Set Sail On Sea Of Dreams
Soon after she cleared the jetties, orders were barked fore and aft in Norwegian, and the full-rigger's crew of merchant marine and naval cadets, some only 15 years old, scrambled nimbly up the ratlines, laid out onto the yards, and began loosing her 1,330 square meters of canvas.
They obeyed the orders without the slightest hesitation, despite the fact that quite a few of the more lubberly passengers were having trouble staying afoot on the solid deck, as the ship porpoised through moderately rough seas.
Rough seas or no, to be under full sail on a picture-book square-rigger right out of Robert Louis Stevenson is an experience not to be forgotten.
As the sails billowed out under the brisk north wind, the three cadets at the great wooden wheel (for it takes three to handie it) pointed her bow southward.
Faster and faster, she cut through the green Gulf, slicing the waves with a splash and swirlof foam. Encountering larger swells, she would ride them up to the crest until her bowsprit seemed about to punch a hole in the sky, then coast down the other side, in a very ladylike manner -- none of the belly-whopping, soul-drenching crashes of flatter-bottomed craft.
It was not hard to see how this graceful white three-master had won several tall ships races. The only sounds, once the little diesel was cut off, were the swash-slap of the water past the square-rigger's hull, and the harplike music of the wind in the intricate rigging. Indeed, the whole ship vibrated under its touch, as if alive.
It was everyone's dream of running away to sea come true. One woman brought her accordion with her, and strolled the decks playing old sea chanties. And the cadets sang "Blow the Man Down: as they hauled up the "spanker"sail at the ship's stern.
To the west was the skyline of Galveston, low and hazy; to the east and ahead to the south, the empty horizon of the trackless sea.
But the trackless sea was for the cadets and officers of the Radich to explore; Tuesday's passengers, about 100 of them, had much more mundane obligations back in Houston and Galveston.
So it was that, much too soon, the Radich was coaxed back north, back between the jetties, past the seemingly envious tankers and container ships in the channel anchorage, and into her berth
The voyage was over, and as Long John Silver, John Paul Jones and Jean Lafitte swaggered down the gangplank, they suddenly became the banker, the lawyer the bookkeeper -- and the reporter -- once again. Heaving a rueful sigh, they looked back at the ruddy, blue-uniformed sailors whose world this really was.
But though they had left the sea, it had not left them, and as they climbed into bed that night, they could still feel the gentle roll of the deck under them.
And smiling, they let it rock them to sleep.
