How I got married to the Aries vane gear...continued

But this was easier said than done. I thought I'd better to take the fastest route and this was of course round the Horn and up the Atlantic. I was not sure that I could handle such a tough voyage alone so I took a small kitten with me. Missi I called her. So off we went, Missi and I, after a year of work at a farm ashore and a good love and care done on the boat. We were two months at sea, Missi and I, were turned over once (mast down) and had storms I never thought possible. Maybe the boat was too small for these waters but she managed even though I had my doubts at times.

Passed the Horn, up the coast of South America, across the "line", Horse latitudes, into the Westerliese and then I was in England again. I called in at Cowes to look up Mr. Nick Franklin, wanting to tell him how well the Aries had done and to show him the bag of spares that he had given me five years before - unopened.

We had some long evenings, Nick and I, as we said in the pubs where he joined me back to the oceans. I was very sad to leave it all out there and felt pity for myself but this Nick did not want to hear of. "You have to take your turn at the big wheel now boy, can't make your life into one big holiday. I tell you what, I will go sailing now - been planning it for some years - and you can take over the production of the Aries, you know how to use it, you can learn how to make it". As said, as done.

There was a lot of things to do when I came home. I was very busy and that kept me from dreaming myself back on the long passages at sea that sometimes had been so wonderful. I had been close to hell at times, but certainly also close to heaven.