor of designing the boat. It was entirely a “library research” type of job, based on my studies, collected materials, and the books I had brought to Japan with me.

I drew up the plans for a double-ender, along the lines of the early Colin Archer designs. It was to be 50 feet over-all, with a 14-foot beam and a draft of 7½ feet, displacing about 30 tons.

The ketch was to have a straight keel, high bulwarks, gaff main, topmast, inside ballast (6½ out of a total of 9 tons), and a flush deck forward of a small after cabin. Her accommodations would attempt to combine the best features of an open design, so necessary in the tropics, with the essential privacy for each member of the crew, which could make all the difference on a long voyage.

With the plans well along, we hit a real snag. For months all efforts to find a satisfactory boatbuilder, at a price we could afford, drew only blanks.

A major problem was language. I could speak enough Japanese to get a hot bath, to find out when the next train left, or to agree that the scenery was out of this world—but this was a long way from being able to discuss technical phases of boatbuilding. I began to enlist help from among my Japanese friends, and before long had built up a working team, which we called the “four-man parlay.”

Man No. 1 was Yasuda-san (“san” is a suffix meaning Mr., Mrs., or Miss). Yasuda-san was a teacher in the local high school; his knowledge of English was excellent but he knew nothing whatever about boats.

Man No. 2 was Takemura-san, key member of the Hiroshima University Yacht Club. He was a former officer in the Japanese Navy, an expert navigator, and a keen sailor of small boats, though not a deep-sea yachtsman. His interest in the venture was as a potential member of the crew. He spoke not one word of English.

Man No. 3, whom we called the catalyst, was Niichi Mikami, a fellow employee at the Atomic Bomb Casualty Commission. Nick (as he quickly became known) spoke fair English and had a good understanding of “how to get along with Americans.” He was also a fine small-boat sailor and a member of the local yacht club. He filled in the gaps in the chain of communication.

Man No. 4 was myself, who thought I knew what I wanted but was hard put, at times, to get it.

Whenever the team could be assembled, we toured the boatyards of the surrounding areas, but without success. The builders either refused outright, or quoted such a fantastically high price that there was no point in dickering, or—more in character—were so devious in their discussion that this amounted, in Japanese terms, to a refusal. Not until the search was widened well beyond Hiroshima, to the region near Miya Jima, did I find my man. One cold, wet morning in December, our four-man team set out for Miya Jima Guchi, thirty minutes by standing-room-only train from Hiroshima. From here a short walk took us to the small shipyard of Mr. Yotsuda.

As we approached we could see Yotsuda-san himself, silhouetted against the terraced rice fields of an adjoining hillside. His kimono waving briskly in the breeze, he was repairing his roof—and judging from the looks of it, none too soon. At a hail, he scrambled down, and I bowed through the rituals of introduction, via Yasuda-san, via Takemura-san, with help from Nick.

Yotsuda-san impressed me favorably when I met him, and I had a feeling he liked me. He was a cheerful, shrewd-eyed, honest-faced man of middle age. He had been a busy and prosperous shipbuilder in Manchuria until after the war, but now, repatriated to Japan, he had been able to bring back only his family and a few hand tools. At present, the Yotsudas were living precariously from hand to mouth, or rather, from fishing smack to oyster boat.

The workshop consisted of an open shed, with living quarters behind, and a nearby pile of scrap lumber. The shop had a bare and austere appearance to American, gadget-accustomed eyes. There were no high-speed tools in evidence, no laborsaving devices, no power saws or sanding machines, not even a brace and bit. There were only the traditional hand tools of Japanese boatbuilding—adzes, chisels, hammers, augers, saws. I noted that the saws functioned by pulling instead of pushing. As I later discovered, so did the workmen.

Our group was ushered into the Yotsuda living-sleeping-dining room, with its bare tatami mats and the family shrine in the corner. There we knelt about the hibachi, trying to warm ourselves from its core of glowing charcoal. The family had apparently been banished to the earthen-floored kitchen. While the wind whistled through the plainly visible cracks, the “team” discussed with Yotsuda-san in tortuous fashion the possibility of bringing to life, in wood and iron, my sketches and notes. And I thought doubtfully to myself, When this man can’t even plug the holes in his own walls, how could he ever be able to build a good boat?

At any rate, I showed him what I wanted, bringing out my plans and pictures, and discussing notes and construction. Hours passed. Yotsuda-san looked and listened quietly. Behind his impassive smile—that famous Japanese smile!—there began to glow a spark of genuine interest and understanding. Through the interpreters he began to ask pertinent questions and make sharp comments. There was no doubt this man knew his business, and that he saw, in the designs, a challenge that intrigued him. Suddenly I found myself thinking that, cracks or no cracks in the wall, this man could build our boat!

So I knelt there, with legs long ago gone to sleep, and shivered silently in my overcoat, while a long and vigorous discussion took place in Japanese. At last there was a pause, a question from Takemura-san which could be recognized as climactic, and Yotsuda-san’s answer, ending in the phrase, “Dekimasu—Can do it.”

The team summed up the four-hour meeting succinctly: “He say ‘Okay’!”

Now we had to come to grips with reality. A dream on paper is no risk at all, but the time had come to back it with a sizable wad of cash. Even though the price agreed upon was remarkably low, by American standards, it would take all the money we had and could raise. I had to face the fact that, if anything went wrong, we might be financially wrecked before we even got the boat in the water.

The contract, when completed, was a magnificent document, embodying every item and clause I could cull from legal terminology and textbooks on boatbuilding (I had eight of them). It protected us (or so I thought) from every imaginable disaster or delay, whether from act of God or from error of Nippon.

Even so, the contract contained, as I later discovered, two flaws. First, when translated into Japanese by Mr. Yasuda, the language somehow lost the force of the English version, so that the verbs “will” and “must” came out “it would be nice if” and “it would be good to.” Months later, when I came to know both Mr. Yasuda and the Japanese language better, I asked him why he had so softened the original version.

“Reynolds-sensei,” said Mr. Yasuda (“sensei” being a term of respect accorded professors and the like), “Reynolds-sensei is a very polite man.”

“Oh, I am?” I asked politely.

“Of course. And Reynolds-sensei would never say anything to make Yotsuda-san unhappy.”

“No?”

“Because then Yotsuda-san maybe not work so well.” Mr. Yasuda smiled. “So I do not translate what Reynolds-sensei say; I translate what he mean.”

“Oh.” I thought this over for a moment. “Mr. Yasuda—the boat—it’s still to be fifty feet long, isn’t it?”

“Of course!” said Mr. Yasuda, shocked. “Everything just like you say in contract!”

The second flaw in the contract was a very simple one. The time stipulated for the completion of the job, to be started in December, 1952, was June 15. The contract merely neglected to mention which June 15.

