Seaworthy (12 page)

“As soon as the hold is pumped out, Arch and I will tackle the ice machine,” Tim said.

“Timmaaay!” The accent was on the second, drawn-out syllable as Arch hailed his friend in what was becoming his signature call. Tim hustled in the direction from which his name had come and met Arch beside the ice machine, while I stared at the bottom of the fish hold's ladder watching the sloshing salt water slowly disappear below the deck plates. I figured that the beds of ice had been partially washed out as well as some of what we had stockpiled in two aft pens, or bins. Ice-machine malfunction is perhaps the second-biggest frig (a term used in coastal Maine having nothing to do with copulation, but rather meaning a nuisance) hampering commercial fishermen, following closely the loss of propulsion, like what we had just experienced. We were not in any danger. But without ice we don't fish. So remedying the machine failure that had caused the flood in the fish hold was imperative. Without the ice maker in full production, there was no point in proceeding to the fishing grounds. Ice can, in extreme circumstances, be transferred from vessel to vessel using baskets. But these occasions are always if the boat in need is at the end of a trip, when its ice-making capabilities are lost. Inconveniencing the donor vessel is a one- or possibly two-shot deal in dire situations. There is just no way anyone would agree to keep us in ice for an entire trip. I had faith in Tim and Arch. But that devotion did little to soothe the burning in my abdomen as I considered the possibility of yet another detour to Nova Scotia.

The ice maker had, like the main engine, just been worked on at the dock prior to our departure. The refrigeration guys had spent the better part of three days troubleshooting when they finally discovered that two hoses (intake and discharge) had been reversed. Of course, by that time they'd replaced every conceivable problematic part in a process of elimination. We were thrilled with the abundance of new parts thrown at the problem before finding the hose reversal, and the machine had made great ice until just a short while before. I now hoped Tim and Arch could pull a rabbit from a hat and, to mix my metaphors, keep us from becoming Nova Scotia's newest bad penny.

I poked my head around the side of the setting house, where Hiltz had returned to work building leaders with Machado. “What the fuck, Skip?” Hiltz asked, with wide eyes and arms open to either side, palms up in question.

“The tide is going out. Don't worry, Dave,” I said, hoping to calm his agitated nerves.

“I'm not worried. All I want to do is catch fish.”

“In that case I'd be worried.” I chuckled as I left the stern and heard the men laugh behind me. They didn't call us the
Shithawk
for nothing. As I marched the length of the deck, I could see that my team of engineers had the ice machine surrounded. I elbowed my way between the men to observe that they had the refrigeration gauges in place, connecting the compressor to a bottle of refrigerant. The small, round sight glass that functions to indicate when there is unwanted air in the system, or lack of refrigerant, showed an abundance of bubbles.

“I don't know what caused it, but some refrigerant seems to have escaped. We can't find a leak,” said Arch. “Don't worry, we'll have it back up and making ice before the chicken dries out.” Timmy didn't look as optimistic but didn't say anything that might contradict his friend. I left the men charging the drum-shaped machine and returned to the wheelhouse to begin the depressing act of figuring distance and time to a variety of ports along Canada's southern coast. I scanned the chart. It was clear that the most convenient stop for repairs would be the tiny island of Saint-Pierre.

Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, two lone islands claimed and owned by France, lay just thirty-two nautical miles south of Newfoundland. I had been to Saint-Pierre a number of times in the past when Canada first shut down its cod fishery and thought it prudent not to allow foreign vessels to resupply in Canadian ports while the native fishermen were out of work. The French didn't seem to mind taking our money, I recalled. Saint-Pierre is, of course, French for St. Peter, one of at least six patron saints of fishermen, a number I've always found telling. A trip to Saint-Pierre to fix the ice machine would be the least painful as far as lost time. I would hardly have to change course. And we would be closer to our targeted destination than a return to Sambro or a steam to any port in Newfoundland would take us.

