Published: 10/07-2008
Archieved: 31/12-2008
When the Sea Stallion left Ireland on Sunday 6 July, the crew didn’t know that they would first set foot on land again 56 hours later in Torquay in England.
For a considerable part of the journey, the ship had strong westerly winds and up to three-meter-high Atlantic swells. Land’s End was rounded at midnight between Monday and Tuesday after 24 hours of sailing in gale-force winds. The pumps were manned almost constantly until Land’s End was reached and the sea spray felt like jets of water to the crew. Some hands were in more exposed positions than others.
Lookout Anders B. S. Fischer says, “I was alone in the bow for four hours from 20 hours to 24 hours on Monday evening as lookout on the leg down towards Land’s End. The wind was increasing and it ended up as a gale. The bow rose four meters up and down on the large Atlantic swells.”
He went on, “Actually it was a real summer evening and summer night, where the sea started out green and turned grey before ending as black. It was beautiful and did not get really dark. But the sea was very rough. Then you start to see things in the water that aren’t really there.”
There are special requirements that a lookout must meet. What happens behind his back is not relevant.
“It is unbelievably demanding, but very vital, that the lookout keeps his concentration and looks ahead. In particular you’re looking for wreckage or other things you might sail into. It could be fatal and mean the loss of the Sea Stallion if I fail to see something in the water. So I said to myself, ‘Look ahead, mate!’ many times.”
"I was a little afraid a couple of time. Sometimes in these heavy seas the bow can smash down lopsidedly and that creates sounds form the hull that can make me put my head over the side and look down at the hull of the ship for cracks. But there weren’t any. At one time there was also lightning, which I reported. Then I thought a bit about our high mast should we run into thundery weather, but we didn’t,” says Anders B. S. Fischer.
The exposed position and a very awkwardly located place for sleeping had consequences for Anders B. S. Fischer:
”I started to feel a bit seasick because I had been standing out in the bow and see-sawed up and down for four hours. When it turned 24 hours and I went off to sleep, I was given a sleeping place at the very front of the ship. Actually it was only one meter behind the spot where I had been lookout. I was feeling more and more seasick and it ended with the nurse ordering me to transfer to the support vessel Cable One to recover. It was against my will, but it’s her decision. It was good getting back to the Sea Stallion again.”