In any event, having made the down payment, as per contract, so Yotsuda-san could begin to buy the materials, I retired to the bosom of my family for Christmas. Perhaps there was something in the gifts I had shopped for so lovingly—heavy brass ship’s candlesticks mounted in gimbals, a ship’s bell with a truly mellow tone, a bright orange life jacket for each member of the family—that made the kids realize that, although this boat might be another of daddy’s whims, it was a whim that was going to affect them directly. They began to take a mild interest in the project and to look at my plans with more respect. Jessica, in particular, asked to be shown her place in the boat, and wanted it distinctly understood that she would have no part in it unless room was made for all her dolls. This was managed by simply labeling one locker in the plans, “Jessica’s Dolls.”

Shortly after New Year’s Day I returned to the shipyard, eagerly expectant. I looked forward to seeing the piles of lumber, redolent with promise. Perhaps the keel had already been laid. At least the lines of the boat would have been laid down, full size, as directed.

I was alone this trip, so as I trudged the muddy road from the station to the boatyard, I went over my meager Japanese vocabulary. But after all, I wanted only to look at the progress of the work, and surely no technical problems would come up this soon.

None did, for when I arrived I found the shop, in its original condition, together with Mr. Yotsuda, in his original condition, and nothing else. At a disadvantage, I began a conversation in my best pidgin Japanese.

“Ohio gosaimasu—Good morning,” I said, as an opening gambit.

Mr. Yotsuda bowed. “Ohio gosaimasu. Shinen omedeto gosaimasu!” This meant not only good morning but also Happy New Year, which put him one up.

“Boat,” I fumbled. “Not begin?”

“Yes,” agreed Mr. Yotsuda happily. “Not begin!”

“Ah so desuka?” This is the Japanese equivalent of “You don’t say?” “Why not—begin?”

“Ah—now New Year!” Mr. Yotsuda seemed vastly surprised at my ignorance.

“But, Yotsuda-san, New Year—three days before!”

“Ah, yes!” agreed Mr. Yotsuda. “Also today—and tomorrow—and tomorrow.” His gestures indicated a vast array of tomorrows. “Many, many days.”

So I learned a new thing about Japan—that New Year’s is not a day, it is a season.

However, when we visited the yard again, together, late in January, things looked more promising. Much lumber had been assembled; nearby were many curved logs of keyaki, comparable to oak, from which the frames would be made. Set upon a foundation near the shore was a massive log of kuromatsu (black pine) which the awkward-looking adzes of the workmen were rapidly transforming into a long, gleaming white keel. As I ran my hands lovingly over the fresh, smooth wood, I knew that at last we were on the way.

The methods of the workmen never ceased to fascinate us. In one corner of the shipyard was a sight that was to become very familiar: a solemn little man in a black fur cap who, sawing horizontally with an enormous curved saw, steadily, day after day, reduced huge logs to two-inch planks. Every bit of lumber on our boat was to be hand sawn. All the workmen handled their tools with consummate skill, an ease which was deceptive when one tried to use the same instrument. For example, after the deck had been laid they smoothed it to perfection by removing almost transparently thin shavings with the swing of an adze—an operation in which a fraction too much follow-through would have removed a toe or a miscalculation in depth would have left an ugly gouge. Neither gruesome alternative ever happened.

The men worked mainly by eye, even when operating within the confines of measurements, but the completed job was always amazingly accurate. An example was the fitting of the planking which, forced into position by huge vises, was fastened to the frames with handmade, hot-dipped galvanized boat spikes, through-bolted at the butts, and then, for additional strength, edge-nailed from the inside. The planking was begun from the bottom up and completed from the top down. It remains one of the mysteries of the inscrutable East how that last plank was so cut as to fit exactly into the space that awaited it. No crack of light could be seen between the finished planking, even before calking.

Both planking and deck seams were calked with oakum. When the job was done, the cooperation of the local fire department was enlisted and a hand pump set up on the sea wall. A contingent of volunteers spent hours pumping the Inland Sea into the hull, while workmen on the scaffolding outside marked the few small leaks with chalk. At the end of a busy day, a hole was drilled in the bilge and the sea allowed to drain out.

The chief exceptions to traditional Japanese methods were in my insistence on the use of wood preservatives, marine glue and American putties and paints. Such procedures are not a part of normal sampan-building activities. A certain preliminary confusion was also caused by the fact that Japanese shipwrights do not operate in terms of feet and inches, but with shaku and sun, which are only rough equivalents. Eventually, I discovered that the work proceeded much more smoothly if I adapted to their measuring system and translated my figures into Japanese dimensions. I became quite casual, as time went on, in the use of shaku and sun, not to mention bu, ken, kan, kin, tsubo, sho, to, and koku.

We never did become casual, however, about the manner in which the workmen smoked on the job and tossed their butts and matches—sometimes still aflame—into nearby piles of trash and shavings. Naturally, there was a fire clause in the contract, but we were realistic enough by now to know that if the job came to a fiery and untimely end, Yotsuda-san would be profoundly distressed, but absolutely without means to rebuild our boat. Insurance? Just the thought of beginning negotiations made my head reel. No, the men must stop smoking on the job. I told them so, and they smiled and bowed politely. From then on, each time we came out to the boatyard, they smiled, bowed, and carefully put out their cigarettes. We smiled and bowed also, and hoped for the best.

Nevertheless, these months were happy ones for us all. The work progressed steadily, if slowly, and although we had gradually reconciled ourselves to the fact that we would not launch in June, we felt that surely by July—or, at the latest, August.... We still had much to learn.

During this time hundreds of problems arose, and each, after its own nature, had to be met and surmounted. Scores of items, major and minor, had to be hunted down, designed or made, or contracted for. A principal source of supply was in the junk and secondhand marine shops that lined the waterfronts. The nearby city of Kure had during the war been a mammoth shipbuilding center, and even then in some half-forgotten bin at the back of a shop one could sometimes make rich strikes. I would emerge sneezing, dragging out a length of galvanized chain or an assortment of bolts. The proprietor, knowing quite well who I was and what I was up to, would grin amiably. The conversation usually went like this:

“Kono jonku wa—ikura desuka?—This junk—how much?”

“Jonku!” he exclaimed in mock indignation. “Jonku nai! Yotto no mono desu!—Not junk! Yacht equipment!”

“Iie! Jonku dake! Ikura?—No! Only junk! How much?”

He laughed. “Hokay. Sekai isshu no yotto kara, jonku desu.—Okay. Because it’s for the round-the-world yacht, call it junk.” He weighed it up, I paid for it at the rate of scrap iron, and hauled it down to the boat.

In Kure also was an offshoot of the Korean War, the BCOF—British Commonwealth Occupation Forces—salvage depot, which was a high-class name for another junk yard. War materiel poured into this depot in bewildering abundance and a wide variety of conditions, from completely unused to completely useless. Climbing the mountainous piles of scrap in the yard, or delving into the bins in the sheds, I would sometimes make a fine haul, as on the day I picked up two new 65-pound plow-type anchors for one pound Australian ($2.25) apiece.

Sometimes, however, the find would turn out to be fool’s gold, as it was the time I bought a 1,200-foot coil of condemned one-inch manila rope for 10 shillings, sight unseen, only to discover that it should have remained sight unseen, forever.

