Press Release

 

Two new books about life at sea

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

				TWO SAILORS                                 Fiction "A brilliant fast moving adventure story of life at sea in the fifties with memorable characters and emotions very well depicted. A mature read with adult themes."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

These books are available from:

Trafford Publishing (UK) Ltd

Bookstore/Web     www.trafford.com                              Main line              01270 251 396 

Email                    bookstore@trafford.com                    Local Call Rate       0845 230 9601 

                                                                 Fax                       01270 254 983 

 

 

 

FROM HOLLYWOOD TO THE HIGH SEAS

A chance encounter in Los Angeles airport with a Swedish Sea Captain and Jill left the movie business and was swept out to sea. From the glamour of Hollywood to life on board a rough cargo ship to playing Mother Goose on a remote Scottish farm, TRAVELS WITH MY SEA CAPTAIN is full of stories about the Captain and his international crew of characters, the many ports as Jill found herself travelling all over the world, life in the glen and how love can really change everything.

TRAVELS WITH MY SEA CAPTAIN by Jill Vedebrand

A warm, humorous account of one woman's tempestuous affair and marriage to a fiery Swedish sea captain. After meeting by chance in Los Angeles airport, Jill and Tomas fell in love and she decided to join him on some of his voyages to exotic locations including Japan, Singapore, Cuba, South America, India and Russia.

 

There is no shortage of drama as she paints a vivid picture of months spent aboard a ship where she was often the only female. At times resented by the crew, she also often adopted the role of agony aunt and compassionately recounts the hardship endured by men who can spend several years away from their families. There are stories of drunken cooks, surly engineers, brutal fights, macho wrestling competitions, and frantic shore searches for men who had gone missing in the local brothels. The physical aspect of being on board ship also poses problems as she struggles to adapt to the confined spaces, isolation of the open ocean and the violent weather they encounter.

 

The often stunning and sometimes frightening places she visited during her time at sea are colourfully portrayed and she has a knack for bringing to life the sights, smells and atmosphere. Intertwined with the tales of her sea voyages are stories of Jill and Tomas' home life in rural Scotland. They buy a farm and there are accounts of their battles to restore the property and about their menagerie of ducks and pets. In these parts the story reminded me a little of James Herriot or Lillian Beckwith's stories about life in the Hebrides and I think it would have great appeal to these markets.

 

Part travelogue, part humorous account of life in the wilds of Scotland, this is an engaging, romantic, very human story.

 

SENIOR EDITOR

Jill Vedebrand was born in London but spent many years working in the film business as a Production Manager and Line Producer in Hollywood, USA, beginning with Roger Corman and continuing with other independent companies in a variety of feature films starring Ron Howard, Oliver Reed, David Carradine, Brad Davis, George Kennedy and many others. In the middle of her career, she met a Swedish sea captain and made the choice to join him at sea, where she was to spend the next ten years on a variety of cargo ships and oil tankers. Jill discovered that life at sea had quite a lot in common with the film business.

When Jill and Tomas were not at sea they lived on a small farm in a remote Scottish glen where they kept geese, ducks and chickens, dug a pond, planted trees, cut endless grass and patched up the old stone farmhouse.

Tomas is now a Deep Sea Pilot working in the English Channel and the North Sea. In addition to TRAVELS WITH MY SEA CAPTAIN, Jill has written a novel, TWO SAILORS, a dramatic sea story set in the 1950s.

 

At 09.30 Muscles arrived and drove me down to the dockside where I craned my neck to see the name of my Tomas’ ship.  Nowhere to be seen.  The rain was coming down monsoon fashion.  I tried to stay centre of the umbrella and peered out like a stone statue from a fountain.  Through the waterspouts, two Singaporean men introduced themselves in an off hand kind of way, then resumed their long conversation in Chinese.  We did not appear to be going anywhere at that moment.  I waited as patiently as I could, watching the fishing boats and launches bob against the rickety wooden jetties.  I knew Tomas' ship was 37,000 tons.  This place was too small.

A noisy launch arrived.  A driver, no one else on board.  Tough and greasy looking, the boat was surrounded by tyres, like a tugboat.  My suitcases were loaded on board and I looked in at the dirty seats.

“Where are we going?”  I shouted above the din of the motor.

“To join your husban’ ship”

“Oh?”

