Square seas and whining winds muffled the sound of the impact, but I knew we’d hit something very hard and very solid.
The second thing that crossed my mind was, “Well it serves me right.”
When had I become so arrogant as to openly invite the wrath of Neptune?
There is nothing worse than a know-it-all sailor drunk with hubris, and as I summoned the crew to the deck in a shrill voice that left little doubt as to the seriousness of the situation, I knew, in the pit of my gut, that this predicament was my own damned fault.
By the way, the first thing that crossed my mind was, “I hope these cruising catamarans really are unsinkable.”
Three days before, I had brazenly chased a fair northwest wind out of Port Everglades, tossing tradition overboard like a twisted beer can.
I didn’t care that it was Friday; I even congratulated myself that I was no longer shackled by that silly superstition, and I chuckled remembering how I used to delay passages until the wee hours of Saturday morning just to appease the Gods. Sailing a modern boat, I felt like a modern man for one of the few times in my life
—to heck with all that sailing lore.
The prospect of delivering a powerful Outremer 50 catamaran from Ft. Lauderdale to Galveston seemed like a nice way to make some money and experience a steady diet of double-digit speeds, which leaves monohull sailors like me feeling exhilarated and guilty at the same time. I knew that a November crossing of the Gulf of Mexico might produce some surprises, including an early northerly blow or late season tropical storm, but for most part it’s a good sailing month to head for the Texas coast.
Along with Bill Williamson, a steady mate with six decades sailing experience, I joined the boat’s new owner Morgan Jones, a recently retired Dallas attorney with a deep voice and penchant for telling wonderful stories. Also along for the ride was his girlfriend, Vicki, whose sailing experience consisted of having read several articles on the subject. I’d given the boat a thorough inspection the day before, and after tossing the last provisions aboard, we shoved off on a glorious Friday morning.
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Our plan was to find the narrow offshore lane inside the Gulf Stream current while skirting the Florida Keys reef.
At Key West, we’d follow the northwest channel into the Gulf and then mirror the rhumb
line to Galveston, a 950-mile passage that I hoped to complete in five or six days.
There was nothing to suggest I’d offended the Gods yet again as we sailed south on a sweet reach.
Although our speed over the bottom wasn’t what I’d hoped for, I chalked it up to the negative impact of the current.
Twenty-four hours out of Lauderdale, we cleared Key West and angled toward the Gulf.
Vicki, who wasn’t feeling very well, to say the least, was making that time-honored discovery that sailing writers lie like dogs when it comes to describing the magic of offshore sailing. She peered enviously at the rock steady buildings of the last resort and although she didn’t say anything, it didn’t take Freud to realize that she would have loved to jump ship.
The winds clocked to the east and settled in at 15 to 20 knots. Blasting along on a beam reach with the roachy full battened main and screecher drawing greedily, I was dreaming of throwing a rooster and overtaking an oil tanker. We were scooting, the speedo topped 10 knots, then 12, then we hit 14 and surfing down a wave 16 knots! Yes, now this was sailing, who needs a keel? Yet something was wrong. The GPS showed our speed over the ground at eight knots, nine, and very occasionally 10 knots. Assuming the GPS had to be wrong, I dug out my hand held unit. The electronic gizmos stuck together, a digital, cold-hearted conspiracy accurate to the last 100th of a knot. I grudgingly accepted that the speedo was inaccurate, probably adjusted by the broker just prior to the sea trial, but something else was amiss—the discrepancy was too great. That’s when I first began to worry about our Friday departure.
All through the day and into the night our speed through the water and over the ground differed significantly.
It was obvious we were in the clutches of a foul current and I vaguely recalled reading about the “loop current.”
The Gulf Stream is born in the Yucatan Channel, and while the main body of the current arcs east and then north, gathering strength in the narrow Straits of Florida, a renegade band of warm water sets north into the Gulf before looping back to join its brother waters heading for Ireland.
This stray current or loop current, varies in size and strength, but according to meteorologist and Gulf Stream Guru Jenifer Clarke, “on rare occasions it’s stronger than the main body.”
This was one of those rare occasions
—a four-knot foul current was plugging us.
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| "When a pot jumped off the stove she exclaimed, 'What else can go wrong?' I bit my tongue, realizing that her learning curve was unfairly steep. " |
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Vicki was doing her best to keep her spirits buoyed but the knowledge that the trip would take longer than anticipated because of the sinister loop current was not news she embraced.
