Please, Captain, Don’t Make Me Climb the Mast

Why do travelers have a compulsion to do all the stupid things that are absolutely unnecessary? We investigate!

The Star Clipper, by the look of its wake, appears to be moving rapidly backward at a 45-degree angle. But that’s not important. Look up. Can you see me? Credit: Orwoll

THE FIRST TIME I SAW CAPTAIN YURIY, the master of the four-masted barquentine Star Clipper, he was holding a belaying pin in one hand and a lash in the other. He may have worn lighted candlewicks tied to his beard, sending up smoke.

“Get up there and reef the mainsail, ye sons o’ whores!” he bellowed into the wind, defiantly. “Ready about. Prepare to gybe. Heave to!”

All I could do was stare at the top of the mainmast and think: “I guess I’ll get thirty lashes, because ain’t no possible way I’m climbing up that rigging.”

Thirty lashes can kill a man. If he’s willing to take the punishment rather than climb the crow’s nest, you have to believe he’s sincere.

So come along with me, won’t you, for a pleasure cruise on a really big sailing ship. We just might survive!

Rough Tides in the Andaman Sea

I take it all back. Captain Yuriy was a good man, a capable captain, and only lashed his crew and passengers on rare occasions, like failure to bring him rum hourly. That too is a joke. Satire. No liability issues here, people, so move along, please. I don’t think he liked me, though. He figured I was a smart ass.

If you want, you can climb onto the bowsprit, then sunbathe on the netting below. And when I say “you,” I mean “not me.” Thanks anyway. I have a perfectly good deck chair right here. Credit: Orwoll

We were in rough waters in the Andaman Sea. Unlike other tall ships, the Star Clipper did not sail under engine power. If the seas turned us to the right, we leaned to the right. If a rogue wave hit us from in front, our bow rose into the air and then slammed down onto the surface water. Thanks to Captain Yuriy’s thirty years of experience, we weren’t left to the mercies of the ocean, but we sure had to deal with its wrath.

“Captain,” I cried, “Captain, we’re being battered by the ocean. Why are we tilting so much?!”

He looked at me calmly, not to say dismissively, disdainfully, or with a done-with-this-dude demeanor.

“Ve are a sailing ship on a vindy day,” he replied in his thick Ukrainian accent. He pointed to the billowing canvas above our heads. “Under full sail. The vaves are big. Ve have a beam sea. The conditions are not good. So sometimes, ve…tilt.”

Well, didn’t I feel like a fool?! I had no idea it was a beam sea.

A Climbing Opportunity Presents Itself

On a calm day, somewhere off the coast of the Muslim floating village of Koh Panyee (“No meatpig allowed! Penalty: Three goats!”), the captain alerted the passengers to an opportunity. The seas were soft enough to allow all the stupid people to climb six stories into the mizzens and topgallants, up a rickety, non-OSHA-approved rope ladder, into the crow’s nest, just so they could go back home and say, “I still don’t have a clue why I ever agreed to do that! I’m such an idiot!” Followed by relentless sobbing at the memory.

I celebrate the ship’s devotion to safety. It was impressive. The first four volunteers appeared out of nowhere and were quickly swaddled in safety harnesses so that if they fell to the deck from sixty feet high, the ship’s owners could say, “But, your honor, they were wearing harnesses!”

The other climbers were also put into groups of four, to avoid any traffic jam on the ropes. Their legs and waists were attached to a rope that clipped onto a central safety guide that followed the path of the rope ladder. And if all that makes you feel safe, then you’re a better man than I, because I was standing in a far corner of the deck, watching, mouthing the words: “I ain’t doing that. I ain’t doing that. No freaking way am I doing that.” But trying to smile and seem casual at the same time.

Climbing groups were coalescing. Meanwhile, I was forming plausible excuses why I wasn’t going to climb the rigging. “I’ve got vertigo. I have three fused toes on my right foot. I’ve done this so many times, I find it boring.”

Eventually, the peer pressure became too much. Now, remember that at this point in my life, I’m well into my sixties, retired, with a growing list of aches and pains, plus two bookies and a bartender relying on my continued patronage. My sense of balance isn’t great. Climbing a 60-foot rope ladder in a rocking tide on a sailing ship in the Andaman Sea isn’t high on my to-do list.

However, and I say this with both pride and humiliation, I’m an American man, which means I will do anything you say if it’s preceded by, “I dare ya.”

I Join the Climbers Because I Am an Idiot

On this afternoon, I raised my hand to join the second group of climbers. I even volunteered to go first—not out of enthusiasm but because I knew if two or three other climbers were behind me on the ladder, as I neared the top, I’d be less likely to chicken out, which would have entailed everyone behind me having to climb back down. Sheer politeness sent me upwards.

Pro Tip: This is why you should teach your kids manners.

Strapped to the gills with safety wires and an overwhelming fear of looking up, I began to climb, hand over hand, foot over foot, slowly, carefully. I knew I’d reach the crow’s nest eventually, so what need was there to look upward and lose my balance? None! None whatsoever.

The first thing you have to do when climbing the rigging is step up on the gunwale facing the ocean, then grab hold of the ropes behind you and swing yourself around so that now your back is facing the sea. You’re directed to hold onto the two outer (vertical) ropes made of braided wire, then climb step-by-step onto the cross ropes that serve as rungs.

As you climb higher, the ladder gets narrower and narrower, so that what began as a three-foot-wide ladder at the bottom is now barely big enough to contain the toes of your sneakers.

The Number-One Rule? Don’t Look Down

The number-one rule: Don’t look down. That’s also the number-two rule. To repeat: the number-one rule: If you look down, you will fall down. But I couldn’t look up, toward the crow’s nest. It was too high, and my acrophobia would kick in. So I compromised by closing my eyes entirely, inching up merely by feel. Midway up the rope ladder, if someone below had called out, “Avast, Mark, gaze out ninety degrees to port, and ye’ll find the mighty Moby Dick,” I would have replied, “Ah, ’tis nice,” and kept my eyes squarely shut.

Once I reached the crow’s nest, a basic logistical problem quickly became apparent: To climb through a hole in the bottom of the nest, you were obliged to remove your hands from the rope ladder! Wait, what?! You mean, at a certain point, balanced high above the deck, I was supposed to let go of the ropes and stick my hands up through the crow’s flooring, where an unknown and perhaps unreliable chap would grab my hands and yank me upward so that my feet were now flailing in the open sky?!

To summarize: I have now let go of the rope. My feet are no longer on the rope ladder. And someone I’ve never met is going to pull me upward into the crow’s nest. Did I get all this right? This was the actual plan?! From the beginning?! I look back on that moment today, from the safety of hearth and home and no ship rigging, and say to myself, “What a silly and possibly litigious way to entertain your cruise passengers.”

Of course, once I was in the nest, I looked across the ocean, scouting for Portuguese man o’ wars, Lafitte’s brigands, the Flying Dutchman ghost ship, and sewage releases from various Royal Caribbean 4,500-passenger cruise ships. My hair was blowing in the breeze, like Fabio. I was tough. I was intrepid. Some might have even called me plucky.

And then the mate in the crow’s nest said it was time for us to climb down.

I gave the mate a wink, so that he understood we were on the same wavelength. I waggled my hand to my fellow mast-climbers. I looked down at the 60-foot drop and the flimsy ropes. And I said to the mate, “You got a blanket? Maybe I’ll just sleep here tonight. Keep an eye on things.”

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