In my technicolour dreams I had imagined the moment when I would join the ship.  The sun would be shining and as I ascended the gangway, Tomas would smile from the top of the steps.  I would be looking my best of course and to surprise him, slim, and in my dreams, several years younger.

My hair had been destroyed in the massage parlour, I had a large nervous pimple but I was wearing my favourite dress.  I scooped it around me to avoid the tar and oil as I climbed aboard.  We roared off.  The noise was incredible.  Blue fumes filled the small wheelhouse.  The two Singaporeans conducted a conversation at scream pitch and the driver joined in with

 

the odd word, turning from the wheel and showing red stained teeth when he laughed.

After about twenty minutes when we had passed many tankers docked at various jetties and looked as if we were starting out to sea, I stood on wavering feet and tried to make myself heard. 

“ARE WE NEARLY THERE?”

“FORTY MINUTE OUT.  FORTY MINUTE.” 

Forty minutes?  Was the ship in Malaysia?

I checked the black flecks on my face and tried to comb my hair as the launch hit deeper water and we rolled and bounced from side to side.  Another twenty minutes of this?

Now I scanned the horizon.  Far away, ships on the sea but apparently not moving.  What I later learnt was,  'On the roads'.  Trouble was, no road.  Or dockside for that matter.  What was it the agent had said?  ‘The ship is at sea.’

The city and shoreline had become a blur behind the rain.

Six miles out, my heart skipped a beat as I saw the name of the ship, but how on earth was I meant to get on board?

We got closer.  The ship loomed above us like the side of a ten-storey building.

The sea slapped and swirled against the great ship's sides.  Everything was in motion.  The ship went side to side, the sea went up and down, the launch was backing up and tossing to and fro, and my knees were moving like concertinas.

Then I saw the staircase.  Metal steps descending from the ship down to the water but not actually ending up in the water but about two metres above the surface.  There was a single banister through which an elephant could have been hoisted up the ship's side, and lots of air between each step.  The whole thing ended in a kind of platform which had no banister at all and kept submerging into the swirling waves as the ship rolled.

I could not believe that I was meant to jump onto this platform like a trained athlete.

“Yump!  Yump!” shouted the Chinese boatman at the wheel, chewing furiously on his damp cigarette and waving impatiently.   

He gunned the engine and we roared backwards as he tried to keep alongside without actually smashing up his boat.  I saw the reason for all the tyres.

What was I meant to hang onto?  I looked up at the wall of dripping steel.

The two Singaporeans timed their jump and hauled my suitcases up the steps.  I felt guiltier than ever at their weight.  Stupid me to bring so much.  Now I would really pay for it.  They will probably tumble down and knock me into the sea.  (“So sorry Captain, wife fall into sea with suitcases.  Very sorry Captain.”)

The ship lurched and the anchor creaked.  The platform was level with my head, then my feet, then my head again.

The boatman looked purposeful as if he meant to give me a push.

I jumped.  As I landed, the platform dipped and my knees gave way.  I found myself in a crouch, like a large frog.  Why did I wear a dress?  I heard the launch roar away as I climbed the steps with trembling legs.

And where was Tomas?  Certainly not at the top of the steps.

Far above me I could see someone ready to take my hand.  A large man with a big smile.  This was Rolando, the third mate as I was to discover.  (Later on, ever famous to me for his answer to my question, “What will you do if pirates get on board?” which was “Hide in engine room ma’am.”  He was serious.)

He greeted me as if I was not soaked to the skin, or terrified, but rather as if I was a first class passenger on the QE2 and directed me across the puddles between the oil piping that covered the deck, as if I was picking my way through deck chairs.  I was so glad of his strong hands and warm welcome.  To me it was nothing short of a miracle that I was on board.

Inside the ship now, humming from the generators, the smell of oil, male perspiration, fish frying somewhere.

Rolando turned another corner and we nearly bumped into a man in his underpants, who was mortified and adopted a kind of crouching karate position, hands stiff, elbows tucked in.  He hurried by avoiding our eyes while Rolando muttered his apology.

As we climbed to the top I heard Tomas' voice before I saw him and my smile returned.

Tomas clamped me to his chest.  He was as wet as I was.

“I have been standing out on the bridge wing for the last hour!” he roared in my ear.

“When did you come on board?  It's the bloody cook.  He was drunk last night and stole the ship's mascot so I had to tell him a thing or two.”

