Night. Trade winds East-Northeast, force 3. Mountains of Martinique silhouetted against the starry sky to the East. Stars bright but a little fuzzy through the warm, humid tropical air. The creak of ropes on the mast as the heavy sail shifts harmonizes with the splash of waves against the hull and the flutish whistling of the aluminum tube battons from the breeze blowing across their open ends. All 3 sails up, starboard tack, the ship rolling with the gentle waves and heaving slowly Northward, about five miles off the coast. Helmsman in wheelhouse and sleepy watch on deck. The heavy block and tackle of the starboard sheets diagonally crosses the deck to the aft end of the mainsail hanging out to port; after the euphroe smaller ropes rise weblike to the batton ends of the swaying sail. Chinese Junk rig: mainsail the main driver, foresail about half its size and right at the head of the ship, with part suspended past the head; the mast leans forward at a ten degree angle. The mizzen over the wheelhouse at the stern half as big as the fore, a steering sail.
“Eight bells, and all’s well!” The deck watch gives the traditional call for the watch to be turned over, after four double tugs of the rope attached to the clapper of the ship’s brass bell, mounted on the mizzen mast just forward of the wheelhouse. The “Rat Watch” (12 to 4) is going off duty, and the “Golden Middle Watch” (so-called because they see sunrise and sunset), yawning and rubbing eyes, takes over, having been snatched from their dreams by the usual “ten minutes’ warning.” The “Gentleman’s Watch” (8 to 12) remain snug in their bunks.
Jack relays the compass course and hands over the wheel to Sarah, who perches on the high cane stool, glancing at the rudder indicator above the eight spoked wheel and the compass behind it. Through the large square windows at deck level ahead, she can dimly make out the mainsail. As the wind is on the beam, the ship holds quite steady and needs little rudder adjustment to keep her on course.
Meanwhile Hans, the deck watch, points out to Chris, taking his place, a few dim ships’ lights in the distance; nothing close; nothing else to report. Below in the command room, Dorothy, the officer of the watch, shows Dmitri, the officer coming on, the ship’s dead reckoning position on the chart, taped to the chart board, nearly vertical in front of the helmsman’s platform.
As usual in the tropics, all are barefoot and wear shorts or thin cotton trousers and short sleeve shirts. Chris sits on the wooden Rigger’s box lashed to the starboard rails with his left foot on the sunken wheelhouse to brace against the ship’s rolls and carries on with the usual watch work when there is nothing more important: making “baggy wrinkles.” He slices old manila rope into 6″ pieces with his sharp rigger’s knife against a piece of scrap wood, untwists it to separate the yarns, then inserts those in between the strands of another piece of old rope, fluffing out the ends. When finished, this will make a length of soft but tough round cushion, like a luxuriant fur muff, which sailors will wrap around the stays of the mast where the sail rubs against them to prevent them from chafing holes in the cloth or wearing away the battons.
Now and then he takes a good look around to spot the lights of any ships that might be approaching.
Meanwhile Lucy has gone below decks to the galley to brew them all some hot coffee on the little kerosene burning primus stove. It’s still too early for the breakfast cook to have started a fire in the big cast iron wood burning stove.
Early dawn “comes up like thunder…” Sky lightens to grey, pink over the island to East, stars fade. Small fluffy cumulus clouds march smoothly with the steady trades. Tropical day brightens, North end of the island nears the starboard beam. Smoke appears from the galley stovepipe and flits away to port. Across the channel ahead the hills of Dominica show faintly.
As the ship clears the lee of the cliffs, suddenly the wind increases to force 5. The ship rolls heavily to port and the foresail swings out, taking the full force of the wind and with a loud crack the foremast breaks just above deck and falls into the water, taking the sail and all the rigging with it.
Heave to! All hands! The mast, now acting as a sea anchor, floats about 30 feet off the starboard bow, held to the ship by the steel wire shrouds, surrounded by a tangle of rigging. The young captain, rushing up and surveying the scene, knows that the aluminum mast, floating with the broken end above water, will soon sink and the sail might be lost.
He prepares a rope – one of the mooring lines, one and a half inch twisted nylon, 150 feet long – to tie around the mast and gets ready to jump in and swim to it. But Gypsy, with motherly concern, stops him, declaring, “You are not going in there without a life vest.”
He thinks he could do it but he succumbs to this and sends someone below for a life vest, though he knows seconds are critical. And indeed, by the time he has the vest on, the mast has sunk.
He sends for, and puts on, scuba equipment: black neoprene wetsuit pants and vest, stiff rubber flippers, lead weight belt, buoyancy compensator vest with attached compressed air tank, and his personal silicon mask with attached snorkel. He snaps the air hose onto the BC and inflates it. He seats the mask over nose and eyes, puts the regulator in his mouth, takes the end of the rope and jumps in. The mast now hangs directly below the ship, suspended by the taut wire ropes.
He flippers with strong leg strokes down through the clear water, squeezing and blowing his nose to equalize pressure. He comes to the end of the mast, at least 12 fathoms down, and sees that the sail is hanging by a single rope about 10 feet under it. He swims down with the end of the rope aiming to swim under and wrap the rope around the sail. But suddenly his rope yanks him back. Why has the crew pulled on the rope? Then he sees he is far below the end of the mast. While he was swimming down, the rope holding the sail broke and he unknowingly followed it as it slowly sank.
The captain looks down to see the sail below diminishing in apparent size. He looks up to see the mast hanging, the rolling black ship’s hull, and the sunlight rippling on the wavy surface far above. At that moment breathing in becomes difficult; he has to pull hard with his lungs. The tank has run out of air. “Sucking metal,” divers call it.
He ascends, breathing out, and breaks the surface, bobbing up and down with the waves. From silence to splashing, voices, breeze. Grateful deep breath. Cool air on skin and hair.
“Pull me in!”