CHAPTER 19
We slowly settled into a routine life at sea. Sleep came readily, in fact so easily we could stumble over each other napping on deck, in beanbags at the stern, or stretched out on plush cockpit cushions. I had ordered them ‘special,’ as Tony put it, for sleeping under the stars, and we were getting plenty of practice. We functioned more like a team, though playful moves were made when the helmsman wasn’t looking, to mess up a competitor’s logged hourly run for the spinnaker competition by quietly easing the spinnaker sheet—especially if the helmsman was nearing championship distance. I found the aft cabin I had bragged about had disadvantages at sea. The high bunk created uncomfortable motion with the wind up and boat rolling. Also wide, it was more appropriate for two people when motionless, like tied to a dock, but at sea a big wave could flip me out, possibly causing serious injury.
My cabin was also insanely noisy. The trailing generator, on deck right above my bunk, whirled, whined, clicked, or screamed, depending on hull speed. The manufacturer of this costly little item failed to mention noise in his sales pitch. All lines, including main and spinnaker, were led to big, heavy turning blocks above the port and starboard sides of my cabin. With slack wind like the previous night, these blocks banged and clomped when sails luffing in windless skies raised the blocks and slammed them down against the deck. And there was the beloved propeller. It turned and freewheeled just below me, causing the cutlass bearing to shriek like a banshee if we did more than seven knots. The steering quadrant, also under the bunk, interfaced to the autopilot, which, with its bum bearing, pierced my pillow with mournful, ear-shattering screeching.
All said though, sleeping in the wonderful aft cabin while underway in gentle seas was one of life’s ultimate pleasures. With practice, I was able to ignore the noise, relegating them to my unconscious, and there was a totally amazing view out the two large port windows in the stern. Watching the endless sea was mesmerizing provided timeless pleasure—and was luxuriously relaxing. I couldn’t get enough. For the rest of my life, when under stress, I will take myself back to this time and this place of peace.
As bitchy as I was about the noise, I wouldn’t have traded that racket with anyone, anywhere, for anything. If folks can adjust to the endless street noises of city life, I could certainly get in tune with this chaotic symphony at sea. When I was topside on Endymion I was essentially alone in a world known to few, and so tranquil it defied description. I highly recommended it. The trick was to get there.
On April 15th, we tuned in the Pacific Maritime ham radio net for the first time. Our closest contact was in Hilo, Hawaii. Around midnight we saw our first moving lights at sea, stimulating a lively debate between Tony and Kyle. Tony insisted the steadily growing lights were a passing freighter, while Kyle insisted it was a floating 7-11 store.
Our fourth day at sea found our batteries near death. Refrigeration was responsible. We couldn’t generate enough power to run the ship and luxury items together, without running the diesel engine, and that was reserved for needs more serious than ice for drinks. And since there were no service stations in this neck of the sea, we came to have adoring fuzzy feelings for warm Diet Pepsi. We didn’t mind; we were solidly into the trade winds and the sailing was superb! We just pointed the bow at the Equator and felt the days unhurriedly getting warmer. We’d averaged slightly more than 150 nautical miles daily, good for a cruiser using no power.
The next dawn we saw something few humans ever see. Most people wouldn’t give a hoot, but it was inspiring to us, being alone and close to the Equator on the ‘big pond,’ as Tony called the Pacific. The sun rose as a ginormous red ball creeping into the sky, due east while the moon was setting due west. Polaris (the North Star) was where it should be, and to our south, barely touching the horizon, was the Southern Cross, a bright but small constellation not seen above 20 degrees north. Both are major navigation aids, and to see them at the same time was awesome. I thought about God and the ancient Christian belief that the disappearance of the constellation was linked to the crucifixion of Christ.
Sailing day and night with a spinnaker flying takes meaningful effort and concentration. I believed we’d been overworked. We’d been five days and nights without dropping the spinnaker, but Saturday morning, April 17th, it lay in a tangled clump on the foredeck, a victim of concentration gone astray, causing the big sail to get wrapped around the head stay. Actually, it was one of two errors during the previous night. The scariest occurred just past midnight.
We’d been sailing in winds of 17 to 20 knots, in pitch dark under a solid deck of low clouds. A glimpse of any star would have been reassuring. We were pushing the margin of safety for flying a spinnaker. Tony, at the helm, found it exhilarating but difficult to manage. Lying in my bunk I heard an annoying grinding noise coming from the cursed trailing generator and went topsides to check it out. We were making 7 knots with the wind at 120 degrees and a moderate chop.
“How’s the helm?” I asked Tony.
“Little tough to hold,” he replied, “but I can handle it.”
I knew from his expression that Tony was in his element, loving every moment.
“Tony, we need to inspect the trailing generator. To reduce pressure on the generator, you’ll have to head into the wind enough to almost stop us so I can drag it in. Whadda ya think?”
Kyle, half asleep, listened from a curled-up position under the dodger. He interrupted: “The problem, and a major one, is keeping the spinnaker from collapsing. I’ll help.”
We didn’t want to go through the laborious process of taking the spinnaker down properly, as we should have, repacking it and later resetting it. We devised a tricky shortcut plan to slow the boat enough to drag in the generator line with propeller. I thought we could pull it off, though it required momentarily collapsing the spinnaker while simultaneously bearing off to shield the powerful sail from filling again too quickly. Tricky stuff! Tony would drive the boat, and I would luff the main and mizzen while releasing the fore guy to let the spinnaker pole go forward against the head stay—and ease the spinnaker sheet—all in perfect harmony—all done quickly. Kyle would haul in the generator. Everything had to be flawless, considering we were 22 tons in motion on an open sea in total darkness. We would act on my signal. Jim and Denise were off watch. Let them sleep. For practice we talked it through three times.
