This tidbit, tertiary and titillating, is the triumphant termination of another Tadventure© trilogy and requires you, the astute reader, after studied consideration, to draw a conclusion. This is your opportunity to cast your lot, with a complete understanding of the facts (upon which all Tadventures© are based), for or against, in re the judgments taken and decisions made by your remarkably good looking scribe.
The last time I sat you on my metaphysical lap, the able and hearty crew had managed to find themselves in the right place at the right time, preparing for an early morning departure from St. Augustine, Florida; our destination was Norfolk, Virginia via the Gulf Stream, that magical and rapidly moving oceanic conveyor belt. As you may also recall, I had put the kibosh on an evening departure due to the recent northeasterly winds that resulted in a rather unpleasant sea state (on the nose).
I failed to mention in Part 2 of this gripping tale that while we were sitting on the boat, waiting for the imminent arrival of Driver, that I looked off in the distance to the East and was rewarded by the sight of a full blown tornado, not five miles away. I’m not one to believe in omens (that’s a complete and total lie) but I was mildly concerned.
The tornadic threat unrequited, Driver onboard, and copious amounts of gin and tonic flowing, we had a delicious Cuban repast courtesy of Captain Danger’s culinary competence. After we finished, Captain D gave it his highest acclaim: “That’ll make a turd.” Off to bed we went, an o’dark hundred departure looming.
Early the next morning I awoke and banged and clattered about in an attempt to wake the slumbering crew. I made coffee, ran the jack lines, and generally made a nuisance of myself. Those boys are good sleepers.
They finally rolled out of their beds as the moon set and the sun began to peek over the horizon, yielding sufficient daylight to get underway. I raised and made fast the anchor and we pointed to bow to the northeast, our destination 700 miles and four days in the future.
Leaving St. Augustine confirmed the Captain’s sage and careful decision to wait 12 hours to leave as we were met with very large seas, right on the nose. I asked Captain D to “throttle her up, Bert!” to help make way as we pounded directly into five or six foot seas, water burying the bow every few seconds, foam splashing down the side decks. I looked at Driver (a renowned puker from way back) and “Pete” (I guess the confused motion of the boat caused him to finally get out of bed) and asked them if they had taken their seasickness medication. They both averred in the affirmative (but the looks on their faces caused me to question the efficacy of the dosage). It was a bit “trying” as the St. Augustine channel has beaches on both sides; watching great huge breaking waves in proximity is not a lot of fun, especially at the beginning of a passage.
Eventually we cleared the narrow confines of the marked channel and turned to hoist the sails. You may remember this scene from a “Dire Wolf Heads South” offering:
Our first experience on the Wolf was not a good one as we turned into the wind to raise the main sail and the main halyard (the rope that pulls the main up) was torn from Gary’s tiny, feminine, professorial hands and began streaming aftward, virtually horizontal from the top of the mast, 55 feet away. I stood ably at the helm, adjusting the throttle to provide enough forward movement through the choppy seas to maintain steerage while Captain Danger put down his beer and headed forward to rescue Colonel Wolf. I made a mental note, “Crap. An hour out and we’re already acting like the three stooges.”
I astutely suggested turning the boat down wind to reduce the apparent wind velocity, ease the pounding of the waves, and encourage the halyard to return to earth (or, in this case, someplace we could reach it). That worked magnificently, except for the halyard reaching part; it was now flying at about 45 degrees from the mast head to the front of the boat, some ten feet above the deck. A little patience, a ten foot boat hook, and some rather comical attempts to snag the halyard found us, halyard in hand, ready to “try again.” I turned the boat back into the wind and we managed to hoist the main.
I’m not sure you recall that particular happenstance but with the wind whistling through my manly shock of hair, seas breaking all around me, and the deck, rising and falling like a nubile young, er, (nevermind that) beneath my feet, I thought of that very same thing. And, sure enough, the halyard was ripped from my hand, taking flight where no halyard ought to be, streaming straight out to port, my grasp lacking only sixty feet of reach. [Expletive deleted.] I thought immediately of what to do (so I could shout it to Captain D at the helm) when the wind did something, the boat did something, and the halyard returned, as if it were a boomerang out for a stroll, to my outstretched hand. I clasped upon it, affixed it to its proper place, and raised the mains’l.
After setting all the other laundry out (stays’l and genoa), we turned on the autopilot and watched the speedometer to see when the Gulf Stream would latch upon our keel, hurling us northward. Since we were 100 miles from the stream (almost 20 hours of sailing), we were soon bored.
Driver attached his deep sea rod holder to a nearby lifeline stanchion, trolled out a suitable lure, and sat back in preparation for hauling in a big one. I glanced anxiously about, wondering what would break on the boat first. “Agu” had a beer. “Pete” had a nap. It was a happy crew.
We changed watch at noon, Captain D and Driver relieving me and “Pete,” and I headed off for a nap. I woke sometime later and was pleased to see the seas had abated as we made our way to deeper water; unfortunately, the wind was not shifting southeast as we had hoped; south easterlies would have been primo for sailing. The ride was a bit bumpy but nothing that Marieusz couldn’t handle with ease. I looked around some more to see what might have broken (or was about to).
Just as “Agu” was about to prepare another incredible meal, Driver shouted, “FISH ON!” and reached for his offshore rig. After a brief struggle, he landed, with “Agu’s” able hand on a sharp and pointy gaff, a rather large (three or four feet) aquatic creature. “Keep it the hell out of my cockpit,” I said helpfully. What ensued was a thoughtful discussion.
I swam about in the Caribbean for some time and witnessed, very much too close for my personal comfort, scads and oodles of barracudas. The scaly piscatorial prey flopping about my side deck looked awfully familiar to me. Driver and Captain D maintained that it was a member of the “tasty game fish” varietal: a wahoo. Naturally, as is my wont, I deferred to them.
