A Mile Down (12 page)

Matt caught the line with the boat hook and freed it from the headstay. Seconds later, though I still tried to keep us close to the stern for the towing attempt, our bow was blown hard and fast to starboard and we spun away from the freighter.

I tried to stay calm on the radio as I brought our boat back around for another attempt. “That heaving line was wrapped around my headstay, and none of your crew noticed. They should have cut that line as soon as they saw it wrapped.”

“I am up here in the bridge. You will have to notify me of such things.”

“I'm trying to steer the boat with only the throttles. My hands aren't free. You tell your first mate to pay some attention and try to avoid getting us killed.”

“I have been in contact with the owners, and they have suggested that we tow you from your main mast. If you have a line you could put around your main mast, and if we then towed you back the other way to Gibraltar, downwind, it might go easier.”

“I can't do that,” I said. “My masts are wood, and they're only deck-stepped, so that's not a possible tow point. And I can't have you tow me downwind without a rudder. I'll be powerless to keep from going sideways down a wave, and then I'll get yanked by your short tow rope and the boat will broach. Why don't you just give us the bridle and long tow line, which I know you have?”

He didn't answer, and it was time to try moving up to the stern.

My crew caught a line and hauled it in, again with time only to throw it over a cleat and then retreat to midships. Again the terrible yank, the line too short, and the towline severed. It was so stupid.

“Surprise, surprise,” I said over the radio. “The short tow line without a bridle was severed again.”

“I am not required to tow you, and we are trying our best.”

“You are in fact required to help me, and if you endanger my vessel or crew unnecessarily through not providing the kind of assistance that you could have provided, you are responsible for that also.”

“We will try one more time, and then I suggest you take the offer of the helicopter from the Moroccans.”

Matt was back in the pilothouse, along with the other crew, and he wanted to talk with me, so I signed off the radio. He looked angry and frustrated, which was a bit frightening with his height and his military haircut, but with him the anger was just a way of getting through the work, nothing personal.

Nick and Emi just looked exhausted and scared. Everyone was soaked.

“What about using chain?” Matt asked. “We could wrap chain around the cleat and put it out past the bowsprit and tie the towline to that. That would keep the line from chafing on the anchors or bowsprit.”

It was a good idea. “Will you be able to get the line attached?”

“I think so.”

“Okay, let's do it,” I said. “But be careful out there. Don't get in the way of anything. Let the boat get hurt, not you.”

I radioed the German captain and again asked for the proper equipment, which he again refused. So I told him we were going to try using chain.

As I brought the boat around and worked my way up toward the freighter, Matt wrapped the chain from the starboard anchor around a deck cleat and had a length of about twenty feet going forward through the gap for the anchors.

I was spun several times by the wind, and the freighter crew was not good at throwing lines, but my crew did catch one finally, and Matt somehow attached it to the end of the chain. To this day, I have no idea how he did it, and he did it quickly, while the bow pitched and buried itself in those waves.

My crew retreated to midships, and when the tow line came tight with a hard yank that pulled us through a wave, it held. Still a terrible way to be towed, but I hoped it might work. Maybe we'd make it to Casablanca and have a new rudder made, and maybe the delay wouldn't be more than a week. Seemed optimistic, but you never know. Steel is easy and fast to work with, unlike fiberglass or wood.

We were yanked through another wave, several feet of solid water coming over the bow, and in that instant as the water stood above the bow, I was staring at the chain wrapped on the large steel cleat. I was staring at it, and I didn't blink, and the window was clear from just having been drenched, and yet all I saw was that it had vanished. Too quickly for me even to see it go. The steel deck cleat was torn off at its base, the heavy chain was gone, the huge 300-pound anchor was gone, and all that was left was 450 feet of additional chain from the locker flying away at a terrific pace. It caught and severed and we were spinning free, no longer attached. Some of the steel of the bulwarks at the opening for the starboard anchor had been bent outward. Gouges in the teak deck, also, where the deck cleat must have skipped twice. All that damage, all that force. It was too much.

