Atlantic Affair

John Waller

Description

In 1930, Irish yachtsman Otway Waller invents the 'running sails' which enables his 26ft yawl to self-steer for days before the wind in his epic single-handed Atlantic voyage. He recalls his courtship to an Englishwoman and returns to face a divorce, the split in his family and community, the torching of his house and being forced out of Ireland.

Informations

• Publié par: Yiannis Books
• Date de parution: 07 janvier 2014
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781783013074
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Atlantic Affair
John Waller
Yiannis Books
Acknowledgements
I would like to thank my father Otway Waller, a true Irish sportsman, who died when I was just nine, for leaving photos and letters of his life and also the logbook of his single-handed Atlantic journey. William Nixon and Cliff Hilliard, of the Irish Cruising Club, traced the 102-year-old 26ft yawl Imogen to Auckland, New Zealand, where it is owned by John Cooper. I thank particularly Stephen McNeill of the Offaly Historical Society for his help in searching its archives, Billy Waller s son, Commander Edward Waller O.B.E. Royal Navy, for his help in deciphering the log book and David Blomfield for editing the book.
ATLANTIC AFFAIR Copyright 2013 John Waller
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, transmitted or stored in any form or by any means without the prior permission of the publisher except for quotations of brief passages in reviews.
Published in 2013 by YIANNIS BOOKS 101 Strawberry Vale, Twickenham, TW1 4SJ UK Tel. [phone]
Typeset by Mike Cooper, 25 Orchard Rd, Sutton SM1 2QA Printed by Antony Rowe, Chippenham, Wiltshire
www.yiannisbooks.com True stories of history, drama and romance
224pp ISBN 978-0-9547887-7-3 ISBN 978-1-7830130-7-4(eBook)
CONTENTS
PART ONE - THE VOYAGE OF THE IMOGEN
From journey s start
To journey s end
Appendix 1 - Running sails
Appendix 2 - The Log of the Imogen
Appendix 3 - The history of the Imogen
PART TWO - THE STORMS GATHER
Peter is born
Home to Invernisk
Peace at last, but not for long
The Regatta Race
The arrival of the Black and Tans
PART THREE - A SECOND MARRIAGE
A new journey starts
Catch me if you can!
An Irish welcome
To England and the war
To a sportsman s end
Epilogue
Appendix 4 - A letter from Afghanistan 1842
Appendix 5 - Extracts from the Court Case
Appendix 6 - A solution to potato blight
Yiannisbooks
To my father Otway Waller
Now rest in peace
Thank you for leaving the letters, which explain your departure from Ireland.
Your remarkable story has now been published.
Thank you for happy times over too few years.
HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
On June 20, 1923, Otway Waller s long-term friend Conor O Brien had set sail from Dublin in his 20-ton ketch, the 42-foot long Saoirse , with a crew of two. Saoirse is freedom in Old Irish, and Conor s circumnavigation of the world had indeed given him freedom from Ireland, whose freedom he had fought for, and whose tragic civil war had ended less than a month before.
In April 1914, the Ulster Volunteers had received 30,000 rifles. In reaction, the Irish Volunteers in the south, replied with the refrain WE must have rifles . A committee was set up which included Conor O Brien and Erskine Childers, author of The Riddle of the Sands . It was agreed that rifles and ammunition would be bought from Germany and shipped back to Ireland under the nose of the Royal Navy. Erskine Childers 27-ton ketch Asgard and Conor s little Kelpie set sail for Hamburg in July and after many adventures loaded 1,500 rifles. Childers unloaded his cargo in Howth where 880 volunteers were waiting. Now fully armed, they marched towards Dublin to be met by a battalion of the King s Own Scottish Borderers. Rather than surrender their weapons, the volunteers slipped away and the battalion returned to barracks, shooting into the jeering crowd, killing three and wounding thirty-eight. Conor s cargo was landed at Kilcoole, County Wicklow.
Erskine Childers was executed in the November 1922 for the unauthorized possession of a small automatic pistol given to him by Michael Collins. In fact the Free State Government had made Erskine Childers a scapegoat for Republican activities. Although an Englishman, he declared that his faith was the loyalty of a nation to its declared Independence and repudiation of any voluntary surrender to conquest and inclusion in the British Empire . The day before his execution he saw his walking and sailing companion, Otway s cousin, the Revd. Edward Hardress Waller of Glendalough, County Wicklow.
PART ONE
THE VOYAGE OF THE IMOGEN
This book consists of three parts. Part One is a description of Otway Waller s historic voyage made in 1930, in which he demonstrated the value of the self-steering system he invented, the first to enable a yacht to run unattended before the wind. It introduces the reader to a brave man, whose journey would fulfill many landlubber dreams today. It also explains the final and shocking cause of the break-up of Otway s marriage.
FROM JOURNEY S START
A voyage single-handed makes a tremendous demand upon the courage and stamina of any man. Capt. Otway Waller will do it if anyone can. He is a fearless fellow.
The Irish Times June 14, 1930
June 27, 1930
Bad arthritis in my back last 2 days, can only lie on my back, if it gets any worse I m through.
From Otway Waller s log of the Imogen , 1930
Otway Waller lay wedged on his back on the floor of the cabin with the mattresses from the settees holding him steady. Since leaving Ireland twelve days before, mountainous seas had treated his little yacht as a cork in a turbulent stream. Wherever the waves came from, he could at least sleep in a stable position.
He thought back to June 1892 when he was seven and how his father had drowned in the Shannon at the age of forty-five, exactly his own age now. His small sailing boat, the Waterway , had, in a sudden squall, jibed and, with the three passengers sitting on the starboard side, had capsized about a mile down river towards Meelick from Shannon Grove, his house on the Shannon. His eldest daughter Georgina had been entangled in the rigging and could not extricate herself. The coroner had praised his heroism for trying to save her - they were found drowned in each other s arms.
He remembered the weeping of his woe-stricken mother, his two younger brothers, Billy and Bertie, and his older sisters and the servants. He recalled the tread of feet and the slow rumble of wheels as the cortege of over 100 carriages stretching a mile in length travelled to the church in Banagher and then on to Prior Park, the family home in Tipperary. In Banagher every house was closed and blinds were drawn. Francis Albert was the founder of F. A. Waller Ltd., the Banagher Maltings, an exceedingly popular man and employer of a large number of men. Otway, as the eldest boy, would become Managing Director.
Lying there in agony as his arthritis - perhaps the result of the wear and tear of a maniacal sporting life - forced him to question his future journey. He asked himself why he was in the Bay of Biscay, still 126 miles from the nearest point of Spain and less than half way to Madeira, his initial destination and possibly now not to be achieved. He managed a smile as he remembered that bad luck came in threes: a broken marriage, then broken rigging and now a broken back. He smiled again as he thought how the Imogen , his 6-ton, 26-foot yawl had ridden the gale that had broken her rigging. Years of sailing off the west coast of Ireland had toughened both boat and master.
Seven years earlier his long-term friend Conor O Brien had set sail from Dublin in his 20-ton ketch, the 42-foot long Saoirse .
Now Otway aimed to follow Conor s route, but single-handed in a far smaller craft.
In 1895, Joshua Slocum, in his 36-foot sloop, was the first to sail single-handed round the world, via Cape Horn and the warm trade winds across the Pacific. Since then technology has changed the challenge but the bravery of the sailor has not diminished.
Otway and Conor argued often on the ideal rig for long journeys before the wind. Conor chose a 320 sq. ft. square foresail. Otway chose two small triangular sails, set like spinnakers, on booms each side of the mast, the sheets being led aft and looped around the tiller. Guy ropes leading forward from the booms to the bowsprit, two topping lifts and roller gear completed the simple outfit. Imogen s total sail area was just 399 sq. ft.: first jib 52 sq. ft., staysail 51 sq. ft., mainsail 240 sq. ft. and mizzen 56 sq. ft. This was Otway s own invention, so far untested on the open sea.

