Racundra's First Cruise Read online

  Arthur and Evgenia sailed Kittiwake in and around Baltic Port (Paldiski North) throughout June and July, often taking trips to the Roogö (Pakri) islands, one of their favourite places for picnics. He recorded each day’s sailing events in his diary. They often sailed with their friend Leslie, at that time British Consul in Reval (Tallinn). When Grove, Leslie’s successor, married them, Leslie, unable to be present, left a bottle of champagne for them in his room upstairs. Ransome’s diary also records that they sailed with another friend, this time from Riga, referred to as the Kaiserwald Wizard. The diary confirms the comment in his biography about sailing in other boats. Ransome’s description of the island of Little Roogö (Vaike Pakri) in Racundra’s First Cruise tells us that he was very familiar with this particular island. His log records several trips there and back from Baltic Port (Paldiski North). In the early nineties Andres Tonisson, an Estonian scientist, visited the islands. He produced a sketch map showing the route Ransome described. Readers of the book Peter Duck will notice a very strong resemblance to the fictional Crab Island.

  In August 1921 the Ransomes moved to Riga in Latvia and Arthur acquired his third boat, a sailing/fishing dinghy. From photographs of the boat the design is very similar to plans for a sailing dinghy drawn by Otto Eggers whilst he was designing Racundra. Egger’s dinghy is however smaller, only 2.5 metres long, and without a centreboard and is more likely to be the dinghy shown on board Racundra in the illustrations in Racundra’s First Cruise. The plans for this dinghy are with Ransome’s papers in the Brotherton Library. The Latvian dinghy may well have been built using a modification of these plans.

  CRAB ISLAND IN “PETER DUCK”.

  His autobiography continues:

  This happy summer based on Baltic Port ended half way through August when we moved our headquarters to Latvia. We rented rooms in a small house in Kaiserwald, outside Riga, on the shores of Stint See, a pleasant lake beside the forest. A Lettish boat-builder made me, in a few days, a small boat for fishing and sailing with a fish box built round the centreboard case and a small leg-of-mutton sail.

  THE ISLAND OF LITTLE ROOGÖ.

  I liked the little fishing dinghy well enough to think it possible that the Riga boat-builder could translate my dream ship (on whose design Eggers had been working while I was in Russia) from paper into fact. The man had built an eight-tonner and was confident that he could build my boat. I went to Reval, talked it over with Eggers, came back with the preliminary drawings, showed them to the builder and, before leaving for England, took a deep breath and signed the contract, determined one way or another to do enough writing to pay for it.

  EVGENIA AND ARTHUR ON LITTLE ROOGÖ.

  EVGENIA AND LESLIE ON LITTLE ROOGÖ.

  RACUNDRA

  Ever since Ransome moved to Estonia he had at the back of his mind been considering writing a book. In a letter to his mother he mentions the possibility:

  To Edith R. Ransome

  January 19 1921

  Reval

  My dearest Mother

  Very many thanks for the sailing book...

  ... The Esthonian book is a sheer luxury, because I cannot hope to make a penny out of it. People won’t read a serious book on Esthonia. The only hope of making them read it is to make it a jolly sort of travel book, with lots of camping and fishing and sailing shoved in...

  ... I have got a publisher for the Esthonian book; at least I think so, but as I have already remarked, I shall make no money out it, lucky if it pays for the boat....

  .... Could you buy “The Falcon on the Baltic” by E.F. Knight, 3/6 and send it. You can get it from G. Wilson, 23 Sherwood St., Piccadilly Circus, W.

  With much love,

  Your affectionate and now thoroughly middle-aged son.

  Arthur

  Following the Ransome’s move to Riga in the autumn of 1921 their sailing activities were limited to the new sailing/fishing dinghy. No further mention is made of Kittiwake in Ransome’s papers, presumably left or disposed of in Baltic Port (Paldiski North). However in Racundra’s First Cruise he reports seeing her in Reval (Tallinn). “... Kittiwake herself, unkempt, dilapidated, lovable little thing, was moored just the other side of the mole.”