“We're not going to try that again,” I said to Nancy and Barbara.

“Wow,” Barbara said.

The crew was back in the pilothouse as I called the captain over the radio.

“That took off my deck cleat, anchor, and anchor chain,” I told him. “But you couldn't give me any of the equipment I needed when I needed it.”

“I recommend accepting the helicopter,” he said. “Unless you can continue on your own.”

“Stand by, please,” I said.

I was still using the throttles, trying to keep our nose into the seas, but my focus now was on the crew and Barbara and Nancy, who were waiting for something from me. Then I decided to just try it again, what the hell. I steered the course for Casablanca with the engines, working hard on the throttles. I went straight for a minute or two, then spun again.

“Okay, never mind,” I said. “We've been trying this for ten hours. I haven't left the throttles for ten hours.” It was amazing. Each hour I had thought it couldn't get worse, and each hour it had. “We can only get the helicopter during daylight, which is only about two more hours, but really a bit less in this weather. Let me check our position again for a second.”

I went to the chart and plotted our position while Matt used the engines to try to keep us into the waves. The waves were just big enough and steep enough to roll and capsize us if one hit exactly right while we were sideways in the trough.

“We're only about fifteen miles from land,” I said. “Sixty miles from Casablanca, but only fifteen from land, which means we could drift enough during the night to go aground in high surf. I can't keep the boat going straight under power, which means I can't control the boat or guarantee we won't drift into land. We're not on fire, and we're not sinking. The boat is still seaworthy.”

“Ha,” Barbara said.

“We are still seaworthy,” I said. “Because we're not on fire or taking on water. But I can't think of any other options right now. I can't figure out how to make this work. We can't get a tow, we can't make our own way, and it's not safe to just wait for better weather or a better chance at a tow, because night is coming and we're too close to land and these seas are big enough to capsize us and may get bigger.”

I was starting to repeat myself, I knew. It was because I was getting choked up. The feeling came out of nowhere. It was the thought of having to tell my crew that we would be abandoning ship, something I had never imagined I would say. I wonder if any captain really believes he or she will ever have to give that order. It was almost impossible to speak. “I think we have to abandon ship,” I said. “I don't think the helicopter is that great an idea, either, and I always thought it would be safest to stay with the boat, even if it was swamped, but I can't guarantee your safety onboard anymore, so it's time to get off.”

No one looked happy, but no one disagreed, either.

I called the German captain. “Please call the Moroccan Coast Guard and ask them for the helicopter as soon as possible.”

He asked for confirmation and I gave it.

“David?” Barbara asked. “How do we get onto the helicopter?”

“They drop a diver and then we get into the water one at a time and they lift us up on a harness or in a basket, with the diver helping us while we're in the water.”

“I don't swim.”

“I know. You'll be wearing a lifejacket, and the diver will help you.”

“I won't be able to see, either, without my glasses.”

I didn't know what to say to her. It was terrible.

“You have to promise me you'll go with me, David. If you'll go into the water with me, I'll do it.”

I thought about that. It meant I'd be in the water the whole time she was being lifted up. I couldn't help but think of sharks. I've always been unreasonably afraid of them. “Okay,” I said. “I can't think of why not. We'll have to be the last two, and I'll help you swim to the diver.”

“You promise?”

“I promise.”

We had to wait about twenty minutes for the helicopter. Everyone trying to think of what he or she needed to take, heading below to collect things.

“You can't take your stuff,” I said. “It will weigh you down in the water. So no one takes anything except maybe a wallet.”

Matt relieved me at the throttles while I sent another distress message on the Inmarsat saying we were abandoning ship. Then I set off the Inmarsat's alarm and the Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon (EPIRB) so we could track the boat. And I called the German captain, who verified the helicopter was on its way. I was worried about the helicopter. So many helicopters went down in storms, and our boat was still seaworthy. We were still safely aboard it. The weather was even starting to die down, the wind just over forty knots, but that didn't mean it wouldn't come right back up. The weather reports weren't telling us much. I was also worried about salvage rights. If I stayed on board, no one could claim salvage rights, but if I left, anyone could claim the boat, I believed. I wasn't completely sure.

