circumnavigation

Sailing around the world is a dream many contemplate, some attempt and few com¬ plete. Ray and Shirley Triplett of Lafayette realized the odds were against them on their recently completed eight year circumnaviga¬ tion, and almost daily had to reconfirm their commitment to continue.

“It’s not all beer and skittles,” says Ray Triplett, 59, a gravel-voiced insurance ex¬ ecutive with matinee idol good looks. Whether at sea or on land, Ray Triplett is a skipper, a man who is used to leading and having others follow. His “crew” was his wife Shirley, also 59, a comely brunette with clear blue eyes and a glowing smile.

Theirs is a marriage which seems to have grown stronger with time. After 31 years of raising five children, they set off on a trip that would keep them together 24 hours a day for months and years at a time. Their voyage included all the pain, agony, joy, and love

Ray and Shirley Triplett.

Route of the Morning Star.

MAY 10, 1977 "HAUMOANA" RESCUE

two humans can endure. They were perhaps more firmly wedded after completing the trip than at any other time in their lives. By their own admission, they realize they were for¬ tunate.

“The wake of some husband-and-wife sailing teams is cluttered with divorce papers,” Ray said upon his return to San Francisco. “This kind of trip brings out the worst and the best in a relationship.”

Much of their trip revolved around their own relationship and the people they met on their odyssey. They rescued the crew of a dismasted racing yacht off New Zealand. They made friendships with other cruisers, some of whom they crossed paths with later and some who were lost at sea. They escaped death themselves on several occa¬ sions, the most dramatic being in the Mediterranean when Ray fell overboard and was afloat for 45 minutes before Shirley

EPART GOLDEN JUNE 1973

JUNE 14, 1980 • • V. COMPLETETION OF CIRCUMNAVIGATION • •

1974 3100 MILES NO MOTOR TAHITI, TUAMOTUS MARQUESAS & HAWAII could get the boat back to pick him up. They spent time learning about the different peo¬ ple and cultures they encountered, including a trip up the Gambia River to visit Juffure, the village of Roots's Kunta Kinte.

The Triplett’s craft was Morning Star, a 46-foot Garden ketch built in 1968 by Hong Kong’s Robin Fung. The wooden boat was custom built for someone else who bailed out after it was finished. Ray took one look at it and saw a reincarnation of the Snark, the 54-footer that Jack London sailed in the South Pacific. Ray had read London’s books as a kid and the dream of sailing the high seas burned in his imagination for many years.

The Tripletts were not novice sailors, nor without experience at sea. Ray was a merchant marine radio operator during

1979 l ATLANTIC CROSSING 17 DAYS World War II and was torpedoed in the North Atlantic. He raced and sailed on San Francisco Bay for years. In 1968, Ray and Shirley and four of their children sailed to Hawaii on the 35-footer.

It wasn’t until 1973, though, that the cou¬ ple decided if they were ever going to circle the globe, then was the time. The kids were grown and Ray’s insurance business could function well enough without his daily presence. In June they headed west out the Golden Gate.

In addition to following Jack London’s sailing footsteps, Ray also became a creditable writer on the trip. In 1976, he compiled a narrative of the previous year’s journey to send to relatives and friends back home. For the rest of the voyage, these lengthy excerpts from the ship’s log con¬ tinued to be produced annually, each longer and more detailed than the last. The journals found their way into a major publishing house in New York, which approached Ray and begged him for a book. He resisted for a while, but now that he’s back home he’s ready to undertake that challenge. Aside from the log of the Morning Star, Ray and Shirley took hundreds of photographs from which they’ll choose illustrations. The book is due for publication in the spring of 1983.

One of the Triplett’s adventures sure to be included is their rescue of the racing yacht Haumoana, a 39-footer entered in the an¬ nual race from New Zealand to the Fiji Is¬ lands. Dismasted in a gale the second night out, the Haumoana suffered extensive damage on deck. The six man crew manag¬ ed to get one distress call off before their bat¬ teries went dead from salt water immersion.

Eight days later, Ray spotted the boat on the horizon and went to their aid after seeing their flare. Haumoana had ten minutes worth of fuel left and would have swamped in the next bout with the stormy Tasman Sea. The crew was overjoyed at being sav¬ ed. They told of an encounter with a freighter which came alongside, but then, in¬ explicably, continued on without rendering assistance. Ray and Shirley hovered near the stricken vessel like a mother cat until help ar¬ rived. Ray considers this incident one of the high points of the trip for him.

