Sitting in Castine Town, Maine, I received an electronic telegram that said I was to sign aboard the topsail schooner Amistad in Falmouth, England.  I thought that was an appropriate place to join a sailing vessel for a voyage around Europe and Africa.  Not so long ago Falmouth was the first port of call for deeply laden square riggers to receive orders for the final port of call.  Wheat was the common cargo in the early twentieth century for stout barques and ships coming from Australia around Cape Horn and the orders would come out by pilot boat to the ships waiting at anchor off Falmouth Harbour. 
 

Today those ships are relics, rusting away in New York or other sea ports and only the pictures in the Falmouth pubs remind you their glory.  Stepping off the train, the Amistad was easy to find, what with her yards being the only ones crossed in the harbour.  We set sail the next day, heading around the Lizard and into a lumpy Irish Sea.  A mostly wet and unsettled passage as we headed north towards Liverpool.  A big low had been boiling across the Atlantic and was to met us as we got up into the Irish sea.  The forecast was gales across the board with a possibility of maybe a strong gale in certain spots.  We dredged on, motor sailing north, waiting for the wind to come.  There was a good anchorage near Milford Haven that the Captain decided to hunker down in and not try and motor against forecasted gale force winds out of the north.  Not a lot of fun.  As we waited out the low for the next few days we saw the barometer fall lower and lower but the wind never really came.  The surface anyasis showed us smack in the middle of the low but most of the wind was concentrated at the south end with up to force 9 whipping the Lundy-Fastnet area.  According to a limey bloke in a dirty pub in Milford Haven (whose information may or may not be credible) the famous Lundy-Fastnet race was scheduled to be going on but was cancelled due to the fierce weather.  “Nevva hapined b’fore” he declared.  True or not it makes a good tale.  After a fuel up in Milford Haven, we remarkably received a fair wind and sailed the rest of the way to Liverpool in a damp and grey Irish sea arriving in at our dock just as another low was on top of us which made for a very exciting docking, but that is another story.

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