38

FINBAR AND HIS SON, Harry, were waiting for us when we arrived at the yard.

“Evening, Captain, Willie.” Finbar didn’t bother to ask what we were all doing there on a Sunday evening; he figured he would be told.

“Evening, Finbar, Harry,” Mark said. “Thank you for coming on such short notice. We have to launch the boat tonight.”

Finbar chewed on his pipe stem for a moment, apparently trying to figure out whether Mark was joking. “I don’t suppose you’re joking,” he said, finally.

“I’m afraid not. It’s probably better if you don’t know all the details, but tomorrow morning we’re going to have a legal problem on our hands if the boat is still here. We have to get her in the water; that’s all of it.”

“We’ll have a bit of work to do first, I expect,” Finbar said, scratching his head, “and we’ll need the other lads; I’d better call them.”

“I’m sorry, Finbar, but it would be better if they knew nothing at all about this.”

Finbar took the pipe out of his mouth and gazed at Mark, wide-eyed. “You mean for just four of us to get a sixty-foot boat out of that shed and into the water?”

Mark nodded. “I’ve been thinking about that, and I’ve figured out a way we can do it, but first, we’ve got to be sure she’s watertight and then get all her gear aboard and get the mast lashed to the decks.”

Finbar shrugged. “Well, I’d say we’d better get at it. High tide’s at one-thirty A.M., and if we don’t have her launched by half-tide, at four-thirty, there won’t be enough water in the creek; she’ll be high and dry until nearly noon tomorrow. Harry, ring your mother and tell her not to wait up for us.”

We were shortly aboard the yacht and at work. “First thing, let’s get the through-hull fittings sorted out,” Mark said. “She may take something of a bashing tonight. Harry, you hook up the spray machine and get another coat of anti-fouling paint on her bottom.” The yacht had had her first coat on the Friday before, and her water-line was still masked for painting.

Harry went to get the air compressor, and I got at the hull fittings. I attached the seacocks for the engine and toilet to the holes through the hull that had been prepared for them. The engine needed raw, salt water for cooling, and the two toilets, of course, would have to flush overboard when they were installed. Mark went to work taping and labeling all the loose wiring in the boat—and there was a lot of it—to avoid confusion when the instruments and other electrical gear were installed later. We were to have begun that job the following day. Soon, I heard the air compressor start up, and we all donned masks to protect us from the poisonous anti-fouling paint that Harry was applying to the bottom to keep marine life from growing there. Then I ran into a problem.

“Mark, I can’t find the other seacock, the one for the galley sink drain.” We searched in vain for the fitting, and then Mark stopped us.

“We can’t waste any more time on this. Just plug the hole for now, and let’s get on with it.”

I found a conical, soft-wood plug, squirted some sealant on it and hammered it tightly into the hole under the sink with a wooden mallet. That would hold it until we could find the proper fitting. All holes sealed, we began to load gear. Locked in the storeroom were all the new interior fittings and instruments that were to have been installed during the two weeks prior to launching. There was an enormous amount of stuff—electronic instruments, radios, pots and pans, three anchors, several large spools of various-sized rope, the ship’s toilets, cushions, tools, spare parts for the engine, the galley stove, gas bottles, a diesel generator, a cabin heater, the saloon dining table, the yacht’s sails, neatly folded and bagged—all the gear that a new boat needs, and all made bulkier because much of it was still boxed. It was after two in the morning before all of it was aboard, and practically the whole interior volume of the boat was filled with the jumble of gear, only an area around the chart table left clear for maneuvering below. Heavy rain hammered on the tin roof of the shed, causing us to have to shout to be heard. We were now in a race with the tide, which was falling rapidly.

We got the boom lashed to the deck, and then came the mast. This was like an eighty-foot, aluminum tree that had to be got off the floor of the shed, up on deck and securely lashed. It was managed with the chain hoist more easily than I had imagined it would be, but the process was time-consuming, and it was a quarter past four in the morning before it was safely aboard. Now all we had to do was launch a sixty-foot, heavily laden yacht with only four pairs of hands. We had fifteen minutes. I didn’t see how we could do it, but Mark was at it quickly.

