Ellen Bassani
In the summer of 2003, I put myself into a situation where total concentration was essential. In fact, my life depended on it.
A tall ship called Tenacious was the setting, climbing the main mast, the object. Bound for Lisbon through the Bay of Biscay, this stunning three-master welcomed crew members with a range of abilities. It was an opportunity for disabled and non-disabled enthusiasts to sail together.
Within minutes of boarding, while vaguely pointing upwards, I declared with my usual flair for drama that I would adore to climb the mast. Not a jot of an idea did I have about the reality of such a request: 139 feet of treacherous climbing. In the days that followed I was to learn! Rapid backtracking thereafter kept me very very silent.
Unfortunately, the boson remembered! Five days into the sail, he shouted into the heaving galley that he was ready to escort me up the mast. The dreamed of, drooled-over, breakfast fry-up instantly lost its appeal. There it sat, untouched. A tragedy, for Bob the chef’s ‘full English’ was the envy of the sailing world. Low grease, crispy bacon, melt-in-the-mouth eggs, mushrooms done in butter – untouched, left as is.
Only three others had climbed the mast thus far. They were non-disabled.
Before I could stop it my disloyal mouth was bleating, “Yes, great. I’ll just go and get my safety harness!”. “Finish your breakfast, there’s no hurry”, the boson called as he bolted up the galley steps two at a time. Finish my breakfast. He must be joking!
There, among the clatter of plates and the swirl of off-balanced bodies, why didn’t I just say “No. I’ve changed my mind”? He would have shrugged and said “okay”. Everyone would have understood my decision, especially those who did not dare to climb themselves. But no, brave adventurous El had to show off her mettle once again.
Very stark was the danger. Not just the product of a vivid imagination. Despite health and safety regulations, accidents do happen, and 139 feet is a long way to fall.
Terrified, with breathing shallow, I followed. One plodding step after another. What on earth was I trying to prove?
Surely, to step outside my front door with such a small amount of sight is adventurous enough. Did I really need to climb those many feet upwards while the ship dipped and rolled? On Tenacious, avoiding ropes, steps, and carelessly placed limbs was hazard aplenty. Wasn’t it just pride? How much braver or brighter did I have to be?
Question upon question tumbled through my rapidly numbing brain as I bumbled across the planked deck from which the mainsail lunged skywards.
And yet. And yet. Not just pride or competitiveness drove me below deck. The same little voice that took me up the Himalayas, white-water rafting, and alone to Japan was trying to nudge its way through the numbness. I learnt young that opportunities must be leapt at if any chance of independence was to be had. Frightened or not, I always reached out and grabbed with both hands. This time, like all those other times, there was a life-changing exercise to realise. All I had to do was listen. Precious insights from doing so had produced an indomitable spirit of adventure in me, too deeply ingrained to lightly cast off.
Such a flaunted spirit of adventure deserted me pretty soundly once beside the harness hook. While the ship bowed and danced its way across the Bay of Biscay, my fingers tried to make sense of straps, bands, and clamps. I failed miserably to click interconnecting locks. All semblance of control gone, I bounced off walks, cupboards, and banks. Quite undignified. “You don’t have to do this”, a friend repeated as she anchored me to a bulkhead and with flying fingers took over the fastening of the harness.
Didn’t have to do it! My agitation stopped. Voiced out loud into the space between us I finally could hear the truth. She was right. I didn’t have to climb that wretched mast. I didn’t have to climb anything other than the steps towards my lunch. Why not count the bunks until I found mine, lie down, turn my face to the wall and go to sleep. My friend could speak to the boson. I could finally relax.
My feet didn’t move. My bum still glued itself to the bulkhead. Only my hands flicked into action. Blast. Once again, I couldn’t make the harness unclick. What was that rush of feeling? Frustration, certainly, relief yes, but also something quite unexpected. Disappointment. It filled my body, the cabin, the whole ship. There, swaying gently with friend fussing, the inner voice was whispering. The demon bully I never ignored. I must not throw away this once-in-a-lifetime experience though my life might depend on it.
Too shocked, I had to find the nearest bunk to sit down. What was happening? Was I actually choosing to walk up those cabin steps, stride towards the mainmast where boson and crew members waited, and say “I’m ready!”?
Then a hitherto unrecognised reason for this adventure occurred to me as I sat there with the lower straps of the harness dangling over my knees, and the sound of slapping waves only feet from my head. One hundred years ago, my grandfather sailed from Australia to Southhampton on a tall ship. One morning he went missing. His distraught parents who had just buried their baby daughter at sea found him, triumphant, in the crow’s nest at the top of the mast! He was nine. If he could do it, then surely shouldn’t I at least try?
Whatever the reasons, I appeared ten minutes later, harnessed, toileted, and ready. Feet from the waiting crew, I halted. Terror. Such terror! They dragged a box up beside the rigging. Necessary, because my legs wouldn’t lift themselves onto the dipping rail.