Born beside the Shannon in 1885, Otway had sailing in his blood. His grandfather, William Waller of Prior Park, Co. Tipperary, and of Monkstown, Co. Dublin, was the builder of the famous freshwater yacht, the Surprise , which won many races on Lough Derg. In the 1880s, his uncles Robert and Edmund were well known in yachting circles in Kingstown. As a boy, he was always playing with boats of every description, and at the United Services College at Westward Ho!, where he was educated, most of his pocket money went on their construction and design. Before purchasing Imogen he sailed his yacht Faith from Kingstown to Liverpool and back in twenty-four hours.
From 1920, during the summers, regattas were hosted by the Lough Derg, Lough Ree and North Shannon Yacht Clubs. To level the playing fields and eliminate the handicapping system, a standard design was defined. The resulting Shannon One Design (SOD) was an 18 ft. boat with centreboard and single sail with a maximum area of 140 sq. ft.
By adding a second boom and sail, one to starboard and one to port, Otway had the prototype rig that would one day become his personal invention - twin-running sails that would enable him to set sail to far-off lands.
By 1923, seventeen SODs had been built, a fleet of highly competitive boats. Number 48 - the numbering system started at 32 - was constructed for Otway. Under his ownership in the late twenties it was practically unbeatable.
In 1926, Otway arrived late at Lough Derg Yacht Club for a race. He grabbed his sails.
What s the course? he said to the steward for the race.
Just follow the fleet, he replied. Otway did and overtook all the other boats.
Competition along the Shannon was very much a family affair with the numerous Wallers, cousins and brothers, all members of