~ Offshore Threat ~

by

Nancy Lindley-Gauthier

“You want to talk to me about structural integrity, now?” Charlie shouted into the screaming wind. The big sloop shot down into the trough of a wave and they all grabbed at their safety lines. Water surged up over the deck and swirled nearly to the pilot’s stand before receding.

The forty-foot sailboat emerged from the sea like an old dog shaking after a bath, shedding water in all directions. Ollie saw Charlie steady himself as he brought the wheel just slightly port. The old sailboat might not be in race contention, but she was still in one piece and had ploughed through another swell. The old girl surfed happily along the leading edge of the next wave. They had her storm jib still up and even that was a bit brazen. Not so much on account of the seas, the wind, or the age of the old sloop, but more because of the general incompetence of her crew.

Olivia Grey, Ollie to this haphazard crew, realized none of them were managing to work together, and if not for Charlie’s singular ability, they already would have suffered a knockdown or worse. Incredibly, in spite of his own very apparent lack of skill, Georges, the boat owner, kept arguing with Charlie.

“We haven’t any choice but to keep sailing,” Charlie shouted with finality.

Georges clung miserably amidships, huddled onto the deck. He gave no sign of having heard. It was useless yelling at the man, now, Ollie thought. The poor guy just wanted to turn on that engine and head for shore.

She kept an eye grimly on the horizon. The swells seemed never ending. She felt the Sirenia struggle up the backside of a wave. Ollie leaned into her safety harness as the boat rolled heavily port and spray surged up over the toe boards to claw at the deck.

“This isn’t exactly a massive storm either, is it?” Charlie growled at Georges, but then almost sounded reassuring, saying, “We can manage. We can manage.”

Still, Ollie couldn’t fault Charlie. Georges, the captain, had hired her as a temporary crew member. Only days ago he had claimed to be a very knowledgeable sailor. Now ballast would be more helpful. He couldn’t even scan the seas for cresting waves, other boats, or debris. Ollie was on deck during her off time just to try to help keep watch.

“She’ll do it, she’ll do it if her old hull holds together,” Charlie said, louder. Maybe he noticed that it made little impression on Georges. Ollie saw him shake his head at the swaying man before him, but she understood Charlie’s motivation all too well. They didn’t have the fuel to get them in safely. She suspected Charlie didn’t want to mention that hard fact; he wouldn’t want to panic any of his novice crew.

“We’ve a few hours is all,” Charlie said. “Georges, if we can get keep that little storm jib up, we’ll be in the protected waters of the bay before dark. You stay up here and keep all your safety gear on, and you can spell me and help watch out ahead, right?”

They all had bruises from being knocked off balance or slamming into gear or decking by the persistent waves. They’d all had bouts of seasickness, and now that the air temperature seemed to be dropping, she thought even the men had to be feeling as damp and cold as she.

Honestly though, Ollie couldn’t help but feel a quiet excitement. Terror felt all right. In fact, it felt good, good to feel alive. The old sailboat connected to her to the elements. She felt she rode the very currents of the world. The connection came at the cost of being at the mercy of those same currents, at shivering miserably, but at least you knew you were alive. Reality was a powerful struggle. Looking back--hell, even looking just a few days back--her life faded as if a dream. It had taken only great waves and the courage of one man to let her lose her buffer, her anti-world insulation.

She leaned over the edge, putting a lot of trust in her harness, in order to see ahead. She could not help contrasting this new self with the old self, the old self that she had somehow just put aside.

It had started with that one newspaper story. Everything had changed when she saw the summer child was dead. Elizabeth Atwater, her name had been; Betsy to the family, the papers had reported. It was a simple, plebian sort of name that should have gone with a plain sort of life surely, with no horrible, dramatic happenings. The very same sort of life that Ollie had felt herself having; where one drove to work in the morning to pay for the home one returned to in the evenings, and the dreams and might-have-beens were only in the tales she’d read as a child.

Ollie leaned forward automatically against the next heavy port roll of Sirenia, then leaned the other way as the boat again righted. Looking back, the departure from her own life seemed sudden, but at the time, she had felt she’d taken an endless, dizzying time to decide and then act. She pictured the Atwaters’ old Victorian house, white paint peeling and stone lions by the drive chipped almost beyond recognition. She recalled it in some exacting detail, as she lounged, exhausted, on the deck of the rolling boat.

Abruptly, a wave came down as if from above. The yacht lifted one side, at an extreme angle to how it had traveled over the last wave. As she glanced back she heard Charlie shout, “Hang on!” The boat struggled sideways up a big one. It was okay; Charlie was turning the tiller to send the game old craft down the face of the wave.

White water bubbled over the rail on all sides. A wave crested on top of them. The Sirenia shot down sideways as if the sea had disappeared from below her, all supports gone, and then Ollie was only aware of slamming down into water herself. She tumbled over the jack-lines that ran around the outside edge of the deck. Ages passed before her harness tether tightened and stopped her plunge. She was in water and underwater, jerked once, then again, by the secure tether that attached her to the ship. Before she could swim toward the ship, the old Sirenia was slowly arching back, re-balancing herself. Ollie’s harness tether lines started dragging her. She slithered through the freezing water. She slipped alongside as the ship slowly righted herself, but then had to push away to keep from slapping into the hull.

The Sirenia had been almost knocked flat over sideways by the force of the wave--in sailor’s terms, a knockdown. The weighted keel slowly dragged the old boat back upright to her balance point. Ollie saw Charlie hanging more or less off the tiller. As the boat righted, he stepped over to grab Ollie’s tether line and pull her onboard. Georges, who’d no doubt been clinging to his tether with both hands, wrapped his arms around the boom. She noted his safety line sagged slack.

The Sirenia staggered as the next wave hit her, paused momentarily, then continued her slow journey to upright. The tiny bit of sail they had had up, the storm tri-sail, hung in a tattered array of ribbons. Ollie peered forward at the mess of lines on the deck. She suspected some shroud lines were gone, as well. She couldn’t see much from her hands and knees, but stayed there, waiting for the ship to right completely. The main forward stay appeared intact; the boom hadn’t cracked. Things could have been worse. Many a ship in similar circumstances had lost its mast.

“We need to start the engine, now,” Georges yowled. Charlie ignored him, as he rushed around pulling down lines and untangling the damaged sail.

Dripping, Ollie shook her head and pushed her hair back in an unkempt mass from her face. She could taste the seawater and fought the urge to shiver. She pawed at her face, trying to clear her eyes, as she coughed. Without that good harness, that wave could have been the end of her. Perhaps “at the mercy of the elements” would be better than imagining some superior connection to the elements. She didn’t give herself time to mull over the knockdown. She needed to help keep the ship afloat. Thankfully Charlie was already back at his post, bringing the wheel around to get the Sirenia back to riding the sea. He scanned in all directions for more big waves.