Recently,
two events occurred which served as a reminder that the seas
of the world remain dangerous to commercial shipping and private
yachting. Several weeks ago a 44 ft. La Fitte sailboat crewed
by 3 seasoned sailors left Mazatlan Mexico bound for Cabo
San Lucas across a 200 mile stretch of the sea of Cortez.
Shortly after embarking, the boat radioed that sea conditions
were poor. That was the last communication received. After
several weeks of an over 200,000 square mile search, no trace
of the vessel has been found and further search activity has
been suspended.
Very strange
that the crew did not turn on an EPIRB ( emergency position-indicating
radiobeacon) which would have aided rescuers. And despite
rough seas, the situation of a noted sea-worthy vessel crewed
by experts, sinking so quickly is very unusual. Conceivably
the boat could have gone past the edge of Cabo and somehow
gotten blown out into the vast pacific. Search reports did
not specify the exact areas of the search . . .And so the
mystery of the boat Ocean Bound remains baffling and tragic.
In a narrative
of an old sailing story, another sea tragedy has been resurrected.
New Yorker writer David Grann last month published a nonfiction
book dubbed The Wager, the story of H.M.S. Wager, a British
man-of-war that left England in 1740 as part of a squadron
that had been ordered to capture a Spanish galleon filled
with treasure. On January 28, 1742 a battered vessel carrying
30 men washed up on shore in Brazil explaining that the
Wager had run aground off the coast of Patagonia; they recounted
setting out in a boat somehow cobbled from the wreckage
and traveling nearly 3000 miles to Brazil. Six months after
the arrival of those castaways another battered vessel came
ashore on the coast of Chile and the three sailors said
that the men who landed in Brazil were not the brave and
honourable men they pretended to be. “They we’re
not heroes -- they were mutineers.”
Throughout
the book Grann narrates horrific tales. Scurvy, typhus,
and other diseases attack the crew mercilessly. 
Lice
crawl from one seaman to another as disease turns skin blue
and the men’s teeth fall out. The ships in the squadron
lose sight of one another as they round the notoriously
deadly Cape Horn with its 'pulverizing' current and waves
that stretch nearly 100 feet into the sky. Once ashore there
are tales of starving, thieving, betrayal, murder and cannibalism.
Grann is eminently readable as he tries vainly to uncover
truth as to what really happened. “It was the great
enigma of the age of sail.”
The aforesnoted
accounts brought back memories of my own experience in ocean
sailing. In 1988 I crewed on a circumnavigation sail aboard
Boston Light -- a cutter-rigged sloop owned by the editor-publishers
of Sail magazine. I had written a few pieces for
Sail and was asked by editor Patience Wales if
I wanted to joined the crew. I consented and wound up writing
a Roman a Clef lightly factionalized 'novella' account of
the voyage with particular focus on some dangerous challenges
we faced tacking up the Red Sea during the Islamic celebration
of Ramadan. During this segment of the world sailing I had
two world class sailmates Roger and Dick.
My mates
were sound asleep during my 6-10 morning and evening watches
and I made sure I had plenty of great jazz music on my recorder
to help me while away the time as we struggled at the helm
to keep us on the rhumb line -- the shortest course to our
destination. It was the last night of a 1200 mile from Port
Said in Egypt to the island of Malta. I was ecstatic . .
. I had had enough of encounters with pirates, lack of food
and water, constant harassment from corrupt officials, and
my own psychological issues of loneliness and fear being
in this hostile part of the world. I simply couldn’t
wait to get to land after three weeks of sailing in the
stormy unpredictable Mediterranean where we had to deal
with a crippled diesel engine and mostly unfriendly Arabs
who constantly tried to scam us.
My anticipation
was running high as I adjusted the autopilot, checked the
compass heading, and selected some more music from the recorder.
As I settled into my four hour watch, I prepared a list
of family and friends to phone once we arrived at Valletta
in Malta. My mood was higher than it had been in weeks and
I could barely contain my excitement.
Suddenly,
a huge explosive sound erupted above the boat. I couldn’t
imagine what it was. The following is what I wrote in my
book Tales
of a Hamptons Sailor:
Bang!
Bang! With trembling hands I reached for my flashlight
to see what had happened. As the light beam shone in the
darkness, I saw lines, shackles and gear falling indiscriminately
onto the deck from the top of the 80 ft. mast with horrific
thundering noise. I was paralyzed as I stared at the mast
suddenly reeling freely in the darkness and waited for
it to smash into the sea.
“On
deck! on deck! on deck!” I shouted. Roger and Dick
were in the cockpit before my last cry. Roger grabbed
my flashlight and pointed it to the top of weaving mast.
“What the hell happened?” I asked them. My
hands were clutching the steering wheel so tightly that
my fingers cramped. I was still trying to steer the boat
but quickly realized that we were going nowhere -- the
mainsail had collapsed onto the deck.
“Grab
the sheets -- anything -- or we’ll lose the sail,”
Roger ordered. Panting from the struggle with the heavy
mainsail we stared at each other speechless. Finally,
Roger uttered glumly “Midship stays must’ve
snapped at the top of the stick.”
As we started
to gather tools and material to try and stabilize the
mast, a sharp wind shift from the north intensified quickly
and the waves heightened as a squall came in. We were
powerless and the wind was blowing us right into the Libyan
gulf of Sidra. This all happened during the time that
President Reagan and Libyan Colonel Kadafy were jousting
and threatening war.
The wind did
indeed blow us into Libyan waters and we were soon surrounded
by Gunboats with armed soldiers.
In case there
are readers who wish to read my book, I won’t spoil
the end of the narrative. It will suffice to note that this
episode contained my own experience of hell on the high
seas and one that I shall always remember.
