'Yes, for loading. They're swung up out of the way of dockside cranes.'
I wasn't considering loading. The genius who had thought up Jetwind's hinged yards never dreamed of the purpose to which I intended to put them. 'Demonstrate,' I ordered.
He fingered a switch. With uncanny silence again, the big streamlined yard above us folded flush against the mast in a matter of seconds. Tideman followed me with interest.
'On a time check, I reckon I would need just over one minute to furl all sail and stow the lower yards in place afterwards,' I said.
'Correct,' he answered. 'I don't follow, though. In dock the sails would be furled already.' 'In dock, yes.'
'There would be no purpose in the operation while the ship was travelling under sail.' Except to knock out the Almirante Storni.
The test of lifting the lower yards completed the tactical plan in my mind. It would require steel nerves and razoredged timing – and, above all, good wind. I must have lapsed into an abstracted silence because Brockton began to talk to Tideman about America Cup trials.
'The America Cup triallists use a computer which gives a read-out on the downwind leg for optimum speed made good,' he was saying. 'The computer's memory has been previously programmed with the best speed for each wind speed…'
'No computer ever sails a ship,' interrupted Tideman. 'The final decision is a man's, and that man is the skipper.'
'Agreed,' replied Brockton. 'Yet data the computer supplies contributes critically to the ship's performance by working out the optimum speed made good. In other words, the best course that will take the boat to the next waypoint, plus the best sailing angle, plus the best trim of each set of sails…'
In reply, Tideman activated the read-out dials on the last of the three big control consoles.
'This is Jetwind's own special box of tricks,' he said. 'There are sensors on every mast from mast-head to keel logging wind direction, wind speed and apparent wind angles. There are other sensors in the hull recording the ship's speed, drift, rudder angle, heel. All this information is fed into a micro-processor inside the console and here are the answers – ' more dials came alive ' – apparent wind angle, true wind angle; true wind speed; ship's speed; speed made good to windward.' 'It looks goddam good,' Brockton said in admiration.
'The ordinary sort of compass isn't sharp enough for the degree of sensitivity these readings require,' Tideman went on. ‘Jetwind has a special electronic dual-axis flux-gate compass which is linked to the autopilot.'
Listening to their technical conversation, another link in my break-out strategy formed in my mind: I would use Brockton and his expertise.
I said, 'In the face of all this, I reckon sailing by the feel of the wind on your neck or cheek is out.'
'I've done both,' answered Tideman. 'You'll find very soon what Jetwind's is the more challenging way of sailing. You're dealing -' he indicated the banks of the dials' – with real data. You can't bluff yourself. If the computer says the ship is sailing at only eighty per cent of what she is capable of, that's it. You have to accept it. Trying becomes much harder.'
'We found that with the Twelves,' Brockton added. 'All data is subjected to interpretation – the better the skipper, the better the interpretation. That goes for the skipper likewise, when it comes to the final decisions.'
'Even the electronic experts recognize that the human element is the final judge,' said Tideman. 'We've got a couple of small mobile hand-held terminals which operate in the crow's nest. The idea behind them is to have manual input – that is, what the look-out himself is spotting – to supplement what the electronics are recording. The skipper can use this information in conjunction with the computer or by itself. The method is especially valuable when you're conning the ship in confined waters where there are frequent and rapid changes of course. We found it worked splendidly when we brought Jetwind into Montevideo through the mass of shoals and shallows of the River Plate estuary.'
Confirmed waters; shallows; frequent and rapid changes of course – it added up to the Port Stanley Narrows.
'What about navigation?' I asked. 'Apparently Jetwind has everything that opens and shuts.'
'Come here, I'll show you,' said Tideman. He led Brockton and me to an office abaft the bridge. On the way he paused at a bulkhead clustered with switches and readout lights.
'Control for the ship's fire-alarms, automatic extinguishers and cross-flooding controls,' he explained. 'There are five doors throughout the accommodation as well as watertight bulkheads. All emergency doors are held open magnetically until they are released from here. It's a super-safety system and it's backed up by monitors in case of ice damage to the hull.'
The navigation room itself was like a space-shot control centre. Focal instrument was a JRC satellite navigator which, Tideman explained, could plot Jetwind's position to within half a kilometre. The instrument, he added, was automatic and gave highly accurate and continuous position fixes while the ship was under way. There was also a Nippon Electric deep-sea echo sounder, a weather chart repeater from a bridge master instrument, repeat read- outs of the mast-head anenometers, relative wind speed and direction recorders.
In the adjoining radio room we surprised a fair-haired young man who seemed to be engaged in some esoteric ritual with a hand-held electric radio and direction finder held over a chart. Tideman introduced him as Arno, a Swede. Arno's enthusiasm for the equipment was unbounded – it had been installed by Marconi – and he rattled off names like Apollo main and reserve receivers, Seminal crystal unit, two Conqueror main transmitters, Seacall selective receiver, Siemens teleprinter with world-wide range. There was, of course, radar in addition, an exact twin of the Decca set on the bridge.
I surveyed the instrumented room; I realized what was bugging me, as it had done on the bridge and in the navigation office. All these superb instruments were dead. Not one of them was functioning because Jetwind herself was not alive. She was fast asleep in a god-forsaken port at the backside-end of the world. They needed a Prince Charming to light up their sophisticated faces.
Not a Prince Charming, I corrected myself. The kiss of a Force Nine gale and a free-wheeling sea. That kiss I meant to give Jetwind. Tonight.
Chapter 10
Back on the bridge with Tideman – we had left Brockton involved in technical conversation with Arno – I said, 'You've demonstrated push-pull levers and toggle switches until my mind boggles. What I really want to see now is the power plant – the sails.'
He consulted a bank of dials before answering. 'It would be too risky while at anchor to set even a royal to demonstrate for you. You've no idea how powerful even Jetwind's small sails are, given a light breeze only.'
'I'm not asking you to set any sails. I want to go aloft and see for myself,' I added. 'I would also like to inspect the place where Captain Mortensen met his accident.'
For the first time since our introduction I felt a shadow of reserve onTideman's part.
He nodded at the mast towering through the roof of the bridge. 'Up there, in Tuesday – Number Two mast. Tops'l yard service bay.' 'Let's go.'
He seemed unwilling to take me aloft. He said, 'You can't see much while the sails are furled. Is there any particular point you'd like explained?' 'The whole works. Everything is new to me.'
'I think the best person to do that is the sail-maker. The aerodynamics are above my head.'
'Fine,' I replied. 'I'm in a hurry. I have to go ashore soon. Give him a call.'
Tideman picked up an intercom phone and said to me, 'Not him, sir – her.' 'Her? What do you mean?' 'Jetwind's Number One sail-maker is a woman – Kay Fenton.' 'A woman?'
He held the phone poised. 'Why not? Mr Thomsen discovered her when she was taking a sail and mast course at the Stahlform yard in Germany – the world's master mast-makers. He enlisted her as a junior member of the Schiffbau Institutes design team. She's been intimately concerned with the wind-tunnel testing of Jetwind’
I looked at him questioningly. 'So have you, from the sound of it. I thought you'd joined the ship after she'd been built.' 'No,' he replied. 'I was involved at the design stage as well'
'I didn't know the Royal Navy was as keen as all that on the lost art of sail.'