Years before, I’d agreed to abseil down a hundred foot building. Calmly, I’d donned the helmet and safety kit and made my way towards the parapet, where I had to sit and then pivot my body around to start walking down the side of the building. On a practice wall I’d managed it. The current wall was five times higher. Whether I could see the ground, or the sheer drop of the other buildings or not, I sat immobilised. Could I make my bottom leave the security of that concrete surface? No way. No amount of coaxing and reassurance from the organisers would convince my primitive brain that it was a good idea to hurl myself into space. To give way was equally against my nature. So, there I sat, frozen and humiliated. Only by the helpers lifting me up and physically turning me 180 degrees did I force my legs to move downwards. That same force held me glued to the main deck. How smooth the rail felt as I clung. Odd that memory.
This time the brain refused to go upwards. The will was there. My legs just wouldn’t move. How to climb upon the rail without help? Impossible. Yet turn back? There we stood.
Someone made a decision. Not me. Heaved from behind. Again, undignified. My feet landed on the ship’s rail. I grabbed at the soaring rigging, turned my back on the white-capped waves, found the first rung, and was off. Like a cat, the boson followed sleek and lithe. No pushing from behind for him.
The only rule of climbing rigging is to keep three points of the body – two hands one foot or two feet one hand – on the ladder at the same time. There was little fear of that. I clung like a mollusc.
Slowly, slowly, up I went. Too many thoughts of catastrophe crashed in on me. What if I missed my step and my motherless children were left alone to blame me for my irresponsibility?
Here it came. The climb’s first life-lesson. If dangerous mistakes were to be avoided, these whirling thoughts had to stop immediately.
Never good at stilling my skittish mind, I faltered. What, total control of my thoughts? Unlikely, but without this I could not take another step, and to go back assaulted my very sense of who I was.
With supreme effort, I concentrated on the feel of hands wrapped around metal and feet on solid wood. Any other sensation was erased, sat on, eliminated.
It worked. Danger really does focus the mind. And it worked until nearing the first platform, forty feet above deck. Was it an advantage not to see the looming manhole? This narrow opening designed for snake-hipped boys posed a problem for my womanly form. The harness clips had not been used until this point. My choice. Somehow, having to manoeuvre one-handed a two-part locking device towards a solid piece of rigging, without being able to see, felt more dangerous than climbing unsecured. To keep to the rule of three points seemed the best bet.
However, approaching the manhole was the time to clip on. To find a way through I needed to reach up and back, leaving me almost parallel with the deck. Beyond terrifying!
One might ask what was the boson doing all this time? He was offering possible hand and feet holds to take me into the hole and up over the rail onto the first platform. Shaking myself, I listened. But not too much. This adventure was mine.
When I stood with shaking legs and deep pride on the solid platform, great cheers soared up from below. Gratifying, unexpected, and yes, disconcerting. I had an audience. How could I turn back now?
With a theatrical bow, I was up over the railings and into the next forty-foot climb towards the second platform. The manhole was even narrower, but with instruction from the ever-patient boson I was through and up. Again the cheer, again the bow, less flamboyant. No real feelings, only adrenaline. Eighty feet up, the ship’s roll was more pronounced. The sounds from below, so very far away.
My sight was so poor I didn’t see what was to follow. Now used to and engaged by the feel of the rigging, I believed it went right to the top. The boson led me to a simple ladder and told me I was now on my own.
Ladder! Where were the yards of wood and metal lolling either side of me? Only wind, gusty wind, flanked this narrow wooden upright. I felt it arc with the ship’s roll. The pennant clicked at the top, a long way up. Fifty-nine feet up in fact. This is where the terror struck me full in the face.
Since the decision to focus, I’d slowly begun to enjoy the challenge of finding the right foot and hand hold, with the challenge of hauling my body through, across, and up. A ladder going heavenwards without the reassurance of the boson’s voice behind me seemed too much. He must have seen my panic again, and gently reminded me that eighty feet was still very impressive.
Even the cheers from below bounced off me. I could neither go up nor down. It was the fear of not trying that got me over the last rail and up.
First big shock. The rungs of the ladder were rope! Unstable. Until now my feet had rested on something solid. To have them wobble with my trembling was very disconcerting. At least the uprights were rigid. I clung, fought hard to regain my nerve, and started to climb. The next forty feet passed without noticing much of significance.
Then came the second shock. The rungs narrowed as I went higher. So narrow that one had to place one foot over the other, drag the bottom foot up and over and place it on the next rung up.
Third shock. The ship’s roll became more pronounced the higher I went, and the wind was relentless, deafening.
Then something odd happened. Something that hadn’t happened in my adult life. I said ENOUGH! One of my secret little pockets of pride had been that I didn’t give up a task once it was started. But this was too much. I could not use a ladder where one foot had to rest on the other. Despite my grandfather, the fear of disappointment, and the sense of achievement — nothing was as important as my safety.
I harnessed myself with both safety clips and just clung, 133 feet above the deck, with only six feet to go. Yet I stayed where I was, exhausted and empty. To descend was unthinkable.
Then came a gentle tap on my arm. Had an angel materialised? It was Chris, the profoundly deaf, sixteen year old lad who had seen my distress and climbed the starboard rigging to give me support.
The most powerful picture of the trip must surely be a blind woman and a deaf boy holding hands across the mainmast: a statement of unity.
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Forty-Three Newsletter • Number 512 • December 2021
Oxford Friends Meeting
43 St Giles, Oxford OX1 3LW