“Mascot?”

Tomas pointed to a Japanese china doll in a glass case.  “This is always across from me at my place at the table.”  Tomas rocked with laughter.  “I was bound to miss it.”

“How did you find it?”

“I just told them all no shore leave until I get it back.  The cook was found singing to it in his cabin.  Swore to me that he hadn't stolen it.  Just borrowed it for decoration.

In the ship's office I saw a small Philippino man sitting in a hunched position.

“The cook?”  I whispered.

As I walked in I saw that tears were flowing down his cheeks.

“OK, OK, go and sleep it off.  We will talk more on this later.”  Tomas gave him a friendly pat.

The cook left.

“So no dinner tonight?”

“We can have that ashore.”

“Ashore?”

“We are going into dry dock for repairs.  Should be leaving in about thirty minutes.  That was the agent who came aboard with you.”

“You mean to tell me I risk my life climbing on board in the middle of the ocean and you are now going to dock when I could have joined the ship by taxi?”

“We're going to the other side of the island, opposite Malaysia.  Selat Johor.  And not so easy to come aboard in dry dock.  You will see.  Come up on the bridge and watch us take off.”

 

The bridge is the floor above our cabin and office.  A place full of mysterious instruments, a bench with charts and a radar that looks like a giant video game.  At each end of the long room, the sliding doors open out to the bridge wings, where you step out into the open air and can see the length of the ship far below and all the sea and sky surrounding you. 

It must be everyone's favourite place, and it quickly became mine.

 

The sky around was piled high with clouds and dazzling patches of blue.  The rain had stopped and I could see the twinkling skyscrapers of Singapore on the horizon.  High above the sea, a gentle breeze was blowing.  It was only then that I remembered my hair was plastered to my head.

The ship, a motor tanker that had seen better days, was in need of a face-lift and other surgery.  First time on a tanker, I realised that the one hundred and eighty five metres of ship stretching before my eyes was simply a long tin can.

On the bridge wing, I was standing on the only recognisable bit of ship that was a ship to me, a kind of apartment building mounted on the back end.  This was where everyone slept and worked, the rest of the ship was for the cargo.  The deck was covered with fat pipes, pumps and valves, no place for a sunset stroll.  You would end up with a fat toe or slide unceremoniously overboard on the greasy deck as the ship changed course.  I strolled around the back of the bridge windows where I could see Tomas and the Chief Officer preparing to leave and was confronted by the huge ship’s funnel, growing out of the deck in front of me, throbbing and belching smoke.  To one side of the funnel, a fiercesome yawning chasm led down into the engine room far below.  It was like looking down into the very pit of hell. 

Heat as if from a hundred ovens and the roar of pounding machinery made my stomach lurch and wonder that men were actually down there, working, when suddenly, we were moving.

I ran to the bridge wing and leant on the metal wall that came up to my chin, looking forward, then to the side, as we gained speed and the water swept by in long lovely swirls.  Then up at the sky at the puffy clouds moving overhead.  

It was like standing in the road with the whole street taking off under your feet.  I looked across through the open door to the bridge.  How could Tomas do this?  Hurtling through the water with this great lump of steel that takes twenty minutes to slow down or whatever.  So easy to, well, bump into something.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jill Vedebrand is currently working on the sequel to TWO SAILORS:

TWO SAILORS 2: THE NAGASAKI PEARLS (available 2005)

 

The ELISE came sailing out from the fog like a moth from a cloud, silent and ghostly.  A thin shaft of soft yellow sunlight moved ahead of the bow, then broadened, engulfing the sails.  It was as if the ship was lit by candlelight and it took their breath away.  They had sat on the shore and then decided to row out a small way, thinking they might miss her in the fog and listening hard for the sound of her engine.

"Why is she under sail?" said Leif to the boatman "Isn't she going to anchor?"

Georgio said nothing.  He felt he was never going to see anything as beautiful or as romantic again as the vision before him and he didn't want to speak but to capture it in his memory for ever.  All those days and nights when he had dreamed of sailing ships he had thought in his heart that was where they would remain, in his dreams.  The wooden hull was the colour of honey and the weathered canvas sails translucent against the sun.  The fog was lifting all around.  Men could be seen on the deck now as they lowered the sails.  The ELISE drifted slowly towards them.

