Fault Lines - John Knoop

Then, in search of new range for his idyll, Powers left California, the baby shoe business,
his wife's constant requests for overdue alimony, and three ardent middle-aged admirers who
stayed all night once too often. He sailed south with a Norwegian named Bob, and a charter
group, down to Acapulco. When he left there several months later, he was said by one angry
husband to be "the worst kind of philanderer". He told us several versions of this story, always
with pure, boyish pride in the final insult.
It’s obvious as soon as we set sail that, despite having owned the Gloria for eight years,
Ed Powers has learned nothing about the sea or about sailing. After a few days with him on the
Pacific, it begins to seem that his pristine ignorance actually protected him all these years.
Perhaps it was a sort of cunning self-recognition that he hadn't the capacity to learn or that half
knowledge might have killed him. When the Gloria sails, she is sailed by the people who charter
her and those, like us, who turn up to work as crew.
As the captain motors out of Puntarenas harbor Naren and I rig the sails and prepare to
hoist them as soon as we are clear. Without a mutiny we happily take over the schooner and sail
into the sunset. A joyful moment and worth the long wait in Puntarenas. We will stand four-hour
watches, which gives us eight hours off to sleep, eat and read, or to lie under the three jibs and
watch the dolphins surfing the bow wave. Late the second night out, under full sail, a squall
comes up on the captain's watch. The wind has shifted and in a panic he calls for help as he
allows the schooner to jibe, mumbling forlornly "Which way is the wind? I can't tell where it's
coming from cause my flashlight's not working."
Naren takes the helm and heads back up-wind while I slither out on the bowsprit to free
the snarled halyards and furl in the jibs. Then, as the storm intensifies we decide to reef the
mainsail, and it’s apparent that the rigging is tangled at the crosstree. Naren hoists me up the
mainmast in the boson’s chair to free it. It’s exhilarating to be thirty feet into the night sky with
rain lashing at me and the deck pitching below. For me this is the most vivid image of our escape
from Costa Rica.
“He’s a hopeless landlubber, and capable of sinking his own ship,” Naren says to me
later that night, grinning his mischievous grin. From that night on we furl the sails and motor on
the captain’s watch. Naren and I both feel like we are playing a role in a dramatic comedy. I
dislike everything Captain Ed represents, but he’s such a character that I am entertained by him.
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