As I handed the orange flotation vest to Alex, he ripped it from my grasp and threatened, “If my father drowns because you’re wearing his life vest, you’re dead meat.” I knew he meant it, but I also knew not to argue with the captain. If we
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spent any time in the frigid water, the vests would only ensure that the buoyed bodies were found first. Snapping closed the two plastic buckles and tightening the vest’s straps around my torso until my ribs screamed in pain, I gazed over the stern, wondering what else I could do to help with the battle.
Something caught my eye. The weather conditions limited visibility, and the seventy-knot salt spray felt like torture and made focusing nearly impossible. Squinting and blinking, I searched the horizon and thought I saw a boat, but before I could be sure, it dropped out of sight in a deep valley among the mountain range of waves marching toward us.
When it rode up on the next cresting peak, it was close enough for me to read the name on the bow. “Look! It’s the Fearless!” I shouted, and pointed to where the boat quickly settled back out of view.
“It’s about time,” George said.
“Wait up here until they get close enough to throw a life ring over,” Lincoln ordered. “Alex will go first, then Jane, then George, then me. No one jumps without the ring.” He was calm and seemingly relieved. At that moment I knew his plan had been premeditated. Of course, I thought, they had planned to scuttle the Sea Hunter. That explained the absence of so many essentials, such as a life raft, acetylene torches, or electronics. The boat had been stripped of most anything of value. That also explained why George had tried to talk his nephew out of making this trip, and why there were only two life preservers. Lucky for me, I thought, Quin had finally come to our rescue, living up to what I suspected was his part in an insurance scam.
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It would not be an easy transfer. Getting and maintaining a position close enough to reach us with a hand-thrown life ring in this violent wind would require exceptional boat-handling skills. In all of the scheming they had done to pull off an intentional sinking, they surely hadn’t planned for the weather to be this bad. But the convenient storm would leave less room for suspicion and accusations.
As the Fearless approached our stern, she veered right and passed close to our starboard side. “What’s he doing?” asked Alex.
“He has to turn around and come alongside with his bow into the wind to keep control,” Lincoln answered confidently.
As Fearless surfed by on top of a wave that nearly capsized us, I saw Quin’s son, Eddie, looking at us through binoculars from the open wheelhouse door. When the waist-deep water drained to below my knees, I dared to release one hand from the security of the winch and waved. Eddie returned a tentative raising of an arm. Then a hand—I assumed his father’s—
reached out, grabbed his shoulder, and yanked him into the wheelhouse. The door closed. We watched Fearless shrink in the distance.
14
“he doesn’t see us,” cried Alex. “Dad! Do something!”
We watched the stern of our savior fade into the distance and gathering dusk until a cable supporting the main boom parted, sending the end to crash down onto the net drum.
With it plummeted my optimism that the Sea Hunter would withstand whatever remained of the beating Mother Nature was dishing out. In complete desperation, I tried my cell phone, but no go. George held his transistor radio at arm’s length and twisted it at different angles to the sky to catch a weather report. When a voice promised more of the same, George quickly stifled it. Three heads hung in moods of sheer doom and helplessness. The fourth, belonging to the captain, was busy working with the few teeth that remained of the hacksaw.
“Don’t worry, Alex, dear. The wind is coming around. It won’t blow much longer,” Lincoln vowed. He shared a look with his brother that I was sure was meant to keep George quiet; then Lincoln added, “We’ll be fine.” Back and forth he swept the saw blade tirelessly. Just as I’d dragged my psyche out of the doldrums to think again about what I could possi-s l i p k n o t
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bly do to help, Lincoln said, “Alex, you and Jane go find some buckets. We’ll need to bail the engine room as soon as we’re free of this gear.”
“Buckets? You’re fucking kidding!” Alex replied. He wedged himself back behind the winch and began to sob un-controllably. “We’re going to die aboard this fuckin’ wreck!”
Lincoln’s resolve spurred me to action. “This chick ain’t going down!” I defied the sullen brat. “Come on, pull yourself together! Let’s find something to bail with.” Fully aware of the volume of water in the engine room, I was skeptical about bailing by hand, but I kept that to myself as I entered the fo’c’sle in search of anything that might be useful in dewatering. Ahead of the bunk area was a door that led to a small storage room in the boat’s forepeak. I shuffled through boxes and shelves of years of accumulated boat junk and didn’t find anything I considered handy for ridding the engine room of water—no hand pumps, no lengths of hose.
Stacked on the deck were three clean white five-gallon buckets rigged with tiny aeration pumps and tubes. I figured this must be how Nick Dow had transported the crabs to his aquarium. Leaving the aeration equipment in the forepeak, I grabbed the buckets and hurried back to the main deck to await Lincoln’s next order.
The men’s determination with the saw finally paid off: The wire was parted with help from a wall of green water that exploded on the stern. We all waited, silent with our own prayers, to see how the Sea Hunter would react to being set free from her shackles to the bottom. She wallowed up and down a couple of times, then was spun around ninety degrees
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so that the wind and sea were now on her port beam. The night was pitch dark but for a bit of hazy moonlight sifting down through the wind-driven spray, so it was difficult to decipher whether our new predicament was more or less dire.
