41. Lost on board ship
When a 45-minute crossing left me all at sea.
Dear Reader,
When I came across them yesterday, the following words from Vito Dumas, the Argentine sailor renowned for his single-handed navigation of the Southern Ocean in 1942, made me laugh out loud:
‘It’s out there at sea that you are really yourself.’
‘Really myself’? Like, lost? Let’s skip to the punchline here: Dumas was absolutely right.
Reader, there is immense potential for disorientation on a roll-on, roll-off ferry. At least there is for me.
We were on our way to another shoot across the Solent, on the Isle of Wight, and I hadn’t been looking forward to the crossing. We’d made this journey several times since the start of the pandemic, and had always taken care to spend as little time as possible in the germ soup of the passenger lounge, where all of the seats, thanks to their proximity to the café, would be liberally sprinkled with pastry crumbs and spilt coffee. Instead, we would choose to hang out on deck.
But this was late November, and it was not only chilly but raining. Our drive to Portsmouth in torrential rain gave me little hope for a smooth crossing, and with gusts and squalls buffeting our van on its journey on the M27 this was already no fun at all.
The principle of roll-on, roll-off is simple: vehicles drive forwards onto the vessel at the embarkation point, and drive off it forwards at the destination port. It’s very straightforward. And, cleverly, Wightlink ferries are double-ended.
Sabre (sabre-roads.org.uk) explains:
‘Double Ended ferries are so called because they are designed to operate in either direction, and so both the bow and stern are similar if not identical in design, and any steering or propulsion systems are able to work the same whichever way the vessel is moving. In practice, many captains prefer to always travel in the same direction, involving a double rotation of the vessel when travelling in one direction to maintain the ro-ro facility.’
Wikipedia says of Wightlink’s St Clare:
‘…the ship can travel in both directions, so that when it arrives, the vehicles are always facing the correct direction for disembarkation so she does not have to turn around before docking.’
Well, that’s confusing for a start. 🤔
The Solent is the name given to the part of the English Channel between the south coast of mainland UK and the Isle of Wight. It’s only a short stretch of water, and, despite the weather, to both my astonishment and considerable relief, the water was still, not choppy. There was a swell, yes, but there was not a single white horse to be seen.
Embarking the ferry, we parked the van where directed, right next to a door into the passenger part of the boat. The stairs took us up to the lounge in a series of switchbacks, turning 180° at every landing.
Arriving in the passenger lounge near the café, I felt the boat lurching, and looked out of the window to orientate myself. We were turning. The switchbacks on the stairs had already wrecked the limited sense of direction I possess, and I had lost track of where we’d left the van.
‘Where’s the van?’ I asked Jim.
’What do you mean? It’s where we parked it!’
I couldn’t think how to explain what I meant.
‘Where’s the van in relation to where I am now?’
He was confused for a second, and then remembered who he was talking to. Laughing, he pointed down and to the right. ‘Down there! We’re at this end. We’re almost on top of it.’
The boat was still turning, and choosing germs over soggy hypothermia we kept our masks on and stayed inside. It was pouring with rain.
Why was the boat turning, if we’d driven onto it forwards, and would be driving off it forwards? Were we to be crossing the Solent backwards?
I decided to pay extra careful attention on the return trip later.
We passed the café, and went to sit down next to a window. Looking outside I couldn’t quite work out what I could see.
‘The port’s not where I thought it’d be! How come it’s not behind us?’ I was alarmed.
‘Don’t worry: the boat’s manoeuvring. We’ll be heading for the island in a sec.’
By the time the ferry had left the dock I felt it must have completed a full 180 before it had begun to make its way across the Solent. Or had it? Why had it?
Heck, which way round even was I?
In due course an announcement blared out over the Tannoy asking passengers to return to their vehicles. But which way did we need to go? I’d lost any concept of which end of the boat I was on, and as for where the van was in relation to me now, I was clueless.
You see, stepping on board ship, my head compass had first been pointing one way, and then in very short order, another. With the pattern of staircases, the manoeuvring of the boat and my abiding uncertainty over which end was which, I was geographically done for.
I really was lost at sea.
Where was the van? Which staircase did we need to take to get back to it? In that 45-minute journey the vessel’s landscape had changed - the cafe we’d passed earlier, open and bustling, was now closed, and looked different without the visual markers I’d clocked earlier.
I wished I’d paid more attention from the outset.
‘It’s this way, look! We passed the café earlier. You know that.’