I sat and thought about the prospect of having repairs done in that all-French-speaking place with only English spoken aboard the
Seahawk.
I had always gotten by in the past. But I'd never needed anything more than fuel and groceries. “Petrol” was universal, as were hand motions to the mouth to indicate food. I remembered the quaintness of the island and how it reminded me of home. I recalled that Saint-Pierre also owned the distinction of being the only place in North America to have used the guillotine, and I wondered why this was the single fact I could bring to the surface from the depth of ten years.

I tweaked the autopilot a few degrees to the north on the outside chance that news from below would soon lead me in that direction. Saint-Pierre was a neat place. It had always appealed to me in a “Gee, I sure would like to come here sometime for a vacation rather than as a necessity to get supplies for work” sort of way. Even the time zone was unique! Three hours behind Greenwich mean time, two hours ahead of eastern standard, one hour ahead of Halifax, and thirty minutes off Newfy standard made this island more islandlike than any other landmass surrounded by water to claim the title. It might be fun to go there, if we had to go.

Who was I kidding? Myself? The truth is that I would feel like a total loser if we had to go to any port for any repairs. The next port of call for the
Seahawk
had to be Bay Bulls, Newfoundland, with a boatload of fish to unload.

As it turned out, all this psyching myself up to be delayed was for naught. Tim was gleeful in his exclamation that he and Arch had been successful in fixing the ice machine, which was now “up and making better and more ice than ever.” The weight of pending failure left my back and shoulders as I changed course back toward our original waypoint. I felt as though I had dodged a bullet and could now abandon the defensive stance I had assumed and stand tall. I prepared myself to hear alarms as Timmy warned me that he would be testing them all right away. Arch delivered the chicken dinner, complete with stuffing and lots of gravy. Life was good again.

In what was now becoming a familiar kind of internal ritual, I realized that I hadn't reacted to the ice-machine problem in the same way that I would have in my younger days, and I couldn't help questioning why. I had this ten-year increase in age lurking around my psyche and taking responsibility for everything I did, said, or didn't do or say. I couldn't imagine having one of my old hissy fits now. I didn't want to be thought of by my crew as a screaming idiot who rants and raves in the face of adversity. I didn't want to act like a tyrant. I had always spoken of working
with
my crew rather than them working
for
me. That is how I truly felt, and feel. It went beyond simple syntax. I hoped that the occasional outbursts I was capable of had indeed become a thing of the past—written off as youthful foolishness—and were not playing hide-and-seek. I knew that I was a real team player. I knew that I had an uncanny ability to buckle down when necessary. That quality hadn't come aboard this trip, nor had it been swept out with the ebbing tide of other things that recede with age. I guessed it didn't matter why, and I hoped that the anger management would continue through what was feeling like a series of personal tests studding this extended shakedown cruise.

Forty-eight hours of one thing after another had pushed me to the limit. When the wind picked up a bit, causing a healthy sea, it became clear that the stay wires securing the outrigger booms were too loose. Turnbuckles were tightened to their maximum, or “two-blocked,” as we say, and still the wires were slack enough to allow the booms to wag. Links of chain were removed, and shackles were interchanged until the best combination possible was achieved. When spray became green water taken over the bow, the troughs formed by the sides of the house and the top of the gunwales became sluiceways through which rivers ran. It rained salt water in the engine room. Dripping water over the heat from the engines created briny stalactites that grew down from the overhead like icicles, creating new work for Timmy in their removal. The camper-style toilet in the head leaked water. The generator leaked fuel. Even the electricity leaked somehow, causing static interference in all the electronics.

The computer quit. The radar quit. Dave Hiltz quit every time something else failed. Things were breaking, sometimes two at once. When it seemed we were outnumbered, we dropped into zone defense. Whoever had expertise or energy to tackle the job became point man, with the four others solidly behind, helping where needed. When the problems slowed to a trickle, we went back to one-on-one, every man covering his own territory. We held team meetings at the galley table to discuss strategy for defense in the next attack, something that flew in the face of what I had always maintained: that a commercial fishing vessel is not a democracy. We planned offense—sometimes a gang tackle, sometimes more of a tag team—to get through the daily chores beyond repairs. The
Shithawk
had us on our heels, but we continued to move ahead.

