an Imperfect STORM

Posted By: richard L poletti
Date: 2/16/01 3:11p.m.

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AN IMPERFECT STORM by richard L poletti For three days now he had helped on load supplies and off load anything not absolutely necessary to the race. Sure, he would be little more than an extra back and rail meat for the boat, but he was also crewing in one of the world's most prestigious races . How many others his age could make that boast. Sailing a canoe a catamaran and dinghies had led to this moment but landing a spot on last years winning 36' sloop was just plain special. The little boats had taught him about weather and wind and how smells and sounds and zephyrs could help you win or sometimes help you survive. He had learned well the lessons of how bird movement or lack of it could forecast weather or sudden shifts. These next three days would be the payoff for having paid attention. As the warning horns sounded , the young man thought about his wife and kids at home, about the lie he had told them to cover his absence from work for the race week. He grimaced as he had to confront his dishonesty, but rationalized that he had never before missed a minute's work for anything sail related and that he would make it up to them by even taking a second job if necessary. But for now all he could really desire was to have his name carved on the trophy. By dawn of the second day of the race it appeared the physician owner/skipper of the sloop had that trophy all locked up thanks to his new suit of sails and some good tactical moves under cover of darkness. Even now in the almost non existent wind and light mist the huge green and white spinnaker combined with a light weight jenny and the slackly outhauled main were driving the boat nicely. It was almost at the same instant that the 3/4 ounce radial drooped on it's pole that the young man noticed that the seagulls that always followed looking for a handout were gone . Dawn had been shrouded in a grey mist and the yesterday swells took on the appearance of huge puddles of oil . Not a breath of air kissed the sails or waffled the water. Straining his eyes to see through the mist revealed not a bit of movement overhead. But the smell had changed , and his bare arms told him of slight, scarcely perceptible temperature drop. He knew at once what it all meant. He had been here before when he had pitchpoled and dismasted his catamaran. They were in the eye of a storm system. Surely the skipper must know too, he thought and yet no order had been given to lower the chute which would certainly be shredded once they moved away from the center. The rest of the crew were laid back and kind of off guard. The skipper seemed agitated at the lack of wind , but no one offered any concern that in a few minutes they could have way too much wind. Arguing with himself over the correctness of a confronting the skipper his timidity had nearly won. But then came the taste; that coppery taste that is said to accompany fear, but that the rookie had known as the presence of very high voltage. The storm was building around them . It was revealing itself subtly with highly charged ionized atmosphere . He could hear his brash self announcing to the skipper that the spinnaker must come down. He heard the skippers disgusted voice telling him that if he didn't like the way HE was running his boat that he should go below with the cook. Humbled and chastised he nearly missed hearing the skipper's order to the foredeck crew to drop the green and white and hoist the white and green .SKIPPER WAS REPLACING THE 3/4 OZ CHUTE with the 1 1/2 OZ . He tried to console himself with musings about how the skipper HAD paid him heed. Like a warning shot fired above the heads of a fugitive the first blast hit from port. Reliving scenes from the drill, the crew snapped onto the jackline as the white and green balloon snapped to attention with a jerk that was felt through the decks . The boom snapped across the deck stretching the mainsheet tight and all but the grinders and foredeck crew snapped into their assigned positions on the port rail. Amid shouts of excitement the sloop surged forward like a dragster. The second blast had ignored all the pleasantries as it pushed itself through the starboard door180 DEGREES AWAY from the first. Almost too quickly to remember the BIG spinnaker backwinded, the main jibed and the sloop became a mere flyswatter in the hands of the gods. A Monday night shoestring tackle, a big time wrestling body slam could not have laid the boat flatter . It was a toy sailboat in a backyard pond. Dangling in the water with the rest of the crew, the young man summarized the situations gravity by concern that his new boots that had cost nearly a weeks pay might be ruined as the cold water filled them. Around him there was a lot of shouting, some moaning and what appeared to be blood streaming from the dull knife perforated stainless toe rail. A section of finger was jammed in the rail's stamped out holes. He must remember not to use that rail as a handhold when the boat righted itself. A trace of panic fell on him as he wondered why the sloop wasn't coming back up. A shout, a scream came from below decks, MAN THE PUMPS WE'RE TAKING ON WATER! It was the cook. He had opened a porthole to eliminate the nausea making cooking smells which filled the boat during the lull. Now that porthole was sinking them. It was then that the rookie realized that maybe he would NEVER see his family again. That because of his lie to them they wouldn't even know where to look for him . Against that backdrop the familiar sound of the automatic bilge pump hummed. Then the second pump whirred! The pumps were losing the battle! From somewhere below a small gasoline engine could be heard , then the slurp- whoosh of a six inch trash pump ,then a huge hose stuck it's head out the companionway. The hose, which reminded the young man of a python with heaves was dumping its load just above his head. Moving aft from under the discharge he saw the skipper still at the helm . Half kneeling, half standing , solidly lashed to the spoke- missing wheel by a tether noosed around a ragdoll right arm, the skipper appeared to be unconscious. Looking forward, one of the foredeck crew was beginning an assault on the spinnaker while standing on docklines looped like ascenders round the windlass body. Worsening seas caused more frequent and harsher tugs on the tether and his harness, but the slight up attitude of the mast indicated that the pumps were finally catching up . Now the problem of how to get himself back on board ate up his thoughts . Looking at the severed finger piece still lodged in the toerail the rookie remembered how he used to hike out on his catamaran suspended by a trapeze. If he could get his boots on the toe rail and use a firm grip on the tether as his trapeze , when the boat righted he would be literally thrown back on board without having to risk his hands at all. Fifteen minutes in the 50degree water had already slowed his physiological processes, but struggling he managed to get boots up on the rail just as the sloop got to her feet. Things happened so fast in the next few minutes that he needed to remember it in slow motion. First it appeared that only four of the crew were aboard. the unconscious skipper , one foredeck man the cook and himself. The cook was busy manning pumps , the foredeck crew was in a futile struggle with an uncontrollable sail . He would have to do what was needed . Only time would be able to judge his choices now. Perhaps his first thought should have been for the boat perhaps for the crew. Cold and shivering himself he chose the crew and began lowering a sling into the water. Before any of the grasping hands could grab for the sling , he could feel the wind change on his face. The sloop was sailing fast now on a reach with no one at the helm. The skipper's weight had , by virtue of the new position put the helm over . The second capsize was slower and maybe could be considered a good thing since now all the tethered crew were on the high side and it was easier to get them back aboard as the boat began to right for the second time . Those that could, helped to drop the main, cut loose the spinnaker and helped the more seriously wounded to the warmth of the cabin. . Before the trip was done the young man would learn how to set and splint a compound fracture. ( the owners right arm ) how to give injections, how to support broken ribs and how to suture a severed finger in place. As sort of an apology the skipper gave up the helm for the rest of the race in deference to the young man . Parties were already in full swing when the sloop arrived at Macinaw Island but the young man couldn't wait to see his family again and in a borrowed car made his way downstate. To this day he has never crewed in another major race. The moral I see in this story is that maybe Fate sees fit to give some of us more and bigger toys but SAILORS have all sizes of boats.