European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - September 7, 1980, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Star struck navigator in a 4 3-foot Sailboat by Sid Moody associated Pressy of drink from Lii Dock Hose inordinately in inc fijo Lish conceit you can carry enough water inside you to last 4,000 Miles. So you drink sum More. But the land hns  nit it can. The skipper starts Iho engine let s  Dock lines sri Iii aboard. You Are off across the ats untie simple As thai. No Cere Mony Lei s go. Luckily it is Nai priday and no women arc waving food . These arc Bud Medicine. The Virgin Ivanda crowd around you. Then there in Only one left. Ocean swell be in to Roll the boat. You look Back once but Only once. Your world it now a 43-Faol Sailboat of fibreglass Metal and fabric designed to float and go Forward. Most fronts do though not All some die trying. You know that but Stow it out of mind. Your attitude b not angst. Informed wariness it Thor. A sign once said sub marines Are Safe 19 Long As you remember they re  you the navigator put a first Dot on the plotting wheels Green gridded sheets printed in Washington bought in Manhattan taken Home on a train. Very prosaic Bui the lines you will Pencil make you brother to seafarers through the Ages Kin to All sailors who Ever swallowed Citra water it Stock Iida. Did Columbus must have. Sail on. L Day six her mods is behind he azores ahead 1,780 nautical uni Sci then Gibraltar. There Are sin in Crew the a incr a 4-l-Ycar-old lawyer and recent convert to sailing a Friend of his the paid skipper who is also the navigator s son an Able Seaman Cook and an italian who will become Cap Tain once across the  we have three English ital Ian dictionaries and High school French. K-,1 teen Are Forward As inc Crew settles in to routine. Favorite jokes arc swapped. Life historic Are summarized leaving details for Long night watches. But idiosyncrasies inevitably emerge who the Sleeper Are the caters the , the card players the hummers at the wheel. We Are not a democracy. The owner s word is Law if it comes to thai. You Don t vote on what sails to carry in a Gale put the boat is he ultimate Boss. We Are servants to her whims and needs sail on. Day eight we Angle North where the Pilot Chart shows More wind and a helping current. The Chart is a distillation of Many weather and sea observations Over the Yean. But its pro fuse details Are average not predictions. Basically we Are avoiding higher Gale probability to the North and the azores High to the Touth a sunny but torpid band of Cooling tropical air settling lazily Back to Earth we lit indebted to it Mitt Aew Fontaine must. Us. Try who in tac 19th Century a in Ukia a chatted lie Tutor Eun Tati and winds of the plaint his wort Cut the time of rain Ifalia Between Atu Artlia had in clued from 114 a i to Little m 63. We ire Riding in offi Nool of the Gulf slum the world s mightiest River tint studied by Ben Franklin in hit never watling passion to Speed the mails. Trade winds raise the Tea Kavc the inches every 1,000 mild. By the time this water ii pushed against Central America set level he risen Tours feet. By the Laws of Gravity the water he to go Tomc Oberc Ana doa ique zing Between Florida and the Bati Anui at great velocity. Thousands of Miles away we ire its beneficiary. So Are the rents of England on a latitude with Barren Labrador thank to the warmth of the dwindling Gulf Stream. Our barometer gives clues about what Cal her is com ing our Way. But in a boat thai rarely i coeds eight knots chasing the wind is a chimera. The weather you get is inc weather you gel. Sail on. Day nine what is son of Columbus asks pointing to a salad.  no ice Luck he insists. Lettuce is  lettuce ladies. We chorale but not Loo openly. Four of us Are sharing three bunks Forward of he owner s me roam and Gibraltar is i Long Way ahead. Bus foot Forward ind Don t map on docs. It is Mother s Day. We throw Over a Nolc in a bottle lit. Mom Day ten bal Nasf son of Columbus cries from the Helm. We a Urnise topside to see what a Balena is. We arcs. Hump backs. Whales have been the authors of several pits of survival by sinking Small bouts either Cut of love hate or cretaceous High Jinks. They Are Best admired from afar. A butt aside the Atlantic is Busy and varied thoroughfare for ill itt i scarfs. We or to mud Hir Faor radio talking to solitary  Frenchman who is tired and lacks charts of the Blind. It night before a Amerl Caa a after b rooted after their yacht is run Down try it Tanker fir pm tar danger than whale. We Are always seeing shipping and once a russian in Tilc submarine How did you know it was russian it had a red Star on the Canning Tower and the Bridge officer did t wave Back we Hail 4 nailing freighter and ask if lie ii in a ship Ping Lane wherever i am is a shipping Lane he replies near Bermuda Nenad Mendralla radio officer of the yugoslavian Container ship Merliin Norai Utt to Call stir families when he reaches new York. He docs. Almost three weeks later off Portugal we radio b freighter As it Hovel into View. It s no Naff where have you been he says. I be own looking All Over for  Day twelve the helmsman thinks he sees a flare five Miles ahead. We turn on our Mast Light and the radio but see and hear nothing. We weigh the Odds of it having been a distress signal and the chances of finding anyone in the water if it was at night when the dark lurks just beyond the dim red glow of the cont Pau tight the imagination sees Many things and wac times hears voices in the boat s Wake. We sail on Day thirteen standing a in Down Wetch the owner explains he has Long wanted to Tail the Atlantic and cruise the Mediterranean and is Lucky enough to be Able to. Moat people Ike through their dreams he Sayi. Day fourteen the heavens the in Cigalor t Road map Are present and accounted for. At this Lime of year Arcturus obligingly rises in the East in the evening and sets in the West at Dawn. Crossed with Potiris the North Star it give cd an almost perpendicular fix the Best kind. Today with pre Cise tables an accurate timepiece a  acquaintance with the turn a unbent Sextant and Mastery of third Gride math anyone can find Hii Way about the Earth it Wai not always thus. The Early explorers Columbus included could measure latitude from the heavens. But Longitude was a problem Page 12 the stars and stripes so they would sail to a latitude Ami alien Cross the Ocean on it. However after 2,000 of her sailors drowned in a Mats Shipwreck Britain put up 20.000 pounds for anyone who could invent an accurate timepiece to measure the Pace of the Tun around the world hence Longitude. John Harrison de bed one in 1737, the chronometer but did t get All the Money until 177when he was so. And then Only with us intervention of George Iii himself an Amateur astronomer among other things the navigators table is used by the Cook to a fwd dough by the skipper to fix engine parts by tic cant players for Casino. Navigators thus came by their part Noil aggravated when a landfall is imminent. They in turn Affett a Public air of my Lery and cwt Twidt and priv iry Pray they Are right but your path is lit by an unbroken ancestry going Back to the an Centt eratosthenes the greek who in the 3rd Century . Assumed the world was round and Cattail died its circumference by the Tun Shadow 14,000 Miles Cort a mites off Columbus Isaac Newton who first derived the a cml John Harrison it. Maury Rig fit Down to rot. Cursing the Clouds for hiding Polaris at Dawn one of two times a Day when stars and horizon Are visible. A your. Measurement requires ,. Day sixteen the navigator ii Reading the Taf Freu log k Rotor of i line trailed astern i d connected to a clock like Metier oms thai measures distance through Ukai. A " drops from his pocket overboard and sinks into the Ual night of the Bottom 1,716 of Thom Down to be with dropped doubloons and Moj Dorei and who what of the Ages. I ii oceanic Tody wind 30 Kiwi wave 10-Iz wind Waves have been clocked at 70 Mph. If sunday