The beeper buoys were a mess. Two of their canisters were full of water. One had half an antenna. One had no antenna. One had a full antenna but no electronic board. Two had faulty switches. One had a frozen switch. The “real gem,” according to Archie, was the buoy with no buoyancy, no batteries, and a cracked canister. We actually stood around that buoy and marveled at how and why it had remained aboard the boat. We were now at the point of laughing at each piece of equipment as it fell. And they fell like dominoes. Deck lights became disco blinkers when the boat rolled just right. We rewired, replaced, and refitted where we could. Where we could not, we placed bandages and secured blowout patches and jury-rigged until it seemed there was nothing left to go wrong. How many times did I hear Tim say, “It's fixed. I think we're okay now”? His words soon became known as the kiss of death. In the few moments that we relaxed, we sat and waited for the next thing to break, leak, or malfunction. We hung strong as a unit in spite of the
Seahawk
's efforts to divide and conquer. I didn't have the energy to fly off the handle.

Archie became known as “Archie Bungee,” for the number of bungee cords he stretched around the boat. Two-part epoxy formed patches until the
Seahawk
looked like she had broken out with a strange rash. He seemed to have an endless source of bungees and personal first-aid supplies. Bungees and Liquid Skin were like weeds. Archie had put the end of his thumb back together after a mishap with a knife, had glued together a gash on his forearm that otherwise would have needed stitches, and had filled a hole he'd acquired in falling onto the stove in a rough head sea that sent him for a loop—all with the amazing bandage in a bottle. He swore by the stuff, and we all agreed to buy stock in Liquid Skin should the fishing trip not pan out favorably in our financial interest.

When the water maker bit the dust, I struggled to keep my cool. I ran into a knot before I reached the end of my rope with the ridiculousness of it all. Valuable fresh water was being used to flush the leaky toilet, which was absurd when you considered where you were. Someone had carelessly left a valve open and depleted our entire freshwater supply. I was mad. Now I would have to get a bucket of salt water every time I needed to use the head. And there would be no hot shower after a long, cold day on deck. Tim worked on the machine that makes fresh from salt water until I went to bed. It seemed hopeless. But I resolved to overcome my anger and frustration. I couldn't blow a gasket. Arch was out of epoxy. Hadn't I spent the first eight years of my fishing career showering with a deck hose and pooping in a bucket? Yes, I had. I could do it again. And if the captain doesn't complain, nobody complains.

 

When Archie woke me the next morning, he coolly reported that Tim had fixed the water maker and that he had two of the three computers running again. They must have been up most of the night. I sat in the captain's chair, watched the sun rise, and knew that the worst was behind us. There was virtually nothing left to go wrong. Our teamwork had paid off.

Arch delivered a steaming cup of coffee and said that he would wake the crew when he had breakfast ready. “By the way,” Arch said as he started down the stairs, “I think we should do some safety drills soon. I put together a ditch bag to take in the life raft and organized the survival suits to make it easy for everyone to grab one.” Although this didn't indicate much confidence in our fine craft, I agreed that drills were in order and thought that perhaps after breakfast would be a good time to start. Safety was one area where bungees and Liquid Skin would not save us. The importance of working together, rather than against one another, is greatest when lives are at risk. Everyone has his own “station” and responsibilities in different types of emergencies. And we all count on everyone else to do his part for the good of the whole. It wouldn't do four of us any good if the fifth couldn't complete his task. What if someone didn't sound the general alarm to alert shipmates of a problem? What if the radioman forgot to call Mayday? What if the guys launched the life raft prematurely? What if someone neglected to bring a survival suit topside for me? What if the EPIRB (the emergency-position-indicating radio beacon) was inadvertently turned off? What if all the vents were not closed in a fire? The what-ifs were endless. There was only one answer—teamwork. Life-threatening situations are the times when a captain most wants to be one of a single, cohesive unit. It certainly would not serve me well to alienate myself from the men I might ultimately count on for my life. But it was a balancing act of sorts, I knew. I had to guard against becoming one of the guys. That was one sure way of losing control of your command. When the time was right to do so, I would make it clear that I was the boss. So far I hadn't needed to.