In time the officers in charge of the depot became interested in our activities, and set aside items which they thought we could use. In this way we acquired such things as a ton of truck springs (for inside ballast), an Air Force compass (which we used all the way around the world), a big bilge pump (still in use), an aluminum gas tank from a crashed plane (our deck water tank), and dozens of other items, great and small.

No amount of searching, however, would dig up the outside keel we had to have cast by a foundry, or a marine engine (ordered from America), or our sails (made in Yokohama), or the many special deck irons, or the rigging. In cases such as these, I had to do it the hard way.

By September, work had progressed far enough so that we felt it was high time to decide on a name for our craft. My preference was for Daruma, the Japanese doll with a rounded bottom and the well-known ability to bounce upright every time it was pushed over. The Japanese have a saying about the daruma: “Nana korobi, ya oki!—Down seven times, up eight!” I liked those odds very much. So, when our Japanese language teacher and very good friend, Mr. Yamada, next visited us, we broached the subject.

“Daruma....” Mr. Yamada said, slowly tasting the word. “Yes-s-s ... very good.” From his tone we knew he really meant not worth a plugged yen. What we didn’t know at that time was that to the Japanese the daruma also connotes a lady of easy virtue, for obvious reasons.

“Maybe something else would be better?” Barbara said, giving him an out.

“I think so—maybe something else,” agreed Mr. Yamada. “I will think about it.”

On his next visit Mr. Yamada did not bring up the subject of the boat’s name directly. That was not his way. But he did produce a 10-yen note and point out to us the mythical bird engraved across its face, the phoenix. And during the rest of the evening the word “phoenix” seemed to recur frequently in our conversation. “We Japanese hold phoenix in very great esteem.... One of the rooms in the Imperial Palace is called Phoenix Room. It is most beautiful.” More importantly, Mr. Yamada had written out for us, in his amazingly neat script, an account of the place of the phoenix in Oriental mythology—“He is legendary king of the birds appearing to reign only in time of universal peace.” In turn Mr. Yamada seemed both awed and incredulous when we told him of the Western concept: that the phoenix is eternally born again from the ashes of its own destruction.

“Perhaps—world peace—shall rise from the ashes of Hiroshima,” he murmured.

“Mr. Yamada,” I asked, “what would you think of the name of Phoenix for our boat?”

“Phoenix....” Mr. Yamada echoed the word softly. “Yes.... I think—maybe a very good name. Very—auspicious.”

And that was that.

The next step was to arrange for a suitable figurehead—naturally a phoenix. A local wood carver submitted an ambitious design. We managed to tame his enthusiasm somewhat, but our present compromise, carved from a solid block of camphorwood, is still a very impressive bird.

By now it was fall and we had begun to adjust our sights to a December launching. After all, that would be only six months late! The work was going along well and all seemed serene when suddenly, like the collapse of a pricked balloon, everything stopped. On several consecutive visits we saw no workmen, no progress, no signs of life. Yotsuda-san seemed not to be available.

There was only one thing to do. Rounding up the “team,” I called a conference. Mrs. Yotsuda was sternly warned to have her husband there.

Yotsuda-san came to the meeting, but it was only after long prodding that the reason for the delay came out. Yotsuda had run out of money. Without pay, the workmen—even though they were his relatives—wouldn’t work. Therefore, he needed money—not more than the contract called for, but the next installment in advance of the due date.

After getting this straight, I advanced the sum needed. When Yotsuda-san, bowing his apologies all the way out of sight, had departed, I asked the natural question.

“Why didn’t he tell me at once? Why waste so much time?”

“Yotsuda-san was very much ashamed,” Mr. Yasuda explained.

“Ashamed because he needed money?”

“Yes. Contract says, ‘Next payment when masts stepped,’ but masts not stepped yet, so Yotsuda-san is ashamed to ask for money. It is a great disgrace to the Japanese people.”

“To the Japanese people?”

“Yes. You are foreign gentleman. You have made very careful contract. To foreigners, contract is important. So Japanese people much disgraced if Yotsuda-san cannot keep contract.”

“Don’t Japanese people have contracts among themselves?”

“Of course!” said Mr. Yasuda. “They have contracts, but do not use them. If contract is no good, they forget it.”

“Mr. Yasuda,” I said, “tell Yotsuda-san to forget the contract and build the boat.”

“Ah,” said Mr. Yasuda happily. “I think it would be much better.”

With the threat of disgrace from contractual obligations removed from Yotsuda’s shoulders, together with judicious advances of small sums at regular intervals, work again proceeded slowly and happily, interrupted only by the prolonged O-bon festivals of the fall months, the bad weather in November, and of course by the expected hiatus at New Year’s.

By early March the work was far enough along so that I thought we should discuss a definite date for the launching, but I was determined that this date, once set, would not be postponed, and stressed this strongly at the next group meeting.

Mr. Yasuda seemed surprised. “But date for launching is already decided.”

“Ah so desuka!—You don’t say!” I remarked. “Who decided it?”

Mr. Yasuda consulted his companions. “The priests at Miya Jima shrine,” he announced.

“Oh—naturally. And the date—may I ask when it is?”

“The fifth of May, a very good day. The priests say this is a lucky day. Also, it is big spring tide and you cannot launch except at highest tide. And it is Boys’ Day—Japanese national holiday—so everyone will come!”

This seemed to be an unbeatable combination, so May 5 was set as L day. In the meantime, we were busy as never before. We hung the rudder—a big, barn-door affair, on which the ironwork alone weighed 500 pounds. We sanded, puttied, and painted. And we stepped the masts, an all-day job using manpower alone. For this task the Hiroshima University Yacht Club, of which Nick and Takemura were members, turned out in a body to help. Even the press took notice, reporting that “A gigantic yacht is building near Miya Jima Guchi.” Compared to the snipes and sailing dinghies of the local yacht clubs, the Phoenix did indeed look gigantic as she reared up in her makeshift cradle, towering above the roof (now repaired) of Yotsuda’s humble home-shipyard.

As the date approached, our craft, superficially at least, began to take on the appearance of a boat. For the moment we refused to think of the work yet to be done: all the interior joiner work, the engine installation, the tanks, the deck-iron work, the standing and running rigging, the sails. And beyond this, such items as clothing, supplies, stores, navigation equipment, charts—literally hundreds of individual items to be obtained. And at the end of it all, the cruise itself, for which the entire undertaking was merely preparation. Of this last stage I dared not, at the moment, even think.

In the last hectic weeks before launching Barbara took over a number of items that had been added to the already lengthy list of Things to be Done. She located an upholsterer who could cover the frames for our seats and couches; she arranged for our weekly “sewing girl” to shift her talents from shirts and dresses to such necessary items as mattress covers, canvas cushions, and a complete set of signal flags.

All in all the family didn’t see too much of each other as we moved into the home stretch, but we consoled ourselves by thinking that once we moved aboard we’d be together constantly. This prospect was not one of unalloyed bliss, however, especially when Ted and Jessica tangled in a brother-sister dispute. At such times we were inclined to agree with Tim, who had announced violently, “I simply couldn’t live with my family on a fifty-foot boat!”

