It was no ordinary Monday morning. Eleven of us were on board the three-masted lugger Grayhound, anchored off the small town of Saint-Louis on the Caribbean Island of Marie-Galante and preparing to set sail towards Guadeloupe. With the calm patience and attention to detail to which we had become accustomed over the previous few days, skipper Filémon Darbois explained the step-by-step process by which we would sail off the anchor while avoiding the mass of other anchored boats that surrounded us.
We were anchored in about 5m of water with about 35m of chain out; and, as was usually the case, the mainsail and mizzen were already hoisted as we had left them up overnight to keep us riding head to wind. Then, the mizzen was scandalised, a line was attached to the clew of the main and loosely taken forward, the foremain was hoisted and its clew brailed up towards the top of the foremast, and the jib was made ready. Most of the chain was brought back aboard with the manual windlass, leaving about 12m deployed. Because the anchorage on our port side was the more crowded, we would be sailing off to starboard, and so after waiting patiently until the bow swung to port and the chain was stretched to starboard, the remainder of the chain was hoisted as quickly as possible, thus pulling the bow to starboard. Simultaneously the jib was hoisted and the foremain unbrailed, and bow turned to starboard and she slowly started to go astern, and with the tiller taken to starboard the rate of turn marginally increased. When the jib was tacked across to starboard and the clew line on the mainsail was released so it could be properly set, began to gather way ahead and the tiller was taken to port. Soon we gybed and started sailing on a starboard reach, and the mizzen was de-scandalised. Every bit of it happened exactly as Filémon said it would.