A wave waltzed effortlessly aboard over the port rail, totally swamping the deck. When the water receded over the rail, I thought we might roll bottom up. But we didn’t. I felt the port side lifted on the back of the next wave, tipping the contents of the bilge and pouring it to the leeward side.
“Hold on!” yelled George and Lincoln in unison as the Sea Hunter lurched to an even keel, then landed heavily on her starboard rail, sending the end of the boom skittering to the other side of the net drum with a gut-pulling slat. Again I thought we might roll completely over. Again we did not.
What remained of the broken port outrigger dangled in the water off the Sea Hunter’s bow by one skinny guy wire that had yet to give up. Fascinating, I thought briefly, that the cable of the smallest diameter had outlasted those of greater girth and breaking strength. With that tenacious wire in mind, I became the top link in the chain of three that com-prised a bucket brigade working doggedly through the night to reduce the water in the engine room to a level that would enable us to attempt to restart the main engine.
Lincoln stood in seawater up to his midthigh and scooped with five-gallon buckets, handing them full over his head to George, who was positioned halfway up the ladder. George then passed the buckets up to me on deck, where I dumped closer to four gallons after all the sloshing and spilling along the way. After I’d emptied the buckets, I had to get them back s l i p k n o t
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down the chain to be filled again. Lincoln and George changed positions every fifty buckets or so, as being the middle man necessitated working with one hand while holding on to the ladder with the other. The engine room door was secured open in a way that did not allow enough reaction time when a deck swamping was imminent. I couldn’t close it fast enough to prohibit part of what washed aboard in our deep-est rolls from seeping down and refilling what we were determined to empty. In true “two steps forward, one step back”
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e, we were an obstinate team. Alex emerged from the fo’c’sle once to take a leak and quickly slunk back to where I imagined he sat and waited to die.
By the time daylight trickled over the eastern horizon, George and Lincoln were exhausted and switching bailing stations at ten-bucket intervals. A somewhat triumphant report from the bottom of the chain described the depth of water there as ankle-deep. The stubborn stay wire holding the port outrigger at last gave way as the relentless sea succeeded in pulling the cable’s grip from the bow one finger at a time. The loss of weight with the release of the wire pinned the Sea Hunter in her starboard list even with the reduction of what the bilge once held in water. There had been little conversation among the three links during the all-night bucket brigade. I supposed talk was unnecessary and kept dumping buckets as they appeared at my feet. My mind wandered briefly to my favorite daydream as I dumped buckets. If, by some miracle, I survived this, I swore I’d play golf in Scotland someday.
Numbed to the biting wind and seas that threatened our
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tenuous stability, I had stopped warning Lincoln and George to hold on with every rogue wave hours ago, as even shouting was getting difficult. The wind continued from the same direction, and the seas grew to new heights. Occasional waves crested and broke so high in the Sea Hunter’s rigging that no antenna had been spared by midmorning. When the radar dome was ripped from the top of an A-frame bracket, it swung in the wind by its thick cord, smashing against the steel bracket until its entire housing had been shattered to bits that flew downwind like potato chips.
Though I was on the verge of physical collapse, unwaver-ing determination kept me in pace with the men until they ascended from the dark and joined me on deck. George and I stared at the captain, waiting for orders. Lincoln scanned the horizon thoughtfully. “Still southeast,” he said with a hint of discouragement. He took a deep breath that appeared to bolster his courage and continued, “Well, the weather hasn’t improved, but I’d say our situation has. George, see if you can get an update on the storm while I gather flashlights and tools.” George did as he was told, this time being careful to keep the radio close to his ear, I supposed for my own protection if the truth was that we had not seen the worst of this system. Lincoln soon returned with a canvas bag that held an assortment of rusty tools and a single functioning flashlight.
“Any good news?” he asked his brother.
Speaking directly to Lincoln and over me, as if I were a small child who couldn’t possibly understand, George replied, “An intensifying low is moving slowly to the east.” He looked as though he’d like to cover my ears before finishing.
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“They’re calling for storm-force winds out of the northwest on the backside until midnight.”
Refusing to be left out of the conversation that could determine the length of the rest of my life, I asked hopefully,
“Shouldn’t the Coast Guard be searching for us by now?”
“Not without a mayday call or a signal from an EPIRB,”
Lincoln answered. So I knew that among other things, we also had no emergency radio beacon that could send a signal to the Coast Guard.
“What about Quin? Wouldn’t he have radioed for help on our behalf?” I asked.
“I’m not counting on it. We’re on our own. Do you know anything about waterlogged diesel engines?”
Dismayed to learn the unlikelihood of being saved by the Coast Guard, I was glad to at least be welcomed to try to save myself. “I can turn a wrench,” I said, completely understat-ing my knowledge and ability.