  The building of Racundra is briefly described in the opening chapter of Racundra’s First Cruise. He talks about the building in his autobiography:

  Meanwhile Racundra was being built in a wooden shed on an island near the mouth of the Dvina River. My joy in the process was mitigated by all the delays and frustrations. We much enjoyed being members of the Riga Yacht Club, which was friendly, homely, cosy, and as active in winter as in summer, a popular meeting-place for sailors, ice-yachters and skaters.

  The building did not go well. Years later in his book The Picts and the Martyrs he wrote “the only boat builder to finish a job on time was Noah, who knew he would be drowned if he didn’t.” He was becoming increasingly impatient with the progress on the building of the yacht. During March and April he wrote several times to his mother detailing the problems:

  To Edith R. Ransome

  23 Stralsunder Strasse

  Kaiserwald

  Riga

  March 29 1922

  My boat for this year is getting ready for the water. You will be pleased to hear she is twice the size of last year’s, a huge creature, thirty feet long and about twelve feet broad so that it will take a miracle to upset her ...

  Her name is to be Racundra. But it’s lucky I bought so much stuff with me from England for her, because it is extremely hard to get anything here ...

  I suppose some time in May we shall be afloat. Now there is still snow, and the lake is frozen solid and shows no sign of melting. Carts and horses drive across it. Sledges rather.

  April 11 1922

  My dear Mother,

  ...Yesterday, however, there was a tug breaking up the ice in the broad arm of the river across which our new boat is lying in a shed...

  ... I think politics are beastly, and the only thing to do is to forget them for as long periods as possible. This, as soon as we have finished fitting out Racundra, we propose to do...

  ... So I think that about May 16 I shall be able to set my sails and sail away to the islands of the blest, or rather to the islands of the Damned Thieves who stole my mainsail two years ago. However, this year I shall be living on board all the time, and shall try not to give them a chance...

  Your affectionate son,

  April 22 1922

  The boat in which I shall cruise will not be ready for sea for another month, which is most annoying, as we shall lose about three weeks of good weather ... it is maddening about her not being ready, when we have been howling at the man, and tinkering and hammering has been going on all winter. However, when she is ready, she will be a really stout ship, and it will be our own fault if accidents occur. I have taken the compass down to be fitted in a good place aft of the mizen mast and in front of the steering well. Her appearance when ready will be something like this:

  Arthur.

  Ransome became increasingly frustrated with the builder and the lack of progress. In June he wrote in detail about the problems to his mother:

  June 8 1922

  Riga.

  My dearest Mother,

  We are still wrestling with difficulties here in getting ready for sea. The boat itself is nearly ready, and we are busy with mattresses and things of that kind. But nothing on earth will induce the swine who is alleged to be doing some metal work for the mast to deliver the goods, ordered about three months ago. However, the little tiny motor I am sticking in to push us along in calms is now being installed, though I admit it looks rather toy like, its propeller looking rather like a little brass flower attached to the big hull of the Racundra. You will be pleased to hear that I have persuaded the old man who looks after our dinghy to come with us on the first trip to Reval. He is very ancient (sailed with Lady Brassey in the Sunbeam about the time that I was born) but very efficient, and highly entertaining. He wa
nts to sail to England with me next year. He is quite the best sailor in these parts, and I shall be glad to have him if only to pick up hints from him, to polish up what, hitherto, I have been finding out for myself. I think I can now safely say that on Midsummer Day I shall be able to date a letter to you from on board the Racundra.

  During the Whitsun holidays, when the land was a sort of hell of ginger beer bottles, gramophones and waste paper, spread all over the place by family parties, each, of course, accompanied by a dachshund, we spent the whole time on the water in the little boat, and had some very good sailing. I am learning all the time and can now do things in the little boat that I should never have dared in Slug or Kitty, though they were twice the size. It remains to be seen how I shall handle Racundra, but certainly I am much more able to handle her than I was a year ago.

  Your Bantam Coffee has been religiously kept (not a tin opened) and lies in a place apart, the first stores to go on board Racundra. Tomorrow I am buying a lifebelt, which I hope will be less useful than the coffee.

  But it is very sickening how much of the summer has gone, although perhaps it is as well, for I am not really free to start on a real cruise until the Russian number of the Guardian has gone to press. Still, we could have been living on board, which is a joy in itself, or would have been. Among the joys, which I remember, even one day’s sleep in Slug, with stone ballast for pillows, after a thirty-hour sail, stands out. And Racundra will be luxury compared to that. Actually horsehair mattresses.

