Woman De-Masts Male Sailors
By John
Davis,
The Sea and women have long been
bonded in superstition and lore. Men have always said, “she can be your
best friend or worst mistress.” They have been lulled by her gentle swells
and tossed asunder by her violent rages.
Men have banned women from ships while
secretly wishing they would visit as mermaids.
Figurines of mostly buxom ladies adorned the
bows of the greatest sailing ships. What man could not adore such powerful
mammary glands cleaving huge ocean waves before their vessels. And their boasts
were passionately named after women.
It has been an ocean of men, machismo,
gnarled captains and the ugliest of stinking crews.
To prove their mettle men sail in contests
awarding themselves with grand loving cup trophies.
But now the holiest of machismo grails has
passed to a female.
A British women of
just 28 years, Ellen MacAurthur, has circumnavigated the earth faster than any
man before her, and single-handedly. In fact she sailed so fast her record may
never be touched. She is the second person to solo around the globe in a
multi-hull vessel.
Racing in a
three-hulled trimaran she left England and finished the 27,000 mile course in
only seventy-one days and less than thirteen hours arriving to congratulations
from the Queen of the British Islands. She then was the given honorary rank of
lieutenant commander in the Royal Navy.
“It has been the hardest thing
I've ever undertaken. It's pushed me further than I've ever been pushed before.
I don’t think I will ever be able to communicate how difficult it has
been.”
Ellen braved storms and
grueling conditions as she rounded the southern most leg of the journey around
the Cape of Horn of South America, just north of Antarctica.
The toughest times were when she had
to climb up the mast, the large vertical pole the sail is attached to.
“You just get beaten up,” she
said. “It’s so violent up there, you come down black and
blue.”
But her mettle was strong
and she made it.
Perhaps this will
start a new trend in sailing. Soon women may festoon wooden figures of
bare-chested men to the bows of their vessels and give them names like Jake or
Elvis. And men can keep a candle burning in the window as they wait for the
women to return from the Ocean Sea.
Posted: Tue - March 1, 2005 at 01:08 PM