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Part 1

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_

EARLE and BARBARA REYNOLDS

DAVID McKAY COMPANY, INC. New York

ALL IN THE SAME BOAT

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

Introduction v

1. THE RISE OF THE _PHOENIX_ 1 “Between a dream and a deed lie the doldrums.”

2. PREPARATIONS FOR A VOYAGE 20 “Cruising is walking, talking, buying, scrounging ... but cruising is also sailing.”

3. FROM JAPAN TO HONOLULU 39 “The long shakedown ... a seven-week course in How to Sail.”

4. ON TO THE SOUTH PACIFIC: FROM HAWAII TO TAHITI 61 “Banzai!... Banzai!... Banzai!”

5. TAHITI AND THE ISLANDS UNDER THE WIND 81 “Money? What I do with money?”

6. WESTWARD THROUGH THE SOUTH SEAS: RAROTONGA, SAMOA, FIJI 100 “A broad reach, a quiet sea, a full moon....”

7. DOWN UNDER: NEW ZEALAND AND AUSTRALIA 115 “Ah-h-h, yes-s-s!...”

8. —AND BACK UP: THE GREAT BARRIER REEF 133 “Better men than we had come to grief....”

9. INTO INDONESIA: THURSDAY ISLAND TO BALI 151 “Our life at sea was teaching us....”

10. BALI, JAVA, THE KEELING-COCOS 169 “A sense of uneasy anticipation....”

11. ACROSS THE INDIAN OCEAN: COCOS TO DURBAN 189 “You have seen people of all sorts. Makes my mouth water....”

12. SOUTH AFRICA: BEAUTIFUL, UNHAPPY LAND 207 “What will you do when that day comes?”

13. ACROSS THE ATLANTIC THE LONG WAY: CAPE TOWN TO NEW YORK CITY 225 “Beautiful night, new moon, slow progress, who cares?”

14. EVERY KIND OF CRUISING: NEW YORK TO PANAMA, BY THE CORKSCREW ROUTE 247 “A man must stand up for what he believes.”

15. GALÁPAGOS: HOME OF THE LAST PIONEERS 267 “Those delicate souls whose coffee must be just so....”

16. BACK TO HAWAII 286 “How come change ya mind?”

17. THE LAST LEG: HONOLULU TO HIROSHIMA 297 “Of course, there were a couple of incidents.”

INDEX 305

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.