For Shirley, it was a more traumatic rescue that sticks out in her mind. Approaching the

east coast of Spain in the Mediterranean, Ray tried to engage the self-steering rudder by hanging over the stern. The boat lurched and Ray slipped, falling into the 60°F. water. Panic crept into both their minds as Shirley slowly turned the boat around and headed back to where she had seen her husband’s head bobbing in the water.

The incident was a classic case of doing everything wrong. Ray had not beep wear¬ ing his safety harness and Shirley had not thrown him the life ring. When she made the return pass to pick Ray up, she was broadreaching with full sails up. Luckily, Ray managed to catch hold of the mainsheet Shirley trailed over the stern. When she got the boat head to wind, he pulled himself slowly into the cockpit, nauseas from

Small world: Ray was Peter Sutter's command¬ ing officer during WWII.

swallowing sea water and shivering from the cold and fear. The entire incident took 45 minutes, and they both realized how narrow¬ ly they avoided disaster. Before continuing on, they took a few moments to thank God for their deliverance.

One piece of advice that Ray gleaned from the experience was the importance of not panicking. “We found that by consciously repeating to ourselves ‘keep calm,’ ‘don’t panic,’ and ‘think it through,’ we managed to keep our wits about us. This technique work¬ ed for us and could save lives for others.”

External hazards, both natural and human, were an integral part of the voyage. They ran aground twice in the South Pacific, survived an earthquake south of Bali, outran pirates near Singapore, and were hit by a whale 200 miles west of Africa. They were luckier than some of their friends, one of whom was killed by pirates, and the crew of the American yacht Crusader, which went down with all hands during a typhoon in the Bay of Bengal. They had several close en¬ counters with tankers, some of which Ray felt would have suffered little remorse had they hit the small sailing boat flying the stars and stripes.

Before leaving Sri Lanka off the coast of

India, the Tripletts had to decide whether to head south around the Cape of Good Hope or east towards the Mediterranean. Despite the political unrest on Saudi Arabian penin¬ sula, which at the time (1978) included war between Somalia and Ethiopia, they decided to take the “short cut.” up through the Red Sea. They had heard about the tough sail leading up to the Suez Canal, but figured they would muddle through somehow,

IN^uddle is exactly what they did. After tip-toeing through Russian-held South Ye¬ men, they headed north. On either side lay treacherous reefs with a busy shipping chan¬ nel running down the middle. Strong head¬ winds, laced with sand from the surrounding desert, pelted them most of the way. Be¬ tween Port Sudan and Jiddah, Saudi Arabia, they tacked back and forthThrough 300 miles of water to move 60 miles north. In one 24-hour period they made 11 miles north. Along with the intense heat, they suf¬ fered from bronchial infections they picked up in the dusty desert ports.

The pleasures of the Mediterranean made up for the hardships endured. They were ful¬ ly accommodated in Israel, touring the coun¬ ty and visiting religious holy grounds. In Turkey, they explored breathtakingly beautiful fjords (“It’s like sailing in the high Sierras!”), the bottoms of which contained tons of calcified vases and pottery remnants. The Tripletts hope to return to these waters eventually and spend more time diving and exploring the history-rich region. They spent a total of 18 months in the Mediterranean, but looking back on it realize that was much too short a time.

The Morning Star went on another living history trip on the west coast of Africa. Ac¬ companied by a Mandinka Muslim and a young Gambian named Francis, they travel¬ ed up the Gambia River to Juffure, the an¬ cestral home of Alex Haley’s Kunta Kinte. They found the Gambians to be “gentle, beautiful people, but the poverty is appal¬ ling. The average life expectancy is 32 years of age.”

The Triplett’s interaction with the Gam¬ bians was one of many memorable experi¬ ences they had with the world’s different customs. Their Polaroid camera proved to be the greatest ice-breaker. Adults and children alike would squeal with delight as their image appeared instantly in print. While either Ray or Shirley played Pied Piper with the Polaroid, the other snapped away with their Leica, putting the experiences on a more permanent record.

They also learned a lot about why peo¬ ple go cruising in the first place. The quiet moments at a picturesque anchorage, exhi¬ larating sails across the open ocean, the joy of making a landfall: these were the times they considered themselves living in the “real” world. On their infrequent return trips to the U.S. to attend to family matters, they were mystified by the hustle and bustle around them and the tyranny of the clock.

“Time,” Ray says philosophically, “not money, is the currency of life. It’s how you use time that really counts, and we decided v to use ours to fulfill our dream of sailing around the world.”

— latitude 38 — sue

An outstanding example of Bali woodcrafting