{"id":28063,"date":"2014-06-02T13:30:55","date_gmt":"2014-06-02T12:30:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/?p=28063"},"modified":"2014-06-02T14:31:16","modified_gmt":"2014-06-02T13:31:16","slug":"lewis-nicholls-atlantic-adventure","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/?p=28063","title":{"rendered":"Lewis Nicholls’ Atlantic Adventure"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Scarab<\/a>

Scarab full sail. Lewis Nicholls on board<\/p><\/div>\n

LEWIS NICHOLLS’ ATLANTIC ADVENTURE<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

BEGINNINGS\u00a0Original plan\u00a0<\/b>to make Grenada and then to continue around the world !\u00a01964\/5: idea formed by Nick [?]. Advertisement placed in\u00a0Yachting World<\/i>\u00a0for third member with a boat. Two and half years planning and preparation.<\/p>\n

THE CREW\u00a0Lewis Nicholls<\/b>\u00a0<\/b>now living in Bohemia. Lewis 36 years old in 1968. He\u2019d done a bit of sailing (2 week sailing trips, etc). Always had \u201cgodawful weather\u201d.\u00a0Noel Nicholls (\u2018Nick\u2019)\u00a0<\/b>cousin of Lewis. Was divorced at time of trip. Now deceased. Nick six years older than Lewis, so 42 at time of trip. Nick didn\u2019t seem to have any fluid in his ear-tubes [??] Nick was an \u201centhusiastic amateur sailor\u201d, interested in tech\/electonics, etc. Nick and Lewis both worked at Elliott Brothers at Boreham Wood.\u00a0Stanley Brooks\u00a0<\/b>skipper and boat owner, very experienced seaman. Deceased. At the time he answered advertisement, he was living in St Catherine\u2019s Dock on his boat. Stan had been married a couple of times. Stan had been a sailor all his life and had tremendous experience in long-distance ocean racing as a crew member. Stan would have been about 52 at the time of the sailing.<\/p>\n

THE SCARAB\u00a0Ketch\u00a0<\/b>so, what actually is a ketch? A ketch is a two-masted boat in which the mizzen (the rear mast) is forward of the rudder post and shorter than the main mast. Now you know.\u00a0The Scarab\u00a0<\/b>is a 52ft ketch and is not only thought to have been German, but to have been used by Nazis to escape from Germany after the WW2 to South America. The boat had been bought by Stanley from South America who arranged for it to be brought back to Europe. It was a timber, ex-racing boat, built around 1900 at Hamburg. It was fitted with 5 bunks \u2013 and two hammocks. It had been built to a \u2018class specification\u2019 [?]. It was smaller than a J Class boat [!]. Stan had changed the name from a German one (something ending in \u2026Hof] to \u2018The Scarab\u2019. Colours of the boat: a black hull, raw teak deck (unvarnished, to prevent slipping). Everything was varnished except the deck.\u00a0Autopilot\u00a0<\/strong>there was an autopilot \u2013 fitted by Nick and Lewis prior to setting off.\u00a0Solar distillery\u00a0<\/b>As a precaution, Lewis took along a \u2018solar distillery\u2019, bought at a government surplus store which would have been used had they had to abandon ship. It was never even opened. It would have been capable of producing a pint of fresh water a day. PICTURE.<\/p>\n

\u00a0THE ROUTE\u00a0London to Poole<\/strong>\u00a0The boat was moored at St Catherine’s Dock in London and had to be sailed to Poole for preparation for the journey. Soon after leaving the Thames a ‘tropical storm’ was encountered which blew the boat to Le Harvre in France. The crew waited for two weeks for calmer weather before proceeding to Poole.\u00a0Poole to Oporto<\/strong>\u00a0(Portugal).\u00a0Oporto to Madeira<\/strong>Madeira. The Canaries. Grenada.\u00a0October 1968: boat leaves Poole, after long delays due to \u201cterrible weather\u201d. 1969: boat arrives Grenada. The end of the Atlantic adventure, but the beginning of another in Grenada.\u00a0Christmas Day 1968\u00a0<\/b>found the trio in mid Atlantic.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