Soon thereafter Tim announced his decision to return to the States and go to college, rather than accompany us on our voyage. Barbara was disconsolate.

“It was one thing when I thought we’d all be in this together,” she tried to explain, “but with Tim in the States—and the rest of us out of touch for weeks at a time—possibly months—” She paused, and we both finished the thought silently, Maybe forever.

“Families,” wailed Jessica, “ought to stay together! I don’t want Tim to go!”

None of us did, but it was his decision to make. We let him go with our blessing, and went ahead with our plans. Barbara determined to do everything possible to draw the rest of us even closer together.

The last forty-eight hours before launching was a time of continuous work, accompanied by the hammering of shipwrights, who removed most of the scaffolding and poised the Phoenix in her launching cradle. They also had to demolish a portion of the heavy sea wall so that the ways could be extended out over the water. On the last night work continued long hours after dark, by the light of bonfires. The men themselves were considerably lit up by several cases of beer, so it was a tired but musical gang who saw the sun come up as the job was finally completed.

During the night Takemura-san, Nick, and I completed our preparations for the launching ceremonies, which had blossomed until they were far more elaborate than anything I had ever imagined or wanted. Much of this was due to the activities of Takemura, the prospective first mate, who had shown himself a bit unreliable in the matter of solid work but now proved himself to be a born master of ceremonies.

Among other things he had arranged elaborate king-size badges, to be worn by all participants. It was during the preparation of these badges that the first faint signs of future complications put in an appearance. At four in the morning Takemura approached and through Nick indicated that he needed to consult with me. Nick’s English, which had improved remarkably during the months we’d known him, was still strained a bit when conversations got beyond the realm of the strictly functional.

“Takemura-san wants to know what to write on badge,” said Nick.

“Do we have to have badges?” I asked desperately, but I already knew the answer to that one.

“Of course,” said Nick. “Always have badges—very important.”

“Okay,” I said resignedly. “On Oku-san—Mrs. Reynolds’ badge, write Cook.”

“Just—Cook?” repeated Nick, aghast.

“No—better make it Chief Bosun’s Mate,” I hastily amended.

“Ah, taihen ii desu—Very good!” approved Takemura when Nick translated. The title was duly brushed in, in beautiful Japanese ideographs.

I was getting warmer now. “And on this badge—” taking up Ted’s—“write Assistant Navigator, and on Jessica-san’s badge write Cabin Girl.” This was done, and Nick, who had been officially signed on, was given the title of second mate. Then there was a pause, and I could sense some sort of crisis.

“Reynolds-san, your badge. Takemura-san asks what to write.”

“Why, Captain, I should think. Unless you want something fancier?”

“Captain. Ah so desuka!” Takemura sucked air and bowed very low. All at once I got it.

“Yes,” I repeated firmly, “Captain. And on your badge write First Mate or Navigator in Chief—or both. Just as you please.”

The last two titles were recorded in a rather tense silence. I realized for the first time that Takemura had coveted the senior title and that this entire build-up may have been designed solely to establish that one point. Well, it’s been established, I thought. It’s settled, once and for all. As I discovered later, it settled something, all right, but not what I expected.

By dawn a crowd had begun to arrive, and we shared breakfast coffee with a dozen early well-wishers. The family came soon after, driven out in a truck along with the housegirls, the sewing girl, the gardener, and any number of large paper fish (for flying on high during Boys’ Day), ceremonial rice cakes, and various bottles of sake which had been dropped off at the house during the preceding evening. The most appreciated present, bar none, was the three-colored kitten which Jessica was clutching tightly in her arms.

“Miss Uchida says a three-colored cat is lucky on a boat,” Jessica announced. “Its name is spelled m-i-k-e—Mee-kay, not Mike—and that means three-colored, and it will catch rats when it gets big.”

“Just what we needed!” we managed to proclaim, to her intense relief.

In spite of my forebodings, Barbara had not forgotten to bring the champagne and a bag of netting to cover it, so the glass wouldn’t be sprayed at the critical moment. The bottle was promptly hung from the bow, convenient to the platform that had been erected for the ceremonies. Beyond this we had barely a moment to exchange a conjugal word (“Did you remember to bring the lanterns I left on the porch?” “Yes.”) before we were surrounded by friends who shoved bouquets and gift-wrapped parcels into our hands and asked us to pose, together with reporters, who held microphones of portable tape recorders in front of our faces, and press photographers, who begged for “Just one more, please!”

Long before noon all the choice vantage points, including nearby hills and the roof of Yotsuda-san’s house, were filled with people. By eleven o’clock there was no room left on shore, and very little left on the water. At 11:30 the program began, and promptly at the tick of noon the Phoenix was launched.

2      PREPARATIONS
FOR A VOYAGE

“Cruising is walking, talking, buying, scrounging ... but cruising is also sailing.”

It was almost dark before visitors ceased to stream aboard the Phoenix, now riding at anchor in the bay. Then it was time for me to go ashore for a conference with the owner of the sampan we had wrecked during the launching.

After that, I told Barbara, Ted and I would attend a party ashore, given for everyone even remotely connected with the building of the boat—except, of course, females. For the first time Barbara appeared recalcitrant.

“Do Jessica and I stay on board here alone?” she asked.

“No, you go on back to the house. The Yacht Club boys will keep anchor watch. Come back out tomorrow.”

“It was nice knowing you,” Barbara said, climbing down into the dinghy. “I hope you and the Phoenix have a wonderful honeymoon.”

Only after Barbara had left did it occur to me that she had really wanted to stay on board, even without bunks or conveniences. I suddenly realized that my actions must have revealed my misgivings about the family, their adaptability and willingness to “take it.”

The conference with the sampan owner was protracted. His boat, badly holed, had been hauled up on the beach, a mute testimonial to the ruggedness of the Phoenix, which was barely scratched.

The victim readily admitted his responsibility. He had been warned to stand clear and had ignored the warning. On the other hand, it was the Phoenix that had been launched. Otherwise he wouldn’t have been there. If he hadn’t come he wouldn’t have lost his sampan. Obviously, it was nobody’s fault—it was the will of the gods. However, since the captain of the Phoenix was a rich man—

I hastened to correct that statement.

—Well, anyway, richer than the sampan owner, and since this was an auspicious day when everybody should be happy, perhaps a sympathy offering....

“How much sympathy would the sampan owner need?” I inquired cautiously.

This required a long conference, but it came out to 2,000 yen—about $5.50 American. I announced that I could be that sympathetic, and the offering was duly made. With mutual expressions of esteem and satisfaction the conference broke up, and we moved on to the evening’s festivities.

This party, for which preparations had been under way for weeks, cast me in the dual role of guest and host. As guest, I was given the seat of honor; as host, I was expected to foot the bill. I hasten to add that I was by no means being victimized; it is the custom of the country. Besides, the whole affair came to less than a hundred dollars, including a bonus to each worker in proportion to his work.

