The Atlantic Hitchhiker

by Nancy Knudsen on 23 Nov 2006 DAY 145, 22nd November, 2006:
There are hints of them everywhere around the docks – signs on notice boards, ‘Young, fit, excellent cook, good references, my phone number is:…’ In the evenings you hear talk of them ‘O when Michael didn’t turn up, they were lucky enough to find someone at the last minute.’ Then you hear the occasional knock on a hull somewhere, and a voice calling out ‘Excuse me, are you looking for crew?’

These are the young enthusiasts who have taken the extraordinary step of flying from their home port – in Europe somewhere - all the way to Las Palmas in the Canaries, in the hope of berth to cross the Atlantic.

They haunt the cocktail parties, of which there are plenty, they ride around on bikes. They stop you in the street to ask. Some, they say, have never been on a boat.





But I didn’t think much about them until I met Rubina.

It was in a noisy café/bar, latish, I am balancing my computer on the bar, trying to get a signal to send stories home, when she merges into our small crowd. She is dark-eyed, intense, thick rush of shiny dark hair, pulled back casually. Pretty, very pretty, but not frail, a strong face, clear skin, direct gaze. She’s Danish, and her English is excellent.
‘Yes I am looking for a berth to go across the Atlantic – I am very handy on a boat – I work as a repairman on a Danish ferryboat, so I am good at diesel engines, I never get seasick – AND I can cook – I am a very good cook!’

I am fascinated. ‘and you flew down here, from Denmark, just on spec without a berth? – Where are you staying?’

‘O well, we have some nice guys have let us stay on their boat until their crew gets here – but we must leave tomorrow. The hotels in town are all full, AND very expensive!’

‘We?’ ‘Yes my girlfriend Monika and me. – She wants a berth too.’
She says it with intensity, serious, without any obvious notion that I will misunderstand her involvement in the sailing scene.
I’m a little guarded: ‘And can you sail?’
‘Sure I can sail – I have been sailing wherever I can, whenever I am not working – it is such a wonderful feeling, and on tall ships you know – I was very useful there, as I was able straight away to work on the engines. – but I love the rough wind and the adventure on deck too. But you know I am careful – we received an offer yesterday, but I think the guy was not too good. I had a bad feeling about it. He said he had two male crew, but he would rather have women, so he would tell the male crew to go. I didn’t like that, and I didn’t trust his character, so we knocked it back.’

Now she has my fullest attention – no groupie sailor is this. I think about Denmark – is this what so many years of liberation have done for young Danish women – a job down in the engine room of a ferry, the so forthright manner, thinking nothing of flying off a couple of thousand miles, just to find a place on any sailboat going to the Caribbean…?

She tells me about herself, a boyfriend at home who has encouraged her to seek her adventure, a mother who has taught her good judgement, the Marine Engineering degree for which she is studying.

‘How are you going about finding a berth’ I ask.
‘Well, now I am asking you – that’s how.’ She giggles disarmingly, and I giggle with her.

……………………………………………..

Even though I made her promise she would let me know if she was successful, with 1100 sailors here in Las Palmas for the ARC, and hundreds more who are sailing independently, I didn’t expect to see her again.
But now, just two days later, here she was, by my side at an ARC function, tugging excitedly at my sleeve.
‘Hi Hi remember me? I came twice to your boat to let you know I have found a place on a boat, but you weren’t there!’
Now her eyes are shining, she’s almost rigid with exhilaration; her words are tumbling out like a waterfall.
‘Yes, I have found a good boat, and the skipper is a REALLY nice person – his wife doesn’t want to do the trip and has gone home, and now he has decided to take on a crew – there will be four of us. All day today I have been shopping for food – we are going tomorrow..’
On and on she tells me her story. I share her contagious excitement, and I am grinning too. ‘What’s the name of the boat?’
‘O I can’t remember. – Come and meet my new skipper’

She drags me through the crowd, and I spend a pleasant half hour learning more about them both. The boat is a First 42 called Phantom Lady, sailed by Mike Rodgers from Cornwall, and now I know that Rubina – Rubina Sidsel Thestrup from Svendborg on the Island of Fyn in Denmark – is a good judge of character.

As I write, they are already on their way – the boat is not in the ARC – and we wish them fair winds. I can’t help wondering how many other positive ends there are to these small stories, and, again, how many young people are still standing at the wharf after the boats have all gone over the horizon.

………………………………………………………………..

Jeremy Wyatt, marketing director of World Cruising Club, which owns the ARC, is aware of how much activity there is in this quarter. ‘We know about it,’ he says, ‘We know there are at least about 20-30 people each year who pick up a berth at the last minute. We neither encourage or discourage it – we just don’t get involved.’