The slow on-set of insanity

Solo sailing's only performance artist describes week two of her central London OSTAR re-enactment

‘Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Or is it a multihull?’ - installed at an angle in the courtyard adjacent to Tate Britain, the trimaran ProVu ex- Toshiba, ex- Biscuits Cantreau 1, has entered into a heated debate: not on the identification of the boat [although note to public: it is not a “cata-meringue”] but on the nature of art.

The night is darkening and the excess liquid bucket at the back of the composting toilet is nearly full! I am spurred into action, adamant to avoid a large brown puddle gathering at the edge of the bulkhead! Sustaining 28 days of self-containment, whether in the middle of the Atlantic of the middle of a courtyard in Westminster, has some of the same elements of emergency maintenance! This time it is the organic loo into which I am pouring a large amount of my time, rather than spending it at the foot of the ‘Master’ TG 950 petrol generator as I did last year! When I recollect day ten of the OSTAR, and that ‘sinking feeling’ that came with the discovery of a crack in the daggerboard case - I can relate. There is nothing more distressing than a ribbon of composting juice weaving its way down the floor! In case of disaster, inner city London of course offers alternatives- there is the London Institute security guards’ outhouse, The White Swan pub round the corner and you can bet there’s a MacDonalds with toilets nearby. Alas for mid-Atlantic generator repairs, there was no spare parts depot in sight.



Having traded the sea of the Atlantic for a sea of people, I have been battered over the last week, not by a force 10 and 30ft waves but by a storm of questions! The 24hr dance of sail movements involved in reefing more or less, trimming to port or starboard, is as exhausting as a barrage of the same questions! I feel a Lia Ditton fact sheet coming on and a page of (facetious) “Frequently Asked Questions”-

What is the boat made of?
Papier maché- the boat is a work of faux realism, a ‘trompe l’oeil’ painting in three-dimensions…!
Or [depending on the questioner] Expandable foam with a titanium chop strand outer shell- that’s why it sounds hollow, yet is really strong!
‘It uses space-age technology!’ an American visitor answered his wife.

Are you the sailor?
No I’m just security;
The cleaning lady
The invigilator

Did you go by yourself?
I took my entire teddy collection and a life size cardboard cut out of my mother.

What was the race like?
Awesome- really cool! I did Yoga everyday and caught loads of fish. Yeah!
I nearly died, after developing ‘salt-insatia’- it’s a kind of foot-rot.

Did you have any hairy moments?
No, I was well prepared [with an accompanying look of ‘what do you take me for?!’]
It was a bad time when I’d finished reading the entire Latin words of Ovid cover to cover. I had nothing left to read. What is a girl supposed to do?!
See this scar here- I had to give myself 12 stitches after a giant sting-ray leapt over the back rail and lunged at my leg!

Weren’t you lonely?
Now I like this question - it’s an audience-silencer. I whip out my virtual paintbrush and start painting the scene, adding a flourish here and there of detail, fact or fiction - ‘It’s not like you think - the lonely moments are when everything is running smoothly - maybe you’ve just had a meal, caught up on some sleep and there you are sitting on deck in a mild night under a full spread of stars, careening along at top speed with this rooster tail plume of water gushing out behind the boat [cue hand waving impressions here]… and it’s at that very moment when you might otherwise turn round to a watch mate, crew member or lover and say, ‘Isn’t this something?’ Or maybe simply smile. [Cue Kleenex] It’s like that Vodafone advert where there’s a man in a suit and he’s walking down a cobbled back street in Venice on the phone- ‘I’m in the most beautiful place in the world and you’re not with me…’ [Cue card directing mom and pop to aforementioned website - donations page coming soon!]



Comparatively, there are no moments of absolute solitude in the exhibition Absolute Solitude: One Woman, One Boat! There’s a man who serves coffee at the Tate who still can’t get his head round this and a drunk bloke on his way home on Sunday morning, voiced a complaint to that effect: ‘A bird living on a boat! That ain’t F***ing art!’ I have attempted to explain to coffee-shop-man, that the work invites the imagination to envisage what it is like to cross the Atlantic alone. Repeated head-butting on a bulkhead might be preferable!

My favourite time is the hour of change - the witching hour where day buses hurtle back to base, leaving the ‘N’ buses to cruise infrequently. Although if you believe the college clock stuck at 7.29am, time is standing still. My life too is suspended, like the trimaran immortalised on port tack for one almighty reach - in a nautical version of the ‘Time Machine,’ or ‘Back to the Future II!’

Do you miss the sea?
Like a fish out of water! Sometimes I linger on deck in full foul weather gear. June can be cold at night! London-tree-head-green contrasts vividly with the metropolis sky-blue with its flock of furry pink clouds - that at a squint, you could delude yourself that you were somewhere tropical; the rush of cars: the lash of waves on a beach; the breeze similarly running through your hair.

How do you feel?
Two Degree Show examiners frown over the back rail clutching clipboards. I tell them that I now know what it is like to be a dinosaur in the National History Museum! Instead of climbing the forestay foil for the fourth time to make repairs, being spun around it like detritus caught in a centrifugal force, as was the trans-Atlantic scenario in week two - I confess that I am getting really quite a good tan! Admittedly, there is no sense of danger - however in danger I may be, of catching too many rays on those hard-to-sunscreen parts of upper back! I have a fog horn onboard to ward off potential pirates, but at worst I could simply get off! Moments of temptation come when there are far too many visitors in the vicinity with dripping ice-creams or refreshing cold drinks or when there is not a soul in sight - perhaps I could just go for a jog around the courtyard and get back on? Surely nobody will notice?!



Top visitors include Nigerian Bayo, who posed with a cheeky smile front of the boat. "I tell everyone back home, that this is my yacht" A South African security guy at the Tate, who studied theology and now uses the 257 internal cameras to go on virtual tours of the galleries and zoom in on paintings; a paper restorer also at the Tate who collects the wrappers of toilet paper and chaperones priceless artworks around the continent; a camp New Yorker who likes cooking and cleaning and is writing a book from the viewpoint of a Victorian woman who migrated to America and now returns to England; an oriental lady fundraiser who said she would come back to me with ideas on the perfect sponsor; ‘The Mobile Locker Show,’ [see Blog www.1Woman1Boat.com ]; friends who during ‘The Mid-Atlantic party,’ threw paper aeroplanes with fish fingers taped to the wings to replicate flying fish (see above)!; the artist Richard Wilson, whose piece, ‘Slice of Reality,’ [a 20-metre-high cross-section of 600-ton dredger set in the Thames riverbed near the Millennium Dome] I have admired for as long as I’ve studied modern art; great French multihull sailor Yves Parlier who rang from Gothenberg and a friend of Frank Geery who got me thinking about corrugated card board as bulkheads for my paper Open 60 (more on this later, folks).

I never had an attack of ‘Why am I doing this?’ during the Faraday Mill OSTAR 2005! The desire and then determination to enter the singlehanded race went back two or even three years and the pitfalls only strengthened my resolve. Re-enacting elements of that experience - the 28 day self-containment, living on a boat at an angle, is harder in a very different way! 28 days alone after this would be a piece of cake! Speaking of cake, I’m about to have packet chocolate pudding in chocolate sauce for lunch. Alas all the other meals contain beans!

For further pictures, video and Lia’s Daily Blog, go to www.1Woman1Boat.com