It is also worth mentioning that Yotsuda-san never so much as hinted that a bonus should be given to him or that he should be paid more than the contract called for. This, in spite of dire predictions by fellow Americans—“old Japan hands”—who had warned me gloomily throughout that I’d be “taken for a ride.” What they failed to recognize was that Mr. Yotsuda was a completely honest man.

Late that night, after the party, Ted and I relaxed on deck, listening to the rustling of the tide as it slipped gently past the hull. Our first night aboard our yacht! In fact, I mused ruefully, it was the first night I had ever spent aboard any yacht. Ahead of us lay an unknown future but here, tonight, lying on deck and watching the stars overhead swing slowly in gentle arcs, I was at peace.

Early the next morning the Phoenix was towed to Hiroshima harbor, and the next stage of work began. A cabinetmaker and three workmen, complete with tools and lumber, moved aboard and began to carry out our plans for the interior accommodations.

Four main areas had been laid out. There were to be seven permanent bunks, each a tiny unshared domain. Two bunks were in the forecastle, just aft of the forepeak and chain locker. Between the forecastle and the main cabin an area was laid out to starboard for the head (American fixtures) and to port for a large and waterproof sail locker.

The large central cabin contained two more bunks, the main companionway, galley, lounge, and food and storage lockers.

Aft of the main cabin, and raised two feet, was the “ladies’ cabin.” It was to be finished in Oriental cabinet woods and ornamented with a ramma, or carved bas relief, and a miniature tokonoma, a replica of the family shrine that graces the main room of every Japanese home. Beneath the floor of this cabin was a large area for food storage.

At sea, there would be no traffic through the ladies’ cabin, everyone forward using the main companionway. Aft of the ladies’ cabin was a small cabin for the skipper, with navigation table and chart drawers. Beneath the floor was the engine space, and a small hatch led directly to the cockpit abaft the mizzenmast.

The entire arrangement seemed well adapted to our needs, giving adequate ventilation, but allowing a certain amount of privacy.

Once the Phoenix was afloat and nearer the house, family participation picked up. Barbara took a particular interest in the galley, and made a number of changes in cupboard and drawer arrangements. She and Jessica also ran a series of experiments in food preservation and provisioning, including a number of methods of preserving eggs. Each egg was carefully marked as to process used and date, and every few days one of the batch was tested—naturally on me. In the end we found the simple practice of greasing the eggs with oleo to be the most practical.

Meanwhile, most of my free time was spent away from home, working on the boat or roaming the streets and alleys of Kure and Hiroshima, with a few jaunts as far afield as Kobe, Osaka, and Yokohama. Only too well did we learn that cruising is not just sailing—it is walking, talking (in halting Japanese), buying, planning, scrounging, compromising—for months and months—and all on dry land. Nevertheless, we did manage to save several thousand dollars by these efforts.

Our sails were made up by the Ohara (that is not an Irish name!) Company of Yokohama and required, before negotiations were completed, three trips upcountry—a day’s journey each way. Drawing up the sail plans was a task on which I had burned a lot of midnight oil, and after the contracts were let I could only hope there had been no slip of the pencil.

At last the day came when a dozen bundles, carefully wrapped in rice straw, were dumped on the Hiroshima dock. Eagerly we opened them, to be greeted by an exciting odor of canvas, manila, and tar. Inside were the sails, gleaming white. One by one we checked them, stretching each in its appointed place. Outwardly businesslike and matter of fact, I was tremendously relieved to see that each sail had been properly designed.

We now had a mainsail, mizzen, forestaysail and jib (these four lowers giving about 1,000 square feet), plus a mizzen staysail, topsail, top jib, storm trysail, and storm jib. We had spares for the main and foresail. (Later, in Honolulu, we added a genoa.)

The arrival of the sails was a high spot during a time which was otherwise rushed, uncertain, and confused. Crew problems were beginning to emerge. We had been aware that Takemura-san was becoming increasingly uneasy. Instead of moving aboard to help with the rigging and final fitting-out, as we had agreed upon, and as Nick had done, Takemura became less and less dependable and often failed to show up at all. One night, after a long conference which put a heavy strain on both Nick’s English and his loyalties, the two men went up on deck and talked for several hours.

The next morning Takemura-san came to me, shook hands long and earnestly, and with real tears in his eyes, said “Sayonara.” He rowed ashore and out of our lives, leaving us not only without a mate, but without a dinghy, as this had been his contribution to the Phoenix.

Well, we thought glumly, we can always buy a new dinghy, and at least we still have Nick.

This was the cue for Nick to appear and explain that, under these changed circumstances, he would have to reconsider his decision to join us. Since he had been Takemura’s protégé, constant satellite, and uncritical admirer, we were sure we knew what that meant.

“Okay, Nick,” I told him. “We understand.” I held out my hand.

Nick looked a little startled. “I will go home, talk to family.” He was obviously trying to let us down easy, passing the ultimate responsibility to his parents.

“Fine,” I said, “you do that. Good-bye—and thanks for everything.”

Hailing a passing launch, Nick too went ashore. We sat on the deck and watched the harbor traffic, too dispirited to talk. Below decks, Ted and Jessica were shouting at each other, in an overheated sibling dispute. Here we are, I thought—what remains of my crew. One woman—with only half a heart in the venture. One son, age fifteen—willing, but a bit absentminded and not too good with his hands. One daughter, ten years old and small for her age, expert at handling dolls—but what good will she be on the mainsail? And myself—an armchair sailor, an untried skipper, who can cope fairly well with things mechanical but has little finesse with human beings, even his own family.

The inescapable conclusion of my gloomy inventory was: You’ve had it. A foreign country, a half-finished boat, a dwindling bank account, a divided family, and your crew has just walked off. I hardly noticed when Barbara reached over to slip her hand into mine. Nor did I note that the wrangling below had stopped of its own accord—as it always did—and that Ted was now busily entertaining Jessica with a story.

The rest of the day passed like a funereal dream. In the afternoon I went ashore and bought a secondhand rowboat. That evening we sat on deck and were uncheered by the nightly visit of the local sightseeing bus, which had added to its itinerary a visit to the docks to see the American “Around-the-world-boat.” “Around the world!” I muttered bitterly. “We couldn’t even go around Hiroshima harbor.”

Early the next morning we were aroused by the sound of oars and by voices alongside. Onto the deck clambered Nick, grinning broadly, and with him were two young fellows I recognized as members of the Yacht Club.

“Ohio gosaimasu!” Nick greeted us cheerfully. “Good morning! My father said, You promise to go, you go. So—I go. Okay. Oh—and these my friends—Fushima-san and Suemitsu-san. They will help make boat ready. They both want to go with us, which one do you want?”

From that day on, Motosada Fushima (Moto) and Mitsugi Suemitsu (Mickey) slept and worked aboard the Phoenix, splicing rope, wrapping blocks, and in general competing, in a completely friendly fashion, for the berth vacated by Takemura. In the end, unable to decide between them and perhaps feeling that we might make up in manpower what we lacked in experience, we took them both. Now all our bunks were filled, with a ship’s complement of seven.

