Excerpt from Sailing at the Edge of Disaster

By Elizabeth Garber

In 1971, I was seventeen, depressed and reading Sylvia Plath in Ohio while my fifteen-year-old brother blew up his model cars. Our dominating father sent us, “his problem kids,” to join fifty other teens on what he thought was a rigorous sail training school so we would “shape up at sea.” Once onboard, we discovered it was a disorganized hippie school, the once magnificent square-rigged ship was in disastrous shape, the ship owners were unscrupulous, and the charismatic school director was a pill popping twenty-five year old with little experience with schools or ships. But we students worked steadily with the crew so the ship could finally set sail. However, once at sea, we survived a near sinking, a gale, a drug search, and were held hostage for two weeks by armed gun boats in Panama. The heart of the story is how I emerged from my emotionally battered teens and grew self-reliant and courageous with my ultimately wise little brother and my brave foul-mouthed best friend. I hope this book will inspire women of all ages to leave home on a great adventure, perhaps even sail on a square rigger!

Climbing the Rigging

We were to begin our sail training. Everyone had to climb up and over the second platforms on the fore and main masts, one hundred feet above the deck. We were divided into groups of students, teachers, and crew, assigned to one of the two forward masts. I was in the group assigned to the main mast. Our rigger, a young guy with blond hair that fell in his face, reviewed how to climb, where to grasp, how to look up. He said, “If you get scared, don’t look down.”

I drifted to the end of the line, so I could watch. One by one, students mounted the starboard rail, grabbed the shrouds, and climbed in a long angle until they reached the first platform. Then they kept going, this time straight up, climbing the ratlines parallel to the mast up to the second platform. They clambered onto the second platform, moved carefully around to the other side, and descended back to the first platform, and then down to the railing where they’d jump down onto the deck. It didn’t look impossible.

It was one thing to watch them climb but another thing to realize I was going to the second platform. My hands shook. I was light-headed. I can’t do this. But the line was moving forward, fewer and fewer students were still on deck, while the early climbers had returned to the deck already. I stood at the end of the line, inched toward the railing, only a few students ahead of me. My hands were numb and cold as I stepped forward; two students were left ahead of me. One climbed up and over the rail. The rigger gave him a hand, made sure his feet were secure before he commenced to climb.

It was like a dream I couldn’t escape. I wasn’t a sailor, I was the school librarian. But we all had to go aloft, and I was next. I stepped up and pulled myself around the rail and grasped the cables. The rigger said, “Enjoy the climb. I’m following you up.” The metal rung dug across the width of my sneakered feet. Glancing up to the web of lines, I panted, my hands shook, but I

grabbed on and climbed, trembling as I mounted the long triangle. I made it to the first platform. I sat on the metal platform bolted to the mast, and took a big breath. I’d made it this far, but I was too afraid to look around. The rigger said, “Good job. Time to keep going. I’ll be right behind you.”

I put my foot in the first rung, and then the next, climbing the straight ladder of ropes parallel with the massive main mast. These rungs were short and sagged a little with each step. I chanted aloud to myself, “I can do this. I can do this.” I climbed steadily until the second platform. A crewman above leaned over the edge and gave directions. “Reach your hands up one at a time, hold onto these shrouds and pull yourself up onto the platform.” That’s when I realized I had to lean my whole body out over wide-open empty space, holding on only with my hands. I froze and whimpered, “I can’t do this.”

The rigger on the rungs below me called up. “You okay? Climb up and over. You can do it.”
I cried. “I can’t.” No one could save me.
The crew member above looked down over the platform and asked pleasantly, “Want a hand up?”

I looked up at his weathered face, and my voice shook. “I can’t do this.”

He reached out his hand and said, “Put your hand right here” with such certainty that my hand rose and grasped on. His strong, warm voice compelled my other hand to reach for the next handhold. His voice willed me upward. The rigger below guided my feet to each new foothold until I pulled myself up onto the second platform. I clamped my arms around the mast, sickened by its slow sway. I couldn’t stop shaking.

I glanced up at the kind crewman. He talked to me gently, but I could hardly hear what he said. The older man promised me the two of them would stay with me until I was ready to descend. I glanced down. Students on the deck moved toward the foredeck for dinner. Late afternoon light over the harbor turned pink, then lavender out over the sea, a winter sunset. “We will get you down safely,” they promised. They sounded so calm, but fear choked me. The kind man reassured me. “One of us will climb down ahead of you and one of us after you. We will guide your hands and feet.”

Trembling, I peeled my hands off the mast to stand. I grasped on to the metal shrouds. My mind said, I can’t, I can’t, but I was supported by these two crewmen who contained my fear with their certainty. One said, “I am going down ahead of you.” The other said, “I will follow you.”

I extended my foot over the void. Nothing except one hundred feet of air under my foot. Then a hand guided my foot to a rung, and held my foot there. I sent my other foot down over the void, but my hands were screaming, I can’t hold on, I can’t do this, but the kind man’s voice said, “I am holding your hands, I will guide them to the next handhold.”

My body shook but he guided me. I went down rung by rung, holding on to the metal shrouds. I descended until I reached the first platform. My legs shook a little, but I breathed, and then I kept going, down from the first platform to the ladder of metal bars. I was closer and closer to the deck with every step.

Elizabeth Garber is also the author of Implosion: A Memoir of an Architect's Daughter, three collections of poetry, and has published essays and poems in numerous publications. She has maintained a private practice as an acupuncturist for over thirty-five years in mid-coast Maine, where she raised her family. Visit her at www.elizabethgarber.com.

This book is published by Toad Hall Editions in Northport, Maine. It can be ordered directly from the publisher or from local independent bookstores.

Toad Hall Editions is a new small press located in Midcoast Maine, co-founded by Amy Tingle, Liz Kalloch, and Maya Stein. (photo; by Chris Battaglia) Launched around a kitchen table in Northport in March 2021, Toad Hall Editions aims to make meaningful contributions to the field of literature by publishing works that live in the liminal spaces, that defy categorization, or that struggle for visibility. Toad Hall Editions publishes and supports the work of women and gender-diverse writers. “We launched Toad Hall Editions,” says Creative Director Amy Tingle, "because we want to publish potent and thought-provoking work, and because we are committed to creating and deepening community. For us, this means dedicating more space to voices and stories that for too long have lived in the margins.” For more information about Toad Hall Editions, visit www.toadhalleditions.ink.