ROUTINE LIFE ON BOARD Drink\u00a0<\/b>Alcohol\u00a0<\/b>on board? Hardly ever any drinking, just the occasional social indulgent luxury. There were two separate water tanks below cabin floor level plus \u201cloads of sealed helf- and quarter-gallon plastic bags of water\u201d. If the tanks ran dry, the bags were the emergency water supply.\u00a0\u00a0Food\u00a0<\/b>Lewis did a lot of the cooking, especially in the trade winds. A bonus was the odd flying fish which landed on the boat. \u201cNice, tastes like herring\u201d. The fare was mostly reconstituted food from packets or tins. Dry food is a lot easier to store.\u00a0\u00a0Democracy<\/strong>\u00a0<\/b>all decision making was very democratic. All discussed what to do. There was first-class guidance from Stan. Although basically democratic any final decision re safety etc was always by Stan.\u00a0Keeping watch<\/b> there was always someone on watch. It was okay to doze or sleep if you were in the cockpit and the boat was not near shipping lanes. The cockpit had a windscreen and canopy over the top. In the Trade Winds and away from the shipping lanes there was no real possibility of a collision, then it was okay to sleep next to the wheel. Near the shipping lanes one had to stay away for the whole (four hour) watch.\u00a0\u00a0Washing and bathing\u00a0<\/b>washing the body was done using seawater, [perhaps fresh water was used to rinse?? Lewis not sure].<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

UPSETS EN ROUTE Twang in the night\u00a0<\/b>Lewis was asleep on his watch when he was awoken by a loud \u2018twang\u2019. He couldn\u2019t see what was wrong. Everything seemed okay. It took a long while to work out what had happened. One of the two \u2018sheet winches\u2019 had given way. The retaining nut on top of one of the winches had come undone and flown off. The whole winch had come apart. Lewis found the winch but not the retaining nut. No convenient ships\u2019 chandlers to pop into for a replacement. They had to wait until they reached Grenada before they could get a retaining nut.\u00a0Becalmed!\u00a0<\/b>Ship is becalmed mid-Atlantic [?] for a week [?]. No wind. Skipper decided to use the engine as keen to make\u00a0some<\/i>\u00a0progress. At one point, all three members of the crew [foolishly?] went swimming \u2013 no-one left on boat!\u00a0Fishing\u00a0<\/b>\u2013 the one that got away:\u00a0<\/b>Lewis was fishing with a spinner at end of strong multi-strand cord of Terylene. \u201cthe line just snapped \u2013 it must have been an enormous fish\u201d. Shark? Lewis very inexperienced at the time.\u00a0Seasickness\u00a0<\/b>Lewis suffered badly from seasickness. It came as a \u201creal revelation\u201d when he was told how to cope with it: he was encouraged to stay on deck and to throw up over the side of boat. With the Trade Winds there was a slow \u201ccontinuous wide roll\u201d which didn\u2019t upset Lewis.\u00a0Storms\u00a0<\/b>bad one experienced on way in to Funchal, Madiera. Had to \u2018hove to\u2019 (broadside on to the weather], lashing the tiller and using a small forsail. Very uncomfortable \u2013 staying below for \u201cwhat seemed like days\u201d. Same thing happened at La Palma in Canaries.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

AFTERTHOUGHTS\u00a0Fear\u00a0<\/b>was Lewis scared? \u201cI just tagged along. I had tremendous confidence in Stan\u201d.\u00a0<\/span>Ship\u2019s Log<\/b> is with Stan Brooks\u2019 daughter \u2013 Lewis may be able to obtain it.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Scarab at Cobbs Quay, Hamworthy, Poole, 1968.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Scarab at Cobbs Quay, Hamworthy, Poole, 1968.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Scarab at Cobbs Quay, Hamworthy, Poole, 1968.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"The<\/a>

The Scarab at Cobbs Quay, Hamworthy, Poole, 1968.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"Scarab<\/a>

The Scarab<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Scarab full sail. Lewis Nicholls on board LEWIS NICHOLLS’ ATLANTIC ADVENTURE BEGINNINGS\u00a0Original plan\u00a0to make Grenada and then to continue around the world !\u00a01964\/5: idea formed by Nick . Advertisement placed in\u00a0Yachting World\u00a0for third… Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":28070,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[254,145,255],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/bv\/Scarab-full-sail-2.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28063"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28063"}],"version-history":[{"count":14,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28063\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28473,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28063\/revisions\/28473"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/28070"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28063"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28063"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.bohemiavillage.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28063"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}