Driver, teeth clenching a sharp and pointed filet knife, made quick time of it, dashing the fish’s hopes and dreams but fulfilling our need to say we caught something (and justifying Driver dragging a rod and reel all over the United States). He handed me the filets which I passed to Captain D who placed them in a waiting pan. The menu, it seemed, had been modified. Man, that was good.
As we picked our teeth and scratched ourselves, we chatted amiably about the dangers of ciguatera, a heinous affliction brought on by the consumption of reef fish; especially barracuda. [I was going to cut/paste some information about the disease but it’s too convoluted; even for me. See: Google.] “Pete” and I assumed the watch, it then being six o’clock in the evening.
We stood ably our watches throughout the night, “Pete” admired the Milky Way, and I looked around to see if something was broken. The early morning sunrise was greeted with smiles and lukewarm coffee. “Pete” and I pulled the 0600 to noon watch and then repaired to our racks for some sleep; the boat was motoring along as we tried to slow down and time our arrival at Cape Hatteras so it did not coincide with the forecasted northeasterly winds.
At some point (circa 1400), I was startled awake by a change in the pitch of the engine (you know how you can always discern some minor change in a familiar sound). I leapt out of bed and headed for the cockpit, there to ask “Agu” and Driver what was going on. They said the wind had piped up and they were preparing to resume sailing.
[I’ll never mention this again but the reason I was “concerned” by the sound of the engine was because it had been taken out of gear while it was still running at high RPM. There, that’s off my chest. I counseled the “watch” that they should throttle back under 1,000 RPM before changing gear and went back to bed.]
Unable to sleep much because of the heat (we were, by this time, in the throes of the Gulf Stream, trying desperately to keep the speed under 8 knots so we didn’t meet northeasterly winds at Cape Hatteras; did I mention the northeasterly winds forecast for Cape Hatteras?), I headed up to the cockpit and spent a lot of time doing absolutely nothing. Around 1500, the wind died and we decided to motor some more.
I took the helm and reached to put the transmission in neutral before starting the engine (I always sail with the transmission in reverse; otherwise, it spins freely and just wears out the shaft and other propulsion gear). I was struck by the fact that the lever was difficult to move; that was decidedly not normal.
I left the helm to start the engine, “Agu” took his place behind the wheel. The engine fired up and he eased the gear shift forward to be greeted by a screeching sound and an ungodly vibration. “Toss her in neutral and shut it down,” I cried. I suspected the cutlass bearing had failed.
[Faithful readers will recall that my return from the Caribbean was troubled, as I motored up the Chesapeake on the final leg home, by the loss of the cutlass bearing– a sleeve-like aperture through which the propeller shaft passes from the inside of the boat to the outside of the boat. If it fails, the shaft can bounce around and cause all manner of vibration and icky-in-your-stomach feelings. It also means you can’t drive the boat with the engine.]
I rushed below and began to remove all manner of “stuff” blocking my access to the propeller shaft, inconveniently located under a small hatch under the cockpit floor. Once clear, I grabbed the shaft and gave it a yank (if the cutlass bearing fails, the shaft should move around rather than remain closely bound in the comfy grasp of the bearing). It didn’t move.
I got a flashlight and peered around the nether regions of the dark and machinery filled space. It was incredibly hot in there with the engine still warm from being run earlier in the day (it takes forever to fully cool) and the warm weather, and the warm Gulf Stream. Looking around I noticed there was a bolt missing from the propeller shaft and transmission coupling flange (there were four holes and three bolts; I deduced the rest). I called Driver down to hand me tools and found a bolt suitable to secure the coupling. My hope was that the vibration and noise was the result of the missing bolt; perhaps the shaft was bouncing because a bolt was missing.
Driver came below and handed me sockets and wrenches as I struggled to insert and tighten a new bolt (and all the other ones, just in case). Eventually, the bolt snugly in place (and a 17mm socket deposited somewhere in the bilge, out of reach, out of sight), I called for “Agu” to start the engine and put it in gear.
The sound was horrendous and my thoughts of a simple repair were dashed. The good news: it was not the cutlass bearing. The bad news: the screeching was emanating from the transmission. Truthfully, it didn’t matter. I couldn’t fix either one 75 miles offshore in the middle of the Gulf Stream trying to evade a northeasterly storm, forecast to hit Cape Hatteras (I mentioned that, right?). Frankly, the transmission was the “better” problem since it wasn’t a part of the boat through which the ocean might seep. I headed for the cockpit to deliver the news to the crew.
I looked around and only counted two others on deck. “Where is Driver?” I asked and was answered instanter by the unmistakable sound of someone being relieved of their lunch. Looking below, I spied Driver puking into my brand new bucket (another piece of gear he brought on his hitchhiking adventure).
“The transmission is hosed,” I announced, wiping copious sweat from my brow. “You stink,” said Captain Danger, his bedside manner beyond reproach. “What should we do?” I said.
[This is IT! You get to review the entire, FACTUAL history and pass judgment, your task to determine, “What should they have done?”
The situation:
We were in the middle of the Gulf Stream heading rapidly northward, a strong northeasterly wind forecast to meet us at Cape Hatteras. We were about 75 miles offshore, just southeast of Charleston, South Carolina, site of the Plantation, the comfy confines of Colonel and Mrs. Wolf (oh yeah, they usually have single malt scotch). We had no engine. We had plenty of food and water. We were in no danger. No one was sick (well, he was puking but it never lasted long). Norfolk was about 400 miles away (two to three days). We were, of course, a goddamn sailboat.
Ok. You have the facts. What would you have done?]
