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Another close shave

December 02 2008

What a great day indeed, 12 knots looking straight down the eye to Cochin. The sun shone, the breeze was pleasant and we were on the way home, finally sailing in the direction we wanted to go. It wasn’t 20 knots, but this felt as close to champagne sailing as we had experienced since the trades of leg one. We didn’t care any more that the fleet was finished and we still had 400 miles to sail, we were on the rum line and, with or without Coke, it tasted good.

We all had that end of term feeling again. The deck was humming of talk of holiday and seeing friends and family. I had been talking of a long soak in a bath and a hair cut for some days. I was hot and sticky and, running my hands through my dirty locks, eventually I succumbed to an offer of a cut from that well-known hairdresser and beautician, Nick the Darcy Bubb.

I fetched the scissors from the medical kit and handed them over, unaware that Nick had done time for knife crime in his former life as a slasher boat builder on the east coast. Any opportunity to cut things up Nick will jump at the chance, be it wood, carbon, GRP cloth or hair. I was like a lamb to the slaughter.

With a limp wrist and a hop, skip and a jump Nicky started clipping. “Use your fingers to hold the hair and then cut down to them, that way it should be all the same length,” I said.

“Are you going somewhere nice for your holidays?” he said.

Nicky was not listening to my amateur advice, he was in the zone. Away went his slicing fingers like conductor’s batons. Nick, the virtuoso, was conducting a symphony of slash. Each cut was a crescendo of violent violins stabbing at my head. He had the perfect pitch and his horn section finally built to a rousing climax of blurred hands and flashing steel.

Then, with a look of total satisfaction, he gasped to the heavens and put the blades down. I raised a tentative hand to the back of my head. It was short, very short, very, very short.

“How did that finger thing work out Nick,” I asked.

“Oh I used my natural intuition and instinctive feel instead,” he said looking very flushed.

I turned to the wide-eyed crew that had gathered on deck. I knew something was up because in unison they all said:

“Yeah it looks ummh great….. Nice one Nick.”

I dashed to the galley to use the only mirror on board, the polished stainless pan lid. I held the mirror up like Cinderella just before she left for the ball. Oh my God, I looked like a US Marine with mange. There were large areas of bare white skin contrasting with the uneven clumps of black hair. My head was like a mottled chessboard ready for an impromptu game. If I was trying to hide camouflaged in front of a Jersey cow, I would be almost invisible but, funnily enough, I’m not planning any cow tipping on a Volvo 70 this week.

We are now about two days from docking in India and I am the only one on board who hopes that turns into two weeks. My plan is to stick a red dot on my forehead, don turban and loincloth, and sneak off the boat in the dead of night. However, I do feel much fresher now as the wind literally blows through my ears, so thank you Nick.

Now when people ask me, “What was the closest shave you had on the Volvo Ocean Race?” I can first tell them, then show them.

Received 17:50