We were an oddly assorted group: two sexes, two races, two languages and nationalities—and seven personalities, with a wide age range. How these personalities would act—and interact—would, I knew, have as much to do with the success or failure of our voyage as the seaworthiness of the boat itself. At the moment we could only guess—and hope.

Our crew selected, there remained the matter of obtaining the consent of their families, which proved not too difficult; and of acquiring Japanese passports and American visas, which turned out to be very difficult indeed. We finally got them, but it took several weeks of correspondence, several trips to Kobe, and several times the amount of patience I normally possess.

During this summer we had still another problem to contend with, and it was one we couldn’t do much about. This was the weather. In three years in Japan, only one typhoon had come close enough to Hiroshima to cause any real concern. However, in the summer of 1954, after the Phoenix took to the water, no less than four typhoons paid us an unwelcome visit.

Typhoon June, the third of the unwonted—and unwanted—series, was the worst of the lot. At the advice of the Coast Guard we took refuge in a sheltered cove behind the island of Eta Jima. On the way we tried out our newly rigged mainsail and, for the first time, had the experience of heeling. As we tilted in the breeze, Barbara, who had been making lemonade in the galley, began to pick up broken glass and lemon peel, while Jessica, a bit shaken, took refuge in the cockpit. “I don’t like it,” she said. “I’d rather live in a house where things don’t fall around!”

That night, however, she slept unconcernedly through the worst of the blow, and by the next day was ready to brag of her experiences and feel more than a little superior to her shorebound friends.

For the rest of us, however, the night of Typhoon June is one that will not soon be forgotten. Around midnight, with the center of the typhoon less than twenty miles away, the wind shifted abruptly. We were no longer in the lee of the mountainous island, but much more exposed, and the waves in this little bay built up to enormous heights. Suddenly Nick, on anchor watch, let out a shout in frantic Japanese. I rushed on deck, and though I couldn’t understand Nick, could see at once what had happened. Our anchor chain had snapped. Endless minutes passed, as we drifted inexorably toward the nearby shore, while we struggled to get the spare anchor over the side. Only a few feet short of grounding, the anchor caught—and held.

Two souvenirs remain of that wild initiation night: the broken link of our brand-new half-inch anchor chain and a sheet from our recording barograph, which charts the pattern of Typhoon June. The line of barometric pressure descended sharply until, at the passage of the eye of the typhoon, the ship was bucking so wildly that the ink was spilled out of the pen, and the record stopped.

We also gained some valuable information and experience from this episode. First, we began to appreciate the difficulties in communication that were to plague us in time to come. Regardless of how well the men improved their English, and I my Japanese, in a crisis they lapsed into “man’s talk”—rapid, peremptory vernacular—which conveyed nothing but a sense of extreme urgency. The normal, formal Japanese language, which we knew a bit, was gone with the wind.

Beyond this I learned the absolute necessity for anticipation if this voyage was to be a success. At all times we must expect the worst, and try to be ready for it. Had the second anchor been ready for instant use, precious minutes would have been saved. On the credit side, I profited, because never again were we caught without ready anchors.

Typhoon No. 4, Marie, caused no great damage in our area, but roared past us and northward to Hokkaido, where she overturned a seagoing ferry with the loss of over a thousand lives. Locally, however, she did play havoc with the tides, and drowned out the machinery in the local shipyard, so we had to postpone our haul-out, for bottom painting, more than two weeks—another unavoidable delay.

However, by September, in spite of typhoons, troubles, and tape (red), we were far enough along to be thinking about a date for our departure. We still lacked such extras as electricity, running water, gimbaled stove, radiotelephone, and a host of minor items, but we ignored these and concentrated on the absolute necessities. Provisioning, of course, led the list, and Barbara took the brunt of this terrible task. Now that she had a better knowledge of the crew’s daily food consumption, she doubled her original estimates of rice, fruits, and canned foods, and then doubled the amount again as a safety factor. The total was prodigious. Day after day, carrying yardlong lists, she set out in a taxi-jeep, to return in the evening with a mountain of supplies to be hauled aboard and stowed.

Ted, meanwhile, when I informed him that he had been promoted to chief navigator on the defection of Takemura, redoubled his studies. With a textbook and the help of a navigation officer friend, Ted gained a competent grasp of at least the theoretical aspects of his assignment. However, when we worked out our practice sextant shots, we often found the Phoenix not in Hiroshima harbor but somewhere up the slope of Fujiyama.

Jessica, too, had been given an official role, that of ship’s historian. She took her assignment seriously and, from the day we moved aboard, she kept a daily record of our activities—as she saw them (a very important qualification). I might add that this diary was continued without a break for the next six years, and by the time we had completed our voyage around the world she had filled seven large ledgers with about 200,000 words. Unprompted and uncensored, Jessica’s Journal provides a detailed, refreshing, and sometimes chastening picture of our rather unconventional family life.

Time had now become an important element in our plans, for it was late in the season. After many conferences with family and crew, after a careful (and prayerful!) study of the North Pacific Pilot Charts, and after consultation with the Japanese Coast Guard, we finally decided that November was the very latest date we could leave Japan and still have a good chance of a successful crossing to Honolulu, over 4,000 miles to the east. This would put us at the tag end of the typhoon season and, we hoped, ahead of the worst of the winter storms which roar down out of the far north Pacific.

We decided upon Honolulu as our first landfall, because it was an American port, where we could have the Phoenix registered as an American ship and could obtain certain supplies and equipment lacking in Japan.

The numerous unavoidable delays had made it impossible to fit in the shakedown cruise in the open ocean, which we had planned, but by leaving Hiroshima early in October we could have a short cruise up the Inland Sea and give ourselves and the boat at least a smooth-water test. We could then complete our fitting-out at a northern port, make any adjustments that seemed necessary, and still depart by the appointed date. It was not an ideal plan, perhaps, but it was the best we could do. For a number of cogent reasons, mainly financial, it was impossible to lay over until next June, the optimum month for crossing the North Pacific under sail.

Our departure was set for October 4, and throughout the day gifts poured aboard: flowers, candy, fruit, rice cakes, a painting of the Phoenix, a new heaving line, a can of metal paint, a gallon of used oil (“to pour on troubled waters”), and most formidable of all, a magnificent Japanese doll for Jessica, complete in a fragile glass case. This present brought Jessica exquisite joy and the captain exquisite pain, for he knew tears would flow when he had to jettison the case over the side—in anticipation of the inevitable.

We grew more and more harassed as we found our last-minute preparations and stowing of supplies continually interrupted by the need for greeting another well-wisher, making a short statement to yet another gentleman of the press, or posing on deck for one more group picture. To load last-minute supplies, we had come alongside the dock. All our friends, many of whom had never been aboard, now wanted a tour of the ship. They charitably assured us that they didn’t in the least mind if everything was a mess, and asked us literally hundreds of well-meaning questions, to most of which we didn’t know the answers. “How long will the trip to Honolulu take?” “Won’t you be bored?” “But isn’t it dangerous?” “How will the children go to school?”—all very good questions.

