Southern Cross (Technical Version)
Apologies to Crosby, Stills & Nash, Masters of the Sea (Song)
Got out of town on a boat going to Southern Islands,
Sailing a beam reach before a following sea,
She was making for the trades on the outside
Of the downhill run to the Port Autonome de Papeete.
On a 166° bearing lie the Marquesas,
We got eighty feet of the waterline,
Nicely evading quays —
Mara’amu wind, 25 kts, foam like the seagull on a Pontiac,
At midwatch, I Jiffy reefed full canvas
For Nash to catch some z’s —
(I think about how)
Our boat clears flyin’ lines, some 20 minutes later
In a six-foot chop, under a lunar halo,
Bilge pump set to AUTOMATIC*
*Cannot be forgotten (I’ve been around the world)—
I have been around the world (cruisin’ to the)
Tahiti-Moorea Sailing Rendezvous (in the Tropic of Capricorn),
The 3,000-mile Coconut Milk Run (in the Age of Aquarius),
5 million km² of ocean to explore —
And you know we will.
When you see the Southern Cross for the first time,
On a 17.3 m all aluminum yawl, 28.1 m² mainsail,
Diesel Volvo/Perkins Hemi if the wind is dyin’
Like the mustard sun, and Mustache is her name—
Deep keel vector sum of lift forces (Davy Jones’s locker),
Shearing molecules of water (Davy Jones’s bowl haircut),
Forces using me, larger vortices hulling,
45° to 20 kts on an orange velour sea —
I have been around the world (keepin’ on keepin’ on),
Direction equilibrium Bernoulli effect R = 7 × 104 Lv,
Ketch, frictional resistance R = (Lv)/(μ/ρ), mizzen, merkin,
Male bikinis, sailrockets speed at 65.45 kts??
And you know we will.
