Western Michigan University ScholarWorks at WMU Dissertations Graduate College 12-2008 Circumnavigation Vincent Reusch Western Michigan University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations Part of the Fiction Commons Recommended Citation Reusch, Vincent, "Circumnavigation" (2008). Dissertations. 808. https://scholarworks.wmich.edu/dissertations/808 This Dissertation-Open Access is brought to you for free and open access by the Graduate College at ScholarWorks at WMU. It has been accepted for inclusion in Dissertations by an authorized administrator of ScholarWorks at WMU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. CIRCUMNAVIGATION by Vincent Reusch A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate College in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of English Advisor: Jaimy Gordon, D.A. 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Eisenhower Parkway PO Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Copyright by Vincent Reusch 2008 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge my director, Jaimy Gordon, and my committee— Steve Feffer,John Smolens, and Todd Kuchta—for their wisdom and insight, which has helped tremendously in making this project a success. I would also like to thank Stuart Dybek, who took a chance on me, and helped make this possible. I would also like to thank my wife, for her unending patience, and my family, for their hope and belief. But most of all, I would like to thank Eric, whose artistic eye rubbed off just a little bit on his little brother. May he rest in peace. Vincent Reusch a TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ii LIST OF FIGURES v CHAPTER ONE 3 TWO 8 THREE 29 FOUR 46 FIVE 65 SIX 95 SEVEN Ill EIGHT 121 NINE 132 TEN 137 ELEVEN 158 TWELVE 167 THIRTEEN 198 FOURTEEN 206 FIFTEEN 221 SIXTEEN 230 iii Table of Contents—Continued NINETEEN 278 TWENTY 283 TWENTY-ONE 295 TWENTY-TWO 298 TWENTY-THREE 304 TWENTY-FOUR 310 TWENTY-FIVE 326 TWENTY-SIX 333 iv LIST OF FIGURES 1. Diagram of Pete's Sake 1 2. Getting out of Irons 2 3. Sailing by the Lee 94 4. Riding a Beam Wind 297 V Diagram of Pete's Sake IULYARP SPREADER. SHROUD WtfUim JIB fAAtUSML RgeF PGlflTS STWMM COMpAflOUcoAY sew sresesK RODPEf^ fc££L txrmoz PORT lh)T££(0£, t?0W §\UAO£ 5T0ZACE SVWBOARB Getting out of Irons A boat caught in irons refers to a boat that has lost all forward momentum and is pointing directly into the wind. The term irons refers to handcuffs or leg irons, coming from the great days of sail, when a battleship stuck in irons could not maneuver away from its foe and therefore was unable to escape attack. Captains were careful, of course, to avoid finding themselves stuck in irons, but as these ships were slow to maneuver, taking as long as half an hour to tack across the wind, one error in sail trim could lock a vessel in place. A ship in irons could be stuck for several hours, an easy target for enemy cannon fodder. 2 CHAPTER ONE June 17, 1987 41° 17' 28" N, 70° 48'52" W Nomans Land Island, south of Gay Head, Martha's Vineyard Davison pushed back out toward the open sea, tacking east of Nantucket Sound in hopes of catching a wind that might carry her past the only boat that led her. For three days she'd been seeing off her bow the boat's crimson jib as they'd raced past Clarke's Harbour and across the open water from Nova Scotia to their first checkpoint in Prov- incetown, but only now was she drawing near enough to hope for a glimpse of her name. For the past two hours, she'd braced herself against the transom, against the mast, hooked an arm over the starboard lifeline, timed the peaks and troughs of waves, anything in or­ der to steady her binoculars long enough to halt the shaking of the letters that spanned the stern of the lead boat. In one moment, she was vacillating between Exterminator, Eliminator, Excommunicator—and, for the briefest instant, the more heartening, Eleva­ tor. In another she was sure she'd read something completely different. Hopeless? she thought. What kind of name is Hopeless? Fearless? Painless? Doubtless? Then it was Deduction, or Induction, or Reduction. The longer she looked through the binoculars without pausing to take her eyes away, to defocus and to relax, the more blurry the letters became, and often the more sinister. The Reaper appeared. As did Purgatorio and Perdi­ tion. A break to tweak the steering vane, then it was Table Talk or Double Take or Check Mate. 3 So continued Davi's Rorschach test, until the lead boat disappeared behind Nan­ tucket Island, and she sailed deeper into what was quickly becoming an off-shore squall, the waves that led the storm rising in swells like the smooth rolling backs of the sperm whales she'd seen south of the Bay of Fundy. The wind rose to thirty knots, spray break­ ing from the waves' crests, and she disengaged the self-steerer and took over the helm. The pressure of the currents transferred from rudder to wheel, and she listened with her hands, easing her grip to soften the momentum-halting shocks as her bow burrowed into the troughs, and holding firm to ride the steady pressure up the back of the next wave. She picked up a full knot, and by late afternoon, when she rounded south of Nantucket, the boat with the crimson sail was off her starboard beam. Avoiding Nantucket Sound had taken her away from the coast, however, and as they ran west she knew that her gain, as is so often the case in sailing, was more illusory than real. From Provincetown to Key West, the racers were required to drop anchor from sunset to dawn, and as she broke course to turn north toward shore, the lead boat would continue ahead, gaining back any time that it had lost. She thought fleetingly about not turning north, about continuing on course and dropping her sea anchor, a small subma­ rine parachute that was legal under the First Circ race regulations, but the sea that night would be rough, and she was too close to shore and shipping lanes to spend the night adrift. An hour from sunset she turned toward land, while the lead boat rounded Gay Head in search of safer anchorage on Martha's Vineyard's leeward shore. She reset her self-steerer, climbed belowdecks and checked her charts for a protected cove. She found little good shelter on the south shore of Martha's Vineyard, but she spotted Nomans Land Island, due west. She would run there and keep the gain she'd worked for that day. By 4 the time she reached the island and doused her sails, the sun was touching the western horizon and Mars was shining over the eastern storm clouds. She motored into a bay on the leeward shore, and there dropped anchor for the night. A few small bulbs, drawing from the battery, warmed the dark teak of Davi's cabin as she stood over a single alcohol burner in her galley, eating red beans and rice from a pot and looking occasionally at an envelope on her navigation desk. Inside was a letter from her brother, Peter. She'd picked it up at the marina office in Provincetown, but hadn't yet read it. More letters would come, she knew. She'd given her family a copy of the race itinerary, dozens of planned stops at marinas down the coast, through the Gulf, the south Pacific, Asia, the Red Sea. Although this was a solo race around the world, and challenging by any standards, it would not have been considered by true salts a grueling race. It was not the Oceans Five, not the Golden Globe. It was a stage race, run with non-racing-class boats. The Halifax Chronicle-Herald had sponsored it, a tip of the hat to the Fisherman's Trophy it had begun in 1920. The boats were required to meet weight and measurement specifications that would prove them 'working' boats, as had the schooners in the Fisherman's Trophy. In­ stead of fishing vessels, however, these were to be cabin cruisers, pleasure craft. Fifty boats made the race's start in Lunenburg. The first thirty to reach Provincetown were al­ lowed to continue down the coast, the remaining twenty disqualified. Davi had, to her surprise, finished that first leg in second place. She had always liked the lines of her boat, but the quick passage she attributed to her sail, a donation from the marina where she had worked that winter, "South Shore Marina," printed diagonally across the span of fab­ ric. 5 With Provincetown behind them, the boats would continue down the coast, anchor­ ing at night and regrouping in Key West before heading off to international waters, where they would sail through a series of checkpoints west around the world.