  I wish we could see any chance of making our trip to England this summer. But I think it is impossible. Already too late. Chatterton and other great men tell me that there is such a prevalence of N.W. winds from June on in the North Sea, that it is a miserable job crossing from the east after the end of May. So I suppose I shall have to put that off until next year. However, when at last we get going, I am going to try to keep going as hard as I can, for practice sake, and try to cover in distance the journey to England, even if it will not be in the hoped-for direction. The trip to Reval is about 250 miles. It will be 500 if we go straight there and back. I should very much like to do a thousand miles this year. The trip to England is about 1500 allowing for calling at a number of ports. Well, if I do a thousand this year successfully, what with Reval, Helsingfors, Kunda, Arensburg, Pernau and the other Esthonian ports, I shall be pretty confident of being able to bring Racundra home next year, when you shall motor over to Ramsgate or the Medway or somewhere, and have tea in the cabin under the barometer and clock (which said clock keeps time accurately enough to allow me to navigate with her, and duly find out where I am by observing the sun). My friend Wirgo, the Esthonian Minister in Stockholm, is back in Reval, and wants to come down here to sail up to Reval with me, so we shall probably be four on board and something of a tight squash. However it will make the work easier. He has become as mad on boats as me, and has brought his yacht back from Stockholm, and also a folding boat with which, under sail if you please, he navigates the rivers of Esthonia...

  ...I may have to visit England during the summer, but can pretty well promise to be home in November for a month. I want to be home then, because there is going to be a big Small Craft Show, at which I am sure to pick up wrinkles, and see a decent little stove and other dodges for Racundra. I am fitting her out just as cheaply as ever I can, with the idea of probably wanting to get really decent things at the Show. It is to be in the Agricultural Hall, and will probably be the finest collection of all the latest tweaks ever seen.

  “RACUNDRA” IN STINT SEE HARBOUR.

  STINT SEE HARBOUR TODAY.

  This is merely a gabble about nothing.

  So I stop.

  Your affectionate son,

  Arthur.

  Ransome’s diary records the eventual launching of the boat:

  26 June

  Boat ready in two months. Two men only working on her.

  14 July

  Lehnert definitely promises Racundra for Aug. 3.

  28th July

  Racundra in water.

  29th July

  Racundra christened.

  3 August

  Boat not ready.

  He wrote to his mother again on August 17th:

  To Edith R. Ransome

  August 17 1922.

  Riga.

  My dear Mother,

  After all kinds of tribulations which I will not recount in detail, I have got Racundra in the water, taken her away from the swine, and with a couple of workmen have got her almost ready for sea. Ship’s papers are ready, and I hope on Saturday to move down to the mouth of the river, starting for Reval (about 250 miles away) with the first S.W. wind. I have slept on board since getting her, the workmen turning up at six and working till dark, and today really all the important things are done. I had to make a new centreboard, the old one being stuck and hopelessly warped, and took her up on the slip, after which I made sail and brought her back to the little harbour all by my wild self. The two workmen hammering away in the cabin did not know we were moving till I had got halfway and they put up astonished heads. She is very easy to manage, and so slow on her helm that I have plenty of time to run about and do things while she takes care of herself. But SLOW. My word. Something terrific. Our motion has a stately leisure-ness about it that is reminiscent of the Middle Ages. I have just come home for clock and barometer, which can now be put up in the cabin. Compass is already there. Lamps polished. Water casks oiled and their hoops painted with silver bronze. Anchors fixed. One on deck. She is riding to the other. Lamp in the cabin fixed. Mattresses now going down. Sweet peas on the cabin table and His Britannic Majesty’s Minister coming to tea on board this afternoon.

  Everything except final stores, Customs examination, and Insurance is done. By the time you get this, we shall pretty certainly be rolling about somewhere in the middle of Riga Gulf. Please address your next letter c/o British Consulate Reval, Esthonia, marking the envelope “To be called for”, as we may be a week or ten days on the way, if we stop for weather or in any port. It will be very jolly to find a letter there when we arrive.

  Your affectionate son.