But the one most frequently asked, and the one we were least able to answer, was “But won’t you be seasick?” All we could reply was that we never had been—which was perfectly true. On board the President Wilson, en route to Japan—our only other experience on the high seas—none of us had been in the least sick. Of course, this wasn’t quite the same thing.

Shadows were already long when we left the dock, with all the ceremony of tossing bright paper tape, singing “Auld Lang Syne”—in Japanese—and shedding copious tears. The tears, I might add, were all in the eyes of those who saw us off. We ourselves were much too busy to have time for sorrow or regret—then—but to our hundreds of friends the whole venture was nothing less than a gallant form of suicide—for which no one has a more subtle appreciation than the Japanese.

A fleet of snipes and sailing dinghies from the Yacht Club accompanied us halfway across Hiroshima Bay, while a plane circled overhead to drop a tiny silk parachute carrying a hand-lettered scroll of good wishes and prayers for our safe return. One by one, our escorts waved and turned back until at last we were on our own.

Our first day’s destination was not far—the shrine of Miya Jima, just across the water from where the Phoenix had been hatched. There, while Barbara started supper and the men tried to find places to stow the piled-up gifts, I made my first entry in our nice new logbook:

Dropped anchor at Miya Jima Guchi harbor, opposite the shrine. Itsukushima is one of the famed “Three Most Beautiful Places in Japan.” All secure by 1900. Big spaghetti dinner to celebrate—too busy at noon to eat. Decks in good shape, but considerable of a shambles below—2 tons of last-minute ballast, now on floor of main cabin—169 iron pigs.

Many last-minute gifts—even a stack of old newspapers for Mi-ke. Poor Mi-ke—her box was forced to give way, in its nook under the starboard water tank, to a pile of iron pigs. The box is now in the aisle of the main cabin, where she is doing her business in the middle of traffic. Doesn’t seem to worry her too much.

That night, while the rest of the crew slept, I went on deck. Across the bay the shrine gleamed faintly in the moonlight. The Phoenix stirred gently in the swells from a distant ferryboat. Above were the heavy masts, the intricate web of sturdy rigging, the white sails, furled now but ready to be raised at our command. We had our boat, and though she had not yet proved herself at sea, I knew she would, and proudly. This was not entirely a matter of wishful thinking. During her construction, a number of experts had looked her over, and their reactions had been unanimously favorable. But even without their praise I had faith in the Phoenix.

About the human beings aboard I was not so sanguine. None of us had ever been to sea in a small boat. The Japanese boys were good sailors of snipes in the Inland Sea, and I had done some sailing in an 18-footer, but this was a far cry from cruising outside.

And the family. How would the children take the trip? Would they be able to adjust to discomfort and occasional hardship? How much would they miss the companionship of others their own age? What of their schooling? We were taking along plenty of textbooks and teaching materials for both of them, and Barbara, who had been a teacher, would handle their lessons, but would this be sufficient?

And what of Barbara? We had made a contract with each other—for better, for worse—but was a situation like this anticipated in the contract? Suddenly I felt a surge of deep respect and admiration for her, as it came to me with full force that I was going because I wanted to go, but she was going only because I was, offering me a rare and precious loyalty.

Our Japanese crew—what of them? How would they wear? How would two groups of diverse backgrounds get along, in weeks at sea under confining conditions? So far the men had shown themselves to be fine companions and hard workers. Moreover, on that wild night when Typhoon June almost had us on the rocks, they had proved themselves courageous and resourceful. Would these qualities last during the long grind?

Finally, the captain. Could he take it? And could his companions take him? Could he curb his temper, learn to control his impatience? I deeply felt my inadequacies, my faults, and especially my lack of experience. Whenever one of the family called me “Skipper,” as they had begun to do, I felt uneasy and self-conscious. One of the biggest unknowns was the ability of this so-called Skipper.

Beset with doubts I finally turned in.

The next day we slept late, and did not get underway until midmorning. The doubts and introspection of the previous night were swept away in the sparkling breeze. We had made our choice, we were on our way, we would do our best. From now on, all thoughts and energies would be directed toward making a successful voyage.

Slowly we drifted past the shrine, so that the men could say their farewells to the goddess, which they did, standing in a row on the foredeck with caps in hand and heads bowed. Suddenly I realized that there was still another possibly divisive factor—one I had not thought of: differences in religion.

We continued up the strait and drew abreast the Yotsuda shipyard. We broke out the foghorn, Mickey blew lustily, and the entire shipyard crew—all four of them—came down to the shore while Yotsuda-san ran up the Japanese flag, and we dipped our American colors in a return salute. Just four months ago the Phoenix had been launched from here.

The next several days were idyllic. The fall weather was perfect, the breeze light but fair, the scenery unsurpassed. We found out now that cruising may take a lot of work ashore, but that cruising is also sailing, and this is the reward.

And we were beginning to learn our boat. From the log of October 8, which was also Ted’s sixteenth birthday:

Good sailing practice today—many tacks, brisk breeze, getting smarter and smarter in handling her. If only the time element didn’t enter into the picture! But each day that passes puts us later and later in the season. Four days out and still not in Onomichi—only 72 miles (by land) from Hiroshima.

That night we dropped anchor in the beautiful harbor of Mitarai. Fishing boats were close about us and one of them, as it happened, was a bit too close, since we rammed him slightly while maneuvering for a berth. In the log, I virtuously recorded that the accident was a combination of poor judgment on my part and a shifting wind that pushed us down on the larger boat before we could stop our way.

From this we learned something about the momentum of our thirty tons and of the inability of our small engine to handle the boat properly in reverse. Later we called on the captain to apologize, and to have the damage assessed. It came to 556 yen, about $1.50 American. Accidents come cheaper in Japan!

During our trial run up the Inland Sea we made quite a few changes and improvements. We put downhauls all around, so we could get the sails down even in a gale. We rerigged our mainsail peak, painted and stowed most of the ballast, set up a third anchor aft, and got things more shipshape below decks.

We practiced, too, in the open areas, tacking over and over, learning to jibe smoothly, and establishing routines for various maneuvers. We loosed the dinghy, and practiced rounding up to it. When the breeze freshened, and we had our first taste of really brisk sailing, we found we could make seven knots with ease, using only the four lowers; moreover, the boat had a very easy motion.

We reached Takamatsu, at the upper end of the Inland Sea, on the morning of October 13. This would be our base for the final stages of fitting-out before the long ocean crossing to Hawaii. A Coast Guard boat came well out to meet us and escorted us to the Prefectural Docks, where a crowd was waiting, and we went through the usual gamut of questions.

The following morning we accepted the kind invitation of the Takamatsu Yacht Club to use their private dock, where we remained for a very busy two weeks.

Takamatsu is a pleasant city, and at this season was gay and bustling in preparation for the Hachiman Festival. In the evenings, after a day of hard work, we usually wandered into the city where the open-front shops remained ready for business. We would stop to watch groups of strolling actors, or try out our Japanese in the process of making a purchase, or enjoy a nightcap of soba—Japanese noodles—in a tiny booth before returning to the boat.