While I ripped the masking from the waterline, he and Harry cleated lines to strong points on deck and tossed the ends to the ground, where Finbar and I took hold. The boat’s keel already rested on a little car, and there were eighty yards of rails sloping down to the water’s edge, with only four of us to hold the big yacht in check. Mark and Harry lashed a huge block and tackle to a rafter of the shed, threaded one end of an enormous coil of rope through it, and made it fast to the yacht. This was his idea, and if it worked it would enable the two of them to let the yacht down to the water slowly, while Finbar and I, on opposite sides, helped keep the yacht upright in its cradle. I was terrified that it might topple on us; I had already had one experience with that hull looming over me, and I didn’t want another. We were ready. It was four-thirty. Half-tide. Now or never. It flashed through my mind that the whole project, all the work we had done, rested on what happened now. If we couldn’t handle the launch, and the yacht toppled, it was all over. And if we got her launched, and there wasn’t enough water in the creek, then Mulcahy the solicitor would arrive in a few hours to find her high and dry on the creekbed and he would have no position in court.

Mark and Harry climbed quickly down, Finbar and I rolled back the doors of the shed, and we all took hold of our lines. Harry stepped over to the car with a sledgehammer and knocked the chocks from under the car wheels. The yacht began to move; Finbar and I moved with it. It rolled slowly down the track for ten yards or so, Mark and Harry straining to pay out the line slowly through the block and tackle. Finbar and I held tightly to our lines, giving what puny support we could to the boat’s balance. We were about even with the shed doors, and the boat was halfway outside, when I heard a sharp snap. I looked up to see a strand of rope near the block waving in the breeze.

“Oh, shit!” Harry yelled. “The bloody line’s going!”

Even as he spoke, another strand went, and immediately after that, the third. The boat quickly began to move faster.

“Quick, Harry,” Mark yelled, “let’s get some chocks under those wheels!”

“No! No!” Finbar shouted. “She’ll pitchpole if she stops short! Leggo, Willie! Leggo!”

I leggo. She was out of our hands, now. Disaster was seconds away. The big yacht trundled down the track, picking up speed, rocking from side to side. On each of the rocking motions, she went a bit further. Thirty yards; forty. In a moment she would either be shattered, on her side in the boatyard, or in the water, it was a tossup which. Her speed increased, and so did the rocking. I reckoned she must have been doing twenty miles an hour by then, and suddenly, I knew she wasn’t going to make it. She rocked crazily to the left and didn’t rock back; she began to go. But as she leaned over, the car hit the water and the boat continued forward, even as she fell.

There was an ear-splitting smack as her topsides met the surface. For a moment, the water poured into the cockpit, and then, to everyone’s perfect astonishment, she was back upright and afloat. The four of us stood, transfixed, in the rain.

Finbar was the first to speak. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “I’ve built over a hundred boats in my time, but I’ve never launched one like that.”

Then Mark shot past me, running flat out, and I saw why. The yacht was quickly drifting past the stone quay and downstream with the tide. We were losing her again. Mark planted one last step on the quay and leapt into space. His leap was long enough, but there had been no time to aim. He landed in a heap in the cockpit, and I heard him yell in pain.

“Let’s go, lads!” Finbar shouted. “She’ll either be gone downstream or aground in a minute.” We ran for Finbar’s dinghy, got the outboard started, and went after the drifting yacht. She seemed to be staying in midstream, but as we drew alongside and I leapt on board, she stopped suddenly. “She’s aground,” Finbar yelled. “Harry, grab a line and we’ll tow. Get the engine started, Willie.”

Mark was lying in the bottom of the cockpit, clutching his left knee, the one that, two years before, had taken the shotgun blast. I didn’t have time to think about that. I dove below and opened the cooling-water seacock. “Start her, Mark!” I stared at the engine and prayed; it had never been started before. I heard Mark fumbling with the controls and saw the cable that controlled the accelerator move; the engine began to turn over. “Hold it!” I shouted. “Use the glowplug!” Diesel engines have to be warmed electrically before being started cold. It takes about thirty seconds. It seemed like an hour, while the tide ran out under us. “Now!” I yelled, glancing at my watch. The accelerator cable moved again and the engine turned, then caught. I started up the companionway ladder; Mark was already at the wheel, giving the engine full power.

The yacht stood still while the water behind her churned, in the nautical equivalent of spinning her wheels. Finbar’s outboard whined. The yacht broke free.

“We’re off!” Mark screamed, as the boat surged forward.

“Good luck!” Finbar shouted, as we passed him and Harry.

Mark waved. “I’ll be in touch!”

I collapsed on a cockpit seat. “Okay, now what?” I asked.

“Now we get her out of the country,” he replied, steering carefully down the middle of the creek, the first glow of predawn lighting our way.

I turned and looked below at the jumble of boxes and gear, now scrambled even more by the violent launching, then lay back and took deep breaths. Rain pelted my face, and the wind swayed even the biggest trees along the shoreline. “Swell,” I said.