  Arthur Ransome

  The outstanding work being finished after a fashion, they finally set sail for Racundra’s First Cruise on August 20th. The cruise took them to the island of Runö (Ruhnu), through the Moon Sound to Reval (Tallinn), across to Helsingfors (Helsinki). They returned via Reval (Tallinn), the Nukke Channel to Hapsal (Haapsalu), then to the island of Dagö (Hiiumaa), Werder (Virtsu) and direct to Riga, arriving on September 26th.

  On his return he wrote detailing his plans for a book:

  To Edith R. Ransome

  October 2 1922

  Racundra, Riga.

  My dear Mother,

  You will by this time have heard of how the equinox flung us home with a flick of his mighty tail after giving us a lively time for a fortnight or so. I wrote at once, but was too tired to tell you much about it, and now the freshness has worn off and you will have to wait for a detailed story till you hear the final chapter of my Log. In the way of writing I did pretty well, and came home with eighty photographs (sixty of which I have still to develop) and over 30,000 words written of my first little sailing book. I want to make it sixty thousand altogether, that’s the same length as Bohemia, and I think that when I have revised the stuff I wrote while actually sailing and worked in the material I collected last year, I should have a pretty jolly little book. It fails rather badly however from Mr. Christian’s point of view by having no feminine interest whatever. All the dialogue in it is between the Ancient and myself and the various odd folk we met, the most interesting of which were the seal-hunters, armed with eighteenth century flintlocks which might have been used by the Jacobites. Generally it was a pretty successful trip, though with so much bad weather as to make the story seem a little exaggerated to anybody who does not know what a stormy sea the Baltic is, and does not remember that we were cruising during the equinox, which is its worst time. We act
ually sailed over seven hundred miles.

  I am still sleeping on board, for fear of pirates, because of the dark nights and because all my most valued possessions are in the boat, but tomorrow or the next day I hope to get everything ashore. At the beginning of next week she will be hauled out and put in a shed for the winter.

  I do not know whether I told you that your much belated Bantam Coffee, meant for last year, provided many comforting drinks in the small hours of the morning. Nothing is more wonderful than the effect of a hot drink on a weary steersman who has been at the tiller all night. I remembered you every time, and drank your health in condensed milk and Bantam many times.

  I feel quite confident of being able to sail to England next year. The passage from Reval to Helsingfors is twice as long as that from Dover to Calais, and the worst bit of the journey from one end of the Riga Gulf to the other is as long as from Harwich to Rotterdam, and in many ways far worse, from a sailor’s point of view. Racundra managed all this like a bird in the worst possible weather, so if I get free in June next year she ought to make nothing of the trip to England, which should take her about six weeks, going comfortably. But of course, I do not know what next year’s work will be, or whether I shall be able to be free for so long. I am very anxious to do it, so as to have a second book ready to follow up Racundra in the Baltic or whatever else we call it. Titles thankfully received.

  Of course my greatest joy is the navigation, which went through in all four of the out-of-sight-of-land passages without a hitch. It made all my mugging up of books seem really worth while. The sheer excitement of being out of sight of land for twenty-four hours and then seeing the land appear and finding that you have hit it exactly as you had intended is something not to be equalled in any other way. Incidentally my colour is Indian Red and I am said to be very fat. Fat that is for me.

  I shall be working on the book until I start for England, in the hope of having the rough copy pretty complete. Then while in England I want to do the revision and get somebody to help in redrawing charts and things necessary for illustration, so as to be able to leave the book in England finished for publication in the Spring. It’s a huge joy really doing a non-political book at last. And in fact it is almost violently non-political, so complete a contrast is it to the things I have had to do during the last few years. I feel almost like a starting author again, and somehow think that this will be a sort of breaking of the ice. Parts of it at any rate I think you’ll like, though parts of it may seem too technical. At the same time I do not want to leave them out for I expect the book will be read quite considerably by people like me, and I rejoice in detailed accounts of other people’s navigation of difficult bits. The worst trouble is that there are three severe storms in it while at sea, and several which we dodged in harbour, and though the storms were S.E., N.E., S.W. and N.W. and so had each his quite special character, yet even for a sailing book there seems to be a blessed sight too much wind. There are also calms and one beastly fog, besides several days of simply jolly sailing. On the whole it gives a pretty good all round picture of autumn sailing in the Baltic, enough perhaps for the escape from the particular to the general, which is essential for a good book.