 

"Lost power in the Flintrännan Channel," Sven Fager called down to them as the anchors were let out.  "Lucky the wind was in the right direction or we would be on the shore."

"Fog as well," called Leif.  He grabbed the rope ladder and climbed on board.  Sven gave him a tremendous hug in his bear like arms.  "Georgio Silva," said Leif as Georgio came on board.  The boatman passed up their bags and suitcase then tied up on the painter to wait.

"Seamen's books, passports all in order?" said Sven.  He was sober, very sober, Leif was thinking.  It must have taken courage as well as skill to come through the channel under sail in fog and not simply to have anchored up where he was when the engine cut out.

There were two surly looking men on the deck in caps and oil skinned coats.  Leif thought they were the crew meant to go ashore until Sven introduced them.

"Anton Talvik and Jak Kangro, owners of the vessel," said Sven and they shook hands.  Anton was slim with a narrow face and small eyes.  Jak was the opposite and he was the only one of the two who smiled, showing the stained teeth where the pipe held in his hand was clenched all day.  They were in their late thirties.  Jak was probably older, possibly forty, Leif was thinking.  They didn't look like owners, more like labourers.  He saw Georgio's expression as he shook their hands.  It was guarded.  He didn't like them or trust them on instinct.

"Thought you'd get tired of waiting if I didn't press on" said Sven, taking them through to the cabins in the stern.  "I had to put the other two crew ashore in Poland.  A pair of communists, I am thinking.  Didn't want to be put ashore here in Sweden or in Norway so I took the chance you'd be here.  Not much sleep in four days.  Had to be on deck all the time.  This Anton and Jak, they know how to sail, but they are lazy."

"Like me to go below and check the engine?" said Georgio as he threw his suitcase onto his bunk.  He and Leif were sharing the cabin.  The walls were panelled in varnished pine.  It gave a warm feeling to the room.  "O.K. Captain?" he said to Sven and went out.

"Beds need to be sorted," said Sven.  "Haven't been able to see to that."  The bedclothes were rumpled and dirty.  The other crew, Leif thought.  "Do we have a cook or steward?" he asked.

"Huh," said Sven.  "If you can say so.  Another of their choices.  You can help shape him up.  I haven't the time.  Albanian.  Ben something or other.  I can't pronounce his name or understand him but maybe it's the language.  No Swedish, no Finnish, no English and no brain – well he has a little English.  He talks to our owners of course, in Russian.  Well…you and your friend's papers seem to be in order so I'll tell the boatman he can go.  He looks alright, this Georgio.  Both of you look fit and strong by God.  I bet that was mud in their eye on deck.  You're like I was once before I hit the brännvin.  Oh, yes, the brännvin…we have cases and cases on board.  We sell for twelve thousand dollars in Norway."

"You got that much brännvin for shirts!?"

"Nylon shirts Leif, nylon.  Very popular in Poland.  Very popular.  They can't get them there.  Communists, pah!" he spat.  "Poor bastards in that country.  First the Germans and then the Russians.  We had bales and bales of shirts straight from the factory in Stockholm.  They make the brännvin by the gallon in Poland, it's cheaper than water there.  The Norwegians will think they have a good deal and it will be, to them.  Customs on all sides are in on it of course."

"Who thought up all of this?  I thought you were carrying mining equipment for Liberia."

"We are.  It was loaded on first.  It's at the bottom of the hold."

Leif couldn't help smiling.  "You knew all about this didn't you?"

 

In 1995, Jill Vedebrand won the prestigious FIRST PRIZE for SAFETY AT SEA at the SEATRADE AWARDS held annually at the Guildhall, London, for her company, Mariner Ltd. The prize was presented by Viscount Goschen, Minister for Shipping, for the Mariner TRAINING GAME.   In 1996, a Yachtmaster version of the game was exhibited at the International Boat Show where a game was presented to HRH The Princess Royal. The Mariner TRAINING GAME is on board hundreds of ships worldwide.

 

THE  Mariner  TRAINING GAME               ON BOARD SHIPS WORLDWIDE

                                                                                                                                                              

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"Seamanship requires knowledge and skill.  MARINER makes learning interesting and is a challenge to the novice and the expert"       CAPTAIN L. A. HOLDER, M.PHIL., FRIN, FNI. PRESIDENT - THE NAUTICAL INSTITUTE

 

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