“Good. Let’s go.” Down the ladder we went, the three of us, to work in ankle-deep ice water, on a platform in perpetual motion, on an endeavor that was of highly improbable success, by the light of one narrow beam and without proper tools. The good news was that we were sheltered from the wind, which made verbal communication less taxing. Not that any energy was wasted on small talk. In fact, all conversation was to the purpose of reviving the main engine, which had expired as a result of immersion. What we did not know was the exact cause of death. Best-case scenario—the twelve-volt electrical system needed for fuel injection had been shorted out. If the loss of battery power had caused the engine to
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stop prior to salt water being sucked into the air intake or washed into the crankcase breather, then there was a chance that we could, with a lot of work, restart it. Worst-case scenario—permanent damage. Perhaps the engine had seized due to sea water, with its absence of lubricating properties, entering moving parts that required oil. If the latter were true, the only hope we had was to survive the thrashing promised by the weather forecast and be rescued by the chance passing ship. Unwilling to leave our survival to chance, we got busy in the engine room.
That we had only one performing flashlight aboard mandated that we all work together, which we did amazingly well, considering the series of events that had led us to this junc-ture. When strength was needed, I held the light and passed tools. When tight workspace necessitated small hands and dexterity, I was chief mechanic. Both labor and thought processes were so intense, I forgot about the raging storm.
The immediate goal was to get the engine running. Without propulsion, we were completely defenseless. No one spoke of the what-ifs we would face in failure. We had no backup plan.
The battery terminals were fried beyond recognition. The lack of new ends required us to cut the leads back a few inches and hose-clamp them securely to their respective posts. Leads were chopped with a fire ax, a hammer, and a block of wood.
The dipstick exposed a milky sludge that clung to the strip of metal like frothy maple syrup, confirming that water had indeed penetrated the engine’s lube oil. There was barely enough clean oil aboard to do a complete change, but we s l i p k n o t
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were able to replace the polluted filter with an old one, the discarding of which, luckily, had been neglected. Next we worked to disassemble the top of the engine, exposing the fuel injectors. Each of the twelve injectors was removed, cleaned, and replaced while a manual fuel pump was pushed in and pulled out endlessly to bleed fuel lines. Primary and secondary fuel filters were spun off, dumped, and refilled with diesel free of water. The saturated air filter was removed, squeezed dry like a sponge, and replaced with a prayer.
An auxiliary belt-driven bilge pump that hadn’t been used in years was next on the fix-it list. Working its shaft with channel-lock pliers, back and forth and back and forth, then around and around and around until it turned relatively freely, we searched for an appropriate-sized belt. Finding none, I removed the necktie from my belt loops, stretched it around the pulleys on the pump and main engine, drew a slipknot as tight as I could, and cinched it with an over-hand. Even if it worked for only a few minutes before the necktie shredded, I reasoned, that would save hundreds of buckets.
The bit of light from the door above the ladder was fading fast. We had been working in the engine room all day. We had been as thorough as we could be and were anxious to hit the starter button. Lincoln checked and rechecked all we had done to ensure that nothing had been missed. By the time he was satisfied that there was nothing more to do, we had all suffered bloody knuckles and jolts of stray twelve-volt current. We understood that the batteries would sustain only a
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certain amount of cranking and that the fuel supply was critically low. There would be no second chance. I dreaded this moment as much as I yearned for it.
Warning George and me to stand back, Lincoln put a thumb on the rubber plunger that protected the starter button. Lincoln took a deep breath before pressing, and I actually crossed my fingers—something I couldn’t remember ever doing, even as a kid. Lincoln’s thumb went hard into the rubber. The engine turned over three or four times but failed to catch. Re
leasing the button, Lincoln expelled a great sigh of relief. I was glad he couldn’t see the utter grief in my face.
“She’s not seized up,” he said triumphantly. I knew this was good news but had wanted so badly to hear the engine start and run that anything less was tragic in my mind.
Before I could contemplate what would become of the Sea Hunter and Mother Nature’s four hostages, the backside of the storm began to trample us. Lincoln ordered George and me into action again. “Get on that priming pump! Hold the light so that I can see what I’m doing! Hand me the seven-eighths open end!” We did as we were told: I pumped until my arms burned with pain, and Lincoln and George bled air from fuel lines that led to the injectors. As bubbles disappeared and clear fuel ran, each line was closed snugly until all twelve injectors were bled. Lincoln again placed a thumb on the button and said, “Stand back. And pray this time.”
“I prayed last time,” George said sadly.
The engine let out a sickening groan before turning over hesitantly. This was it, I thought, the batteries were nearly drained. If the engine did not catch now, we were goners.
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Lincoln kept the button depressed and yelled, “Come on!”
The beat of the cranking quickened slightly and caught. The engine was running—roughly—but running. Lincoln dove on the manual prime pump and began thrusting it in and out vigorously. The engine broke into a coughing jag, hacking and spitting and threatening to die. Lincoln pumped as if admin-istering CPR to his most beloved, and the engine responded positively. Though it was not the steady rumbling I had prayed to hear—more of a ragged hiccup and hiss—even the poorly running diesel was nothing short of a miraculous accomplishment. I suddenly understood the name on the stern of a pretty red lobster boat I’d seen back in Green Haven: Joyful Noise.
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