During the days, however, we worked, and worked hard. Ted and Jessica finished the job of painting countless iron pigs, and emerged at the end of each day with a new layer of orange paint. In the course of this job Ted uncovered a hitherto unsuspected talent: that of raconteur extraordinary. Time passed quickly as Ted gave the iron pigs personalities and guided them through a series of imaginary escapades in the course of getting their faces painted. As we watched the young ones at work we could sense a growing solidarity and identification with the voyage.

We made a number of changes in the rigging, based on our brief experience in the Inland Sea. We unstepped the topmast, suspecting—quite correctly—that we wouldn’t need it in winter in the North Pacific. We made stormcovers for all the hatches and portholes—hoping we would never have occasion to use them. Also, we installed additional pinrails on either side of the mainmast, having quickly learned that our one bank of pinrails was inadequate.

On one day only, October 18, I exercised my prerogative of declaring a holiday. By coincidence, it also happened to be my birthday. We took this occasion to visit Kotohira, where Kompira-san, the god of the sea and patron of Japanese seamen, holds sway. We toiled up the thousand steps to the shrine and paused at the summit to admire the magnificent view, while Nick, Mickey and Moto went inside to pay their respects to the priests and to inform them of our plans.

When they emerged they were smiling broadly. Kompira-san, they had been assured, viewed their venture with favor and predicted a successful outcome if—and this, to us, seemed to be the joker—we promised to revisit the shrine at the conclusion of our trip. It seemed to me that a sort of Delphic aura surrounded this promise, but the boys seemed satisfied, and we were only too happy to agree.

After this single day of relaxation we began our final preparations in earnest. One by one jobs and purchases were checked off, from a list which originally contained several thousand items. On the day before our departure Barbara’s most recent provisioning efforts were delivered to the dock: a box of apples packed in bran; 100 pounds of potatoes; 70 pounds of onions; 40 of sweet potatoes, 5 of carrots, 6 of green beans; and some two dozen heads of cabbage. All that day, Barbara and Jessica sorted out vegetables, setting aside the doubtful ones for early eating, while the rest were packed in wooden crates and lashed to the cabintop.

Also on that day they coated and packed some thirty dozen eggs with oleo. That night we had scrambled eggs for supper.

That evening Nick and Mickey stayed in the forecastle writing stacks of last-minute notes, while Barbara, Jessica, and Moto went out to dinner with new-found Japanese friends. Only Ted—and already I was coming to depend upon him more and more—seemed to share a realization of the enormity of the step we were undertaking. Of his own accord he turned down the dinner invitation and remained to help make a final inventory.

Together we made one more check of the entire list of Things to Do and Get. The water supply had been topped up—300 gallons in five unconnected tanks. Canned food for twelve weeks at normal consumption had been divided into separate duffle sacks, a week’s rations to a sack, and stowed beneath the floor of the ladies’ cabin. The fresh produce was aboard and stowed securely. For ship lights, stove, and engine we had 120 gallons of kerosene.

There were ample replacements for all expendable and vulnerable items, from flashlight batteries to sail needles, and safety equipment was complete from flares to heliograph.

In the navigation department we had six compasses aboard (master, steering, inside telltale, lifeboat, and two spares); four watches and a chronometer (rated); three barometers and a barograph; a sextant; anemometer; inclinometer (never used); thermometers of various kinds; a complete set of signal flags; several pairs of binoculars; and, of course, the necessary navigation books, sailing directions and charts, and the 1954 nautical almanac which Takemura had left with us at his departure.

We had a spare battery radio, with batteries, wrapped in a moistureproof package, and an emergency fresh-water still. We had adequate sail repair equipment and materials, tools of every description, and a quantity of spare lumber, in case fairly extended additions or repairs proved necessary at sea.

Our medicine chest, a gift from the doctors at the Casualty Commission in Hiroshima, was unusually complete, from antibiotics to scalpels. Barbara had taken a survey course in emergency medicine under our good friend Dr. George Hazlehurst. She had passed the final examination with honors by successfully injecting a grapefruit and suturing a sausage. As Ted wryly observed, if anything went wrong with grapefruits or sausages, we were all prepared.

As for education and entertainment, we were supplied and oversupplied. In addition to textbooks, we had a complete set of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, the Book of Knowledge, and some three hundred additional books. We had decks of cards, and kits for checkers, chess, and backgammon; and sets of Mahjong and Scrabble for family games. We had a handcranking phonograph and a wide selection of records. Ted’s grandmother, Minnetta Leonard, had even sent him a plastic ukulele, evidently in the fond hope that he would be prepared for the beach at Waikiki.

In everything except that important commodity, deep-sea experience, I felt we were ready. If we were fools to embark without that vital item, at least we were fools who were operating within a framework of adequate preparation and common sense.

As to the mental preparation of the ship’s company, that was difficult to assay. Barbara had taken over without demur whatever tasks were assigned to her, and Jessica wrote faithfully in her diary, but neither of them asked questions or appeared to be overly concerned. Whether due to an inability to imagine what deep-sea life would be like or utter confidence in the Skipper, it seemed to put an extra burden on me.

As for the three Japanese men, they were, during the preparation and the trip through the Inland Sea, completely unconcerned in certain areas, and very active in others. Although well-educated men, they seemed quite content with manual skills: carpentry, painting, sail handling, and deck seamanship. They appeared to have no interest in the sailing plans, navigational methods, or the operation of the radio or auxiliary engine. Also, as far as I could detect, they didn’t seem to be worried.

On the morning of October 26, the Rev. Raymond Christopher, a British missionary, visited us and held a short service aboard, asking a blessing on our journey. His solemn words sent a sudden chill through us and more than any other event made us realize some of the implications of our departure.

That evening we sailed from Takamatsu.

Our leave-taking was strongly reminiscent of Hiroshima: crowds, press, last-minute gifts, bilingual confusion, tears. But there was one vital exception: we knew that this time we were heading not for the quiet waters of the Inland Sea but for the Hawaiian Islands, across more than 4,000 miles of open ocean.

The day was hectic, culminating in a formal send-off, for radio and national TV, presided over by the governor of Kagawa Prefecture. The circumstances surrounding our departure are shown in the log:

Final preparations completed, immigration cleared, and check made with Coast Guard; decided to leave on afternoon of Oct. 26. News of Typhoon 18 (now making up near Philippines) was received, and decision made to proceed until more details available. Decided to try to get through Naruto Straits if possible, rather than go all the way around Awaji Shima.

Also I notified the U.S. Navy in Yokosuka of the date and time of our departure, our approximate route, and the estimated length of our trip (45 days, based on an assumed distance, by sailing route, of 4,500 miles, and an average of 100 miles per day). I informed them, as I had the local Coast Guard, that we had no facilities for sending radio messages, only for receiving. We did, however, have a small hand-operated emergency set (Gibson Girl) on which we could send an automatic SOS at limited range, but this would be used only in direst emergency.