Preparing to let the pole go forward, I asked Tony, “Ready to let her luff?”
Thinking I gave the order to “take her up,” Tony misunderstood and threw the wheel over hard, heading into the wind before I could release the pole or spinnaker sheet. The massive sail grabbed all the wind in the sky that night, putting thousands of pounds of tension on the line I was trying to set free, lifting me suddenly off the deck. Endymion bolted forward, starting to heel dangerously as the spinnaker’s full power captured the wind, and I fell hard into the cockpit.
“Take her down . . . DOWN!” (Away from the wind) I screamed at Tony. Within seconds we were in a complete knockdown. Endymion, out of control, at night, in mid-ocean, slowly lost forward momentum and lay over on her side in a do or die moment. We all held on. Time stood still and I thought, No—not like this. This can’t be happening!
“Let go the fuckin’ sheet!” Tony was screaming, “Damn it, Dad—let go! Release it!”
I snapped to, but I had taken a bad wrap (turn) on the winch and couldn’t release the sheet. The 5/8th-inch, 10,000-pound test line was fouled around the winch and we were going over. Five men wouldn’t have the strength to untangle the wrap!
“Take her off! Off, Tony—off!” (Away from the wind), I screamed back at Tony, who with both feet braced against the leeward cockpit rail, was using his full weight and both hands straining to turn the wheel. I saw shock in his wild eyes. He couldn’t match nature.
Terror set in. I reached for my rigging knife.
“All hands—all hands! Now! Kyle, some help here!”
Jim and the Amazon had scrambled from below. Kyle had thrown his weight with Tony to turn the reluctant wheel but it wouldn’t budge. I prayed to God the steering cable wouldn’t snap.
Endymion was in the last throws of the knockdown. The boom’s outer end was in the water, and the huge spinnaker also touching the water, dragging us over. Endymion, her spreaders inches from the wave tops, was slowly stopping. I sawed the line with all my strength, but was running out of steam. My arms ached, my heart beat wildly and blood flowed from a leg gash caused by a flying winch handle. Kyle was bleeding above his eye.
Water lapped at the edge of the cockpit. With forward motion gone, Endymion was settling in the dark seas—My God, I thought, she’s going over—we’re going to die—she’s going to sink. Though spent, I sawed like my life depended on it! Jim had pulled bolt cutters from the black hole and was crawling toward me when the impossibly strong line parted with a deafening crack, jerking the knife from my hand and slicing my forefinger.
The loose end of the spinnaker sheet became a lethal, deadly weapon, snapping wildly back and forth. But Endymion ever so slowly began to right herself. The spinnaker, no longer a threat to survival flailed crazily to leeward.
It wasn’t over. I released the spinnaker pole and guy. Jim reached the mast to release the spinnaker halyard, ducking the savage bite of the spinnaker sheet slapping at him, lucky to escape broken bones from the line nearly wrapping around his body and throwing him against a lifeline.
We eventually gained control. I thanked God publicly that no one had gone overboard. The Amazon brought up our comprehensive first aid kit Denise had prepared prior to leaving California. She stitched Kyle’s left eye before tending to my leg and finger. Tony and Jim nursed minor cuts and bruises.
Still shaking, we straightened up the mess on deck, untangled the spinnaker and its lines, attached a new sheet, and put the big kite in the sky again. It’s what sailors do.
Kyle returned to his generator chore, wearing gloves this time. Earlier, in a dumb move and prior to the knockdown, he had taken a wrap of the trailing generator line around his wrist. Had this caused him to go overboard in the knockdown we would never have recovered him. Kyle was our strongest crewmember, however, and he retrieved the tangled mess of the generator failure, while the rest of us Monday morning quarterbacked the knockdown.
“I feel like a pilot,” Tony offered; “fly through a thousand hours of nothing and then a minute of total panic!”
“Yeah, I hear that. I’m sitting here wondering what I’m getting Denise into,” I said, looking proudly at my son. ”That was damn scary, what we went through!”
The near disaster had been the captain’s error—mine alone. We clearly tried to do too much with too few people. Our timing was bad and though I’d done it thousands of times, I had failed releasing the sheet. The whole experience plainly illustrated what I have drummed into my crews for years—this is an awesome sport harnessing powerful forces, and when something goes wrong, it can often be sudden and deadly. For me it was a stern reminder that a fully loaded, 45,000-pound yacht plowing through the ocean demands my best skills and constant attention. Being 1,200 miles from shore, it would be difficult to find a doctor.
While assessing my own culpability there was one thing that had pissed me off. Only I had been wearing a harness and been connected.
Kyle had one at his side but not on, and Tony had left his on his bunk. It’s well known that over 50% of males lost at sea went overboard while taking a leak. Had a harness been attached, that simple device would have kept them from floating away in darkness screaming for help. Tony or Kyle could have been lost during the confusion that night. I couldn’t imagine the difficulty explaining that to Kyle’s loved ones, who hadn’t wanted him to go offshore in the first place.
Soon it will be Easter. We had planned a major meal, beer, and church services with Reverend Chuck. And, oh yes, a giant Easter egg hunt for which Kyle and Tony had been creatively decorating eggs.
Tony was playful Easter morning, using the ham radio to invite our nearest neighbors to the egg hunt. He had responses from Bora Bora in Tahiti, one from Hawaii, and one from a charter operator in the Galapagos Islands near Ecuador. The only yacht to respond was Renaissance, a sloop from America 300 miles in front of us, who said, “You supply the eggs and I’ll bring the hollandaise. We can meet halfway.”