When a pot jumped off the
stove she exclaimed, “What else can go wrong?”
I bit my tongue, realizing that her learning curve was unfairly steep.
In the grand scope of sailing trips this one had been nearly perfect. Aside from a mean spirited current, things were going great.
I decided not to tell her the many possibilities of what might yet go wrong.
As it turned out, she’d find out soon enough.
That night the winds shifted to the south and picked up to 25 knots.
Beam seas rocked the boat as we flew westward.
I had the 0200 – 0500 watch.
Perched on the helm seat, I was admiring how well the
autopilot was steering when suddenly we shuddered to a full stop.
I careened into the wheel and ricocheted off the bulkhead.
Quickly dragging myself to my feet,
absolutely certain we’d stove in the port hull, I screamed, “All hands on deck, now, now.”
I am not one to overreact ,but I wanted everybody where I could see them.
I was sure that I’d finally found that floating cargo container with my name on it.
Morgan grabbed the wheel and Bill went for the
liferaft and abandon-ship bag, just like we had discussed many times over the years. I rolled in the headsail and then took a spotlight and dashed forward.
From the trampoline I illuminated the hull, expecting the worse. Surprisingly it looked intact.
We were not riding low in the water either. I shined the light from both sides of the hull, but the damage wasn’t visible. I charged below and frantically removed the floorboard in the port hull.
The bilge was dry, we weren’t leaking!
I was stunned.
I carefully inspected the daggerboard trunk
—it wasn’t breached or for that matter, even cracked.
Finally I made my way to the starboard hull and from the escape
hatch in the head I peered across at the inside of the port hull.
As my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I noticed that the daggerboard was wrapped like a pretzel around the inside of the hull.
It had taken the brunt of impact and given way just like it was designed to do.
Miraculously after the collision we must have veered hard to starboard, sparing the hull, rudder, and prop shaft. I am an optimist, so I considered this a stroke of blind, but very good, luck.
The light of day revealed that the inside of the port hull was badly scratched and soon what was left of the daggerboard disappeared into the purplish depths of the Gulf.
We were left with just the starboard daggerboard, but given the other range of possible consequences, I was content with one. Although some multihull experts recommend sailing with lee daggerboard deployed instead of the windward board, it felt unnatural to me. Yet, the boat was stable and we carried as much sail as we dared. We had to keep moving since that early season cold front that I dreaded was, in fact, heading our way. A massive front was stalled in the Rockies but forecast to create gale conditions along the coast in 48 hours.
We soon came across an odd looking ship and hailed it on the
VHF.
It was named
Deepwater Pathfinder, a platform ship dynamically held in place over a floating drilling
rig.
The chart showed that the ship was mining the ocean floor in just over 4,000 feet of water
—no oil is safe these days.
And this was just the beginning.
As darkness descended, we encountered the first of hundreds of stationary oil and gas
rigs that pepper the coasts of Texas and Louisiana. Most of the rigs are lit up like moderately sized cities, but some old abandoned pipes and platforms occasionally lose their
lights.
We swerved around a couple of unlit structures, remembering to be thankful for
radar.
The rest of the crew didn’t know that when I was below in my cabin I was chanting psalms to Neptune, swearing to never leave port on a Friday again.
We beat the cold front but not the violent thunderstorms preceding it.
Then just off the coast we were blasted by nasty squalls. Eerie horizontal
lighting would illuminate the entire sky
—at times I could swear I could see a trident pointing my way.
I hoped that the massive metal structures all around us would prove more inviting than our measly 70 feet section of aluminum, and that our
radar unit would keep working.
Conditions eased as we spotted and then cleared the Galveston jetties just past midnight.
We had no time to celebrate. A New-England-style pea soup fog replaced the driving rain. We were committed to navigating one of the busiest commercial harbors in the world in dense fog.
And Vicki had wondered what else could go wrong?
Bill manned the
radar and Morgan had a steady hand on the helm.
I stood on the bow with the spotlight shouting steering instructions.
We made our way through the harbor and into the narrow Houston Ship channel.
Fifteen slow miles later we veered out of the channel toward the entrance to Clear Lake.
Soon the jarring noise of a
radio blasting Vietnamese music pierced the silence
—an effective foghorn to be sure.
As we crept past the anchored fishing boat, the Vietnamese fishermen waved nonchalantly.
“This must have been what it was like in the Mekong
Delta,” Bill joked as we plodded ahead looking for the entrance buoy.
“No,” I said, “This is just what you get for leaving port on Friday.”
