high point was passing the white cliffs of Dover.
Now, as for that gale: heavy weather is not a big deal for EAGLE – the ship has dealt with far worse( including a hurricane during its passage back from Germany, after the war). We reduced sail to the upper and lower topsails, which decreased the stress on the rig, but allowed us to maintain good speed. In general, we prefer to have strong winds off our stern, as opposed to on our bow, and, although the wind strength was more than we had expected, the direction was favorable.
As conditions deteriorated, we“ Set the Heavy Weather Bill,” which essentially means that additional hatches were secured, equipment
was more tightly secured with additional lashings, and safety lines were rigged, for personnel to hold onto as they walked along the weather( i. e., outside) decks.
Eventually a pipe was made that“ Weather Decks are secured except for personnel on watch.” Basically, this meant that, unless you had to a job to do on deck, you had to stay inside. As a QMOW, I did indeed have a job to do, on deck – I was responsible to stand navigational watches.
CONDITIONS on deck for the 0000-0400 watch could be described as miserable: the temperature was in the mid to low 30s, there were frequent blasts of hail and sleet, and salt water sprayed across the deck. I was wearing two layers of thermal underwear, my ODUs, a fleece sweater, an ocean grade foul weather jacket, and a thick wool hat – and I still got chilled.
Although I could do most of my duties in the relative comfort of the pilot house, I did need to periodically go to the stern of the ship in order to gather weather data. This was exciting, to say the least, since it entailed going outside the relative safety of the lifelines and carefully working my way, along slick decks, in order to get the wet
27