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Tod Maltby
This story got way to long! I had to go back and shorten it. I have never written this tale down and when I got going the words were really flowing. Hope you find it interesting.
Watching Sunday nights “60 Minutes” episode about the loss of the freighter “El Faro” hit a note and brought back memories for me.
Two friends; Tom and Bob; and I were sailing a 32 foot Westsail Ketch “Isabel” across the North Atlantic. Our First stop was Bantry, Ireland. Tom taught classes in navigation at the University of Ohio and he wanted to challenge his skills by going “Old School;” using nothing but compass and sextant.
Big Problem! To use a sextant you need to take sightings on the sun, moon & stars. After leaving Newfoundland we never saw the sky for 16 days! Just one storm after another, constant cloudiness. We had to resort to an even more primitive method called “Dead Reckoning” using a compass and a clock. After two weeks of this, a Russian freighter heading for Canada passed very close to us. We talked to them for quite some time on the radio and they gave us a position fix with their GPS. Our dead reckoning had been excellent and we were just about where we had plotted.
Side Note: Almost everyone I have encountered in the ocean could speak some English!
After a few good days we were South of Iceland and stymied again by the thickest fog I have ever encountered. I’m on a 32’ boat, sitting in the cockpit, and I cant see the bow rail. There was no wind and we just had to drift along.
A few more good days, we were nearing Ireland but we started hearing storm warnings on the radio for our area, Soon “Storm Warning” became “Severe Storm Warning” then “Extreme Storm Warning.” We were somewhat nonchalant, owing to the fact we had just endured two weeks of storms, and it didn’t quite hit me what “Extreme” meant.
By early afternoon the sky was so black it seemed liked midnight, not midday. Soon the wind began to blow; and blow it did! We dropped all the sails with the exception of a small storm sail on the mizzen mast (rear). That was to help steer the boat into the wave. By evening, I learned how the term: “Shrieking Wind” originated. I’d never heard anything like that. Sort of like standing behind a 747 as it starts its takeoff. It is impossible to carry on a conversation, just yell a few words.
Soon the waves were like liquid mountains coming up behind us. I swear that sometimes coming down the face of a wave we were going straight down! The hull of the boat would scream and groan going down and then quiet as we hit the trough and started rising again. We were wearing safety harnesses and had strobes attached to our jackets but in these conditions if you went overboard there would be no chance of rescue. Unless boats happened to reach the crest of a wave at precisely the same time, you would never see another boat, even one quite close.
The ocean is full of bioluminescent plankton and when the water gets whipped up to a froth they begin to glow. In a scene that’s right out of a Fellini movie you have black waves with this light green froth being blown off the top like whipped cream off a cup of hot chocolate.
Our boat was a Ketch; meaning it had 2 masts; the Mainmast in the center of the hull and the smaller Mizzen mast at the rear. We were using the mizzen and rudder to steer into the waves. It is important not to get crosswise in big waves; the boat will get swamped. About 9pm a rogue wave hit us on the port side, knocked the boat on its side. The boat righted itself and as I surveyed damage I saw that the mizzen mast was gone, Gone! In desperation, we started the auxiliary diesel to help steer but it wasn’t much help as at the wave crest the screw (propeller) would come out of the water and the boat would lurch to the left and because the rudder was mostly out of the water we were out of control. We had a spool of spare anchor rode which we lashed to the transom and .unspooled behind the boat. Amazing how much drag 200’ of 1 inch rope has when being dragged through the water. That held us in a good position in the monster waves. I glanced up at the wind indicator at the top of the main mast just in time to see it fly off, soon to be followed by the masthead light. That really worried me because if we lost the top of the main we would be dead in the water when the storm subsided.
Around midnight we heard a distress call from a freighter that was breaking up and taking on water. We plotted their position from their SOS and realized they were only a few hundreds yards to our north. We began working our way toward then just in case we saw something. With the waves so high we could not see them even though they were close. The Irish Coast Guard was telling them to hang on; the soonest a cutter could get there would be Noon and helicopters were out of the question in this storm. Several crew members sent radio messages to loved ones because they really believed it was the end.
2 am: another knockdown! I am amazed at how easily the boat rights itself when there are no sails. When the cockpit drains this time there are several needlefish flopping around our feet. Tom steps on one and takes a bad fall, injuring his shoulder. Battery is low, radio weak. We start the diesel and let it idle to charge the batteries. We hear another SOS from a ship farther north. They have lost all power and are adrift, unable to control their ship.
Around 5 am the wind shifts to the South meaning we have passed through the center of the storm and it should start to subside. Dawn brought another strange sight; the wind had whipped up so much froth the ocean looked like covered in snow.
We thought our radio was weak because of batteries but now that we could see I found it was because our antenna was gone, along with our auxiliary water tank and propane tank. I rigged a makeshift antenna and we were back on the radio. Two helicopters appear out of the clouds; a very large one and a smaller one. They hover over the stricken freighter and we monitor their radio transmissions; several injured crewman are airlifted out, the others elect to stay and keep the boat afloat until a tow arrives. The smaller helicopter flies over us and asks “what the Hell are we doing out here?” and if we are in need of rescue. We told them we were Americans on a cruise and we were a bit battered but OK. Long silence and then they flew away.
I had made a large thermos of coffee and some sandwiches when we first heard the weather report and it was now time to make some more. Hmm; no propane. I thought I would heat a pot of water on the exhaust manifold of the diesel so we could have a hot cup. Just when the water was tepid the engine quit. Out of fuel! Well a cold cup of instant coffee would be better than nothing. Wrong! When I tasted it I realized our main water tank was contaminated with sea water and our auxiliary tank had gone overboard during the storm. Oh Well; we’ve still got some good bottles of wine and the weather is supposed to be good for a few days.
As we approached the Irish coast, the offshore wind was a real impediment. Without the mizzen sail it was difficult to head into the wind. One day we tacked back and forth for 125 miles and only made 5 miles forward progress! Late that evening we spotted a fishing boat ahead. We called on the radio and told them we would like to buy some water and diesel fuel. They never answered. The next morning we were awakened by the sounds of a ship very close. It was an Irish Navy Man o’war. They asked if we had seen a mysterious fishing boat. They said they were Portuguese fishermen illegally fishing in Irish waters and if the caught them they would sink their boat.
The next afternoon we limped into Bantry Bay. What a beautiful place! As we approached the dock we could see several people standing there waving to us. The first one to board was Jack, the local veterinarian, who asked if we had any American cigarettes. Then others came wanting to hear our story of the storm. Jack led us to the customs office in town and then off to a steak dinner and a pint. Several pints later we stumbled back to the boat; as we came down the hill I could see people moving around on the dock. Turns out, people hearing our tale had got some folks together had a bucket brigade to fill our water tank.
And so it went; for the next few days everywhere we went we were treated like heroes home from the war. A journalist for The London Time who was on holiday in Bantry checked out of his hotel and joined us on board for a few days as we sailed along the coast. The topper came when we arrived at Kinsale Harbour; they were hosting the world 505 championships there. A 505 is a small sailboat used in the Olympics. There were boats everywhere. The Harbormaster came out and led us to a mooring spot right on the racecourse with a cry “We bin expectin’ ya boys.” He then took us ashore for a dinner at The Royal Irish Yacht Club and we spent the night on a soft bed. Wonderful!
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