Reader, the café didn’t look the same. And I couldn’t remember where I had been in relation to the stairs at the time I’d encountered it the first time. Nor did I know where the van had been in relation to the stairs once I’d reached the top earlier.
Taking pity on me, Jim led the way, and at the bottom of the stairs there was the van. We got in.
‘You’re very quiet. You okay?’
I sighed, and explained that I just didn’t get it, I didn’t know how he does it, and how rubbish am I anyway to have got so geographically scrambled when my opportunity to get lost had been in such a small area in such a small chunk of time?
The ferry journey had unnerved me so much that I’d lost all interest in trying to work it out. We headed to the location for Jim’s shoot, and by the time we got back to the port for our return journey a few hours later any thoughts I’d had of paying extra special attention to which end of the boat we’d be driving on to – and whether it had turned on its way into the port or whether it hadn’t – were in the wind. Instead, I settled down in the seat with the fewest pastry crumbs in the passenger lounge, and concentrated on finishing the crossword I’d started at breakfast time.
The irony of 6 Across still makes me laugh now.
Reader, my issue with the ferry has been troubling me ever since our journey on it.
We’d driven onto it forwards.
It had then turned. Or had it? It felt as if it had. But if it did, should it have done?
We were to drive off it forwards, after all.
At no point had I clocked that we’d turned around for a second time. Because if it had, how come we were still pointing forwards?
Since late November I’ve been trying to establish how many times a roll-on, roll-off ferry needs to turn in order a) for it to be travelling forwards and b) for the vehicles to be able to disembark forwards.
There was nothing else for it. I staged my own reconstruction with the help of this YouTube video:
…..and gave up pretty soon. Because, Reader, my attempts at the action replay got me even more lost, at least in my head.
Despite Wightlink ferries being double-ended, I had felt I needed my paper boat to have an obvious bow and stern in order to make the setting-off direction absolutely clear to myself. So that confused me from the start.
But wow, that was exactly the missing factor! I had established something from my reconstruction: that I’d needed to ascertain which way the ferry had been facing when we boarded it! Did we drive on at the stern or the bow? How would I have known? Did it even matter?
It made my head hurt.
I dug out our tickets again.
Outbound: Victoria of Wight.
Return: St Clare.
With the help of Google and a cup of tea, the penny dropped. Victoria of Wight, Wightlink’s flagship new vessel, is not double-ended. On all of our other journeys to the island, the journeys we’d spent outside on deck, not in the passenger lounge, we’d only ever travelled on St Clare, which is. I’d known that all along, and the blog A2bviasea.co.uk set it out to me yesterday in black and white:
…unlike current running mates St Faith and Victoria of Wight, St Clare is a double-ender, meaning she has a central wheelhouse positioned amidships and therefore does not have to swing off her berth to face the direction of travel resulting in an unusual and striking appearance with both ends essentially mirror images of each other.
After having spent all of my previous Wightlink crossings of the Solent outside on the deck of a double-ended boat, it had not occurred to me that their new craft, Victoria of Wight, was any different. How was I supposed to know? I mean, it had just as many crumbs on its seats as St Clare ever did. Of course it was the same!
Reader, it wasn’t. I’d been all at sea aboard the wrong ferry. No wonder I’d got lost. Still, thanks to Vito Dumas, I can note that at least I was being authentically myself.
In despair,
Love
Rebecca
If you’re interested in reading more about the Isle of Wight, also known as ‘Little England’, I wrote about it in this post last summer.
I'm anticipating walking the Isle of Wight coastal path later this year, so I really enjoyed Christian of
taking Substack readers with him on his circumnavigation of the island by bike in both this post and this one.And Isle of Wight resident
of wrote this lovely post last summer about the island’s wonderful sense of community.Do check them out!
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Well, that'll teach me to do too many things at once! Welcome to my Saturday morning post... on Friday afternoon! 🤣
I am not without sympathy, Rebecca, but I have to say this just cracked me up. How you drive yourself crazy! I especially loved Jim's photos of you with the little boat and tiny car. Priceless. So many insights here as to what makes up Rebecca Holden. One of your best so far, girl! My mom traveled with me to Europe four times. She was always so relaxed because she NEVER had to worry about where we were and what we were doing or if we had enough currency. She let me worry about all that and she just held on to my coat tail. My suggestion for you? Hang on to Jim and just cool out. Let him manage the travel logistics. After all, you manage that grocery list! Ha ha ha