We wandered back up our finger pier the other night after dinner to find our neighbors shifting supplies out of a dock cart and into their cockpit.
“Hi Bob,” I said. “Where are you headed?”
“Well,” he began, “There is this French couple who are sailing around the world, and they fill up their cruising kitty by performing acrobatics in the rigging of their boat. We sponsored them for a show this weekend at Point Hudson, so we’re heading up there tomorrow morning.”
This was not a particularly unusual pronouncement to hear down on our dock on a summer evening, but my curiosity was piqued. Bob handed us a flyer. Sure enough, there was a picture of a woman, spinning around in a manner that I most associate with the high flyers of Cirque du Soleil, in the rigging of a sailboat. The flyer announced shows at five and seven, with a potluck on the docks to follow the late show.
As it happened, we were sailing up to Port Hadlock that same day to visit with family. Watching death-defying acrobatics performed over water seemed like good family fun to me, so I told Bob we would try to make it.
“Great!” he said, “Look for us, we’ll be the ones in berets.”
Sure enough, the first thing we saw after carpooling into Port Townsend Saturday evening and walking past the new Center for Wooden Boats complex was Bob and his wife, resplendent in striped shirts and red berets, walking up the dock. They pointed us toward the west end of the marina and we joined the stream of other people already heading in that direction and found places to sit along the rim of the boat basin.
Franck Rabilier, Delphine Lechifflart, and their two daughters, all aboard their bright yellow 40 foot sloop La Loupiote, have crossed the Atlantic, kicked around the Caribbean, hopped over to Hawaii, and cruised BC before ending up in Port Townsend on a lovely August evening. The basin around the linear dock at Point Hudson marina formed a natural amphitheater, with the sloop tied off diagonally between the travel lift pier and the end of the dock. A good-sized crowd fanned out along the rocks, grass, and piers as Franck came on deck and announced that they were going to wait another five minutes before starting, because some folks on the ferry just coming in didn’t want to miss the show.
Our neighbors told us that the late show is the more serious and impressive display of acrobatics, but I was just as happy to have caught the earlier slapstick routine. It struck me as being more authentic to our own cruising experiences, apart from, you know, spinning around upside down in the rigging. Although I don’t doubt that some day it will come to that.
Anyway, at first I didn’t even realize they were starting the show… two people in a blow-up dinghy paddling in opposite directions and going in circles is such an integral part of our own average routine that I just assumed they were trying to get back to the boat to get ready for the high-wire stuff. I finally figured out it was just a performance when they didn’t finish up by screaming at each other.
Things got progressively funnier and more acrobatic from there. They came aboard over the bows, had an altercation over the whisker pole, and got tangled up in the lines. Again, this tracks closely with our own sailing experience, except that when things get heated aboard Insegrevious we just throw things at one another; Franck and Delphine had a mad-cap chase up and down the mast and through the air over decks and water.
The pace built until they were frenetically popping up and down the mast and forestay like yo-yos, making ascents that take us five minutes of grinding in a matter of seconds.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QSfzuzAYejs[/youtube]
Eventually, they transitioned from the comedic to the poetic as Delphine free-climbed up a halyard, entwined herself in a sail, and Franck started twhirling her madly around from the deck below.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8mvVwewHOnU[/youtube]
I won’t say I haven’t been tempted to do the same with Mandy from time to time after hoisting her up the mast, but I am not sure she could hold on like that. Nor could I; I happened to get a look at Delphine’s forearms before the show, and they make mine look like strands of under-cooked spaghetti. In fact, through the entire show, what struck me the most was how free and easy she and Franck made the acrobatics look. There were no nets, no safety lines, nothing but their own strength and skill in an environment that was never designed for such manuevers. A profusion of stays, halyards, booms, and dangling sails strikes me as putting a lot of dangerous obstacles in the way of the aerialist. But you never knew it while watching Franck and Delphine’s performance. Their apparently effortless ascents of stays and halyards, all while acting out their slapstick routine, made it look fun and safe and easy.
If you missed the show in Port Townsend, fear not; La Loupiote will be booting around Puget Sound for the rest of the summer. They will be performing in Port Ludlow August 23rd, 24th, and 25th, and in Seattle at Elliot Bay Marina on August 27th. You can see their schedule, and more details, at their website, voilierspectacle.com. Prepare to be entertained, and to learn to look at your rigging in a whole new light.