“I keep thinking I should stay with the boat,” I told everyone in the pilothouse. “So no one can claim salvage rights.”

“David,” Barbara said. “You promised. You're coming with me.”

“Sorry,” I said. “I'm not thinking straight. It's just that if I lose this boat, I've lost everything. Even if I get a full payout on the insurance, I owe more than that in the business and I have no way back.” It was stupid to be talking aloud about all of this, I knew, but I couldn't help it. I've never been great at keeping my own counsel.

“The boat's not worth it,” Barbara said. “You're making the right decision. And you'll find a way back. I know you will.”

I didn't believe her, of course. I felt beat.

I got on the radio with the German captain. “Do you know how salvage rights work?” I asked him. “If I get off the boat, can the next person who climbs on board claim the boat?”

“I'm not sure,” he said. “I'm not sure what all of the laws say.”

“Okay,” I said. “Then I'd like to notify you and anyone else hearing this, notifying all stations that I am not giving up any rights to this vessel. I intend to come back in another boat tomorrow and get back on board. I am getting off the boat now only to assist with the safety of my crew and passengers, but I am not abandoning the vessel.”

There was no response from the German captain or from any other station. I hailed the German captain again and made arrangements to use his liferaft, in case the helicopter plan didn't work. Then I was talking to the crew about the helicopter versus the liferaft. I don't think anyone wanted to hear, but I felt I needed to warn them. “The sides of the ship are pretty high, so there's some risk there on the rope ladder, but otherwise the liferaft might be safer. The helicopter might be riskier. Sometimes they go down in storms.”

Nancy looked at me and I could tell I should shut up. I was not exactly reassuring Barbara or the crew. So I shut up.

The German captain came on over the radio and said we should see the helicopter any minute, and then we heard it and saw it coming in low. I took my handheld VHF onto the aft deck to talk with the pilot.

I called the helicopter on the VHF but didn't get a response. They were hovering close enough that I could see the pilot and copilot, so I held my VHF in the air and pointed at it and tried hailing them again, but nothing happened, so I went back to the helm and tried on the mounted VHF. The German captain came back instead.

“They do not have a radio onboard,” he said.

“The rescue helicopter doesn't have a VHF?”

“No,” he said. “They do not have a VHF or any other kind of radio.”

I looked around at my crew. “A Coast Guard rescue helicopter out in a storm for an abandon ship and they don't bring a radio.”

“So much for the Moroccans,” Nick said.

“Well shit-o,” Matt said, trying to do Nick's Brit voice.

So we waited and watched as they lowered their diver down on a cable. The cable had a small step, too small to see.

“No basket,” I said. “It looks like we have to stand on that cable. We'll be clipped in, too, I'm sure. Make sure you're clipped in and that the diver checks everything.”

The diver had to swim a hundred feet upwind toward us, into the waves. He had fins, a mask, and a snorkel, but he was struggling. We had seen quite a belly when he was being lowered down, and his arms were thin. We had an out-of-shape diver rescuing us, without a radio.

When he was within about thirty feet, he motioned for us to come, so Matt gave Emi a last hug, said “Here goes,” and jumped in. He swam out quickly to the diver and then they both swam a bit farther away from the boat, the diver holding onto Matt to help him. The ocean was dark green and gray in the overcast light, streaky with spray. The wind and seas had died down but were still high.

The helicopter came closer, but not close enough, and I was confused about what the diver was doing. He and Matt were just floating there. This went on for some time. Meanwhile, we were drifting toward them. We were rolling enough in the seas that our large steel hull presented a danger to them if we came too close. And our ninety-foot main mast, swinging in long arcs, was a hazard for the helicopter.