Shipping News, The - E. Annie Proulx [43]
“Eventually I puzzled out something I could build that would float. A modified Chinese junk built of plywood with a full-batten lug rig. You know, the Chinese have forgotten more about sailing than the rest of the world ever knew. They invented the compass, they invented watertight compartments, they invented stem rudders and the most efficient sail in the world. junks are ancient boats, more than five thousand years old, and extremely seaworthy, good for long voyages. And I’ve always been mad for the Chinese poets.”
[95] “This is pretty salty,” Quoyle said apologetically to the waitress. “I’d better have a pint. If you get a chance.”
The aunt’s red face bent down, parentheses around her mouth set like clamps. Impossible to know if she was listening to Nutbeem or flying over the Himalayas.
Nutbeem swallowed his lager and signaled for more. As long as the girl was standing there. “I’d been working all this time writing book reviews for a rarefied journal devoted to criticism incomprehensible to anyone but the principals. Bloody dagger stuff. And by sponging off my uncle and living on mutton neck broth I managed to save up enough money to hire a boat designer to draw me up a junk pattern, simple enough that I could build myself out of half-inch marine plywood at home.
“Ah, Ms. Hamm, you should have seen it when I was done. It was ugly. It was a rough and ugly thing, an overall length of twenty-eight feet, a five-foot draft and just that one junk sail, but with a respectable three hundred and fifty square feet. A trim tab rudder hung on the stem. She was heavy and slow. And very ugly. I made her more ugly by painting her rat brown. Piece of foam for a mattress, my sleeping bag. Wooden boxes for chair and table. And that was it. At first I just muffed about near the shore. Surprised how comfortable she was, and she handled well. The sail was a wonder. It’s interesting how I got that.”
The aunt finished her tea, swished the pot about, got another half cup from the spout. There was no stopping Nutbeem, roaring along now with a bone in his teeth.
“You see, I had a friend who worked at Sotheby’s, and he mentioned one day that they were going to auction off a lot of marine and nautical curios. So I went—idle curiosity. just what you might expect, scrimshaw walrus tusks, a nameplate from one of the Titanic’s lifeboats, Polynesian palm-rib charts, antique maps. The catalog listed only one item that interested me, and that was a bamboo-batten junk sail from Macau in good condition. I ended up with it for less than the cost of a new one. Bit of a miracle.
“Then I learned just how much of an aerodynamic wonder the batten sail is—it makes a sort of flat curve. It’s only reed or canvas sheetlets stiffened horizontally with the battens—the principle of [96] the folding fan, in a way. You fold it and open it up rather like an unhinged fan. One can control the sail very well because of the battened panels—reef or douse in seconds. No stays or shrouds. The small sections let you adjust trim to a fine degree. They say that even with the canvas half full of holes the sail draws. The Chinese call it ‘The Ear that Listens for the Wind.’ The old junk sailors even used to roll up a reed sail and use it for a life raft if they were shipwrecked. And my auction sail was a good one.
“And so then, that summer, I just set out. Across the Atlantic. There’s a point, you know, when you must go forward. I lived off those little packages of Oriental ramen noodles, dried mushrooms, dried shrimp. I had a tiny stove, size of a teacup. You’ve seen them. Sixty-seven days to Fly-By-Night. It’s my plan to keep on around the world.”
“You’re still here. Saving up money for the next leg?” asked the aunt.
“Ah, that, and I’m finishing some serious repair work. I had planned to go up the St. Lawrence to Montreal, but there was a storm