A Day in the Sea Hobo Life: Exhibit B
When we left her, Gaia was riding prettily at anchor on the emerald waters off Love Beach, on New Providence’s west coast. The day was cloudy and promised rain in the evening, but we thought we had time to get into town and do some provisioning before the storm set in. The bay was flat as we zipped into Lyford Cay Marina in the dinghy with no trouble.
The return setting was drastically different.
The wind had arrived early and set in long enough to raise a sizable swell. As we exited the marina loaded with groceries, the little rubber boat was forced to bang into the waves for the half-mile ride to Gaia. We took the swell at a 45 degree angle but I couldn’t prevent us from getting soaked by the spray. Five minutes into the ride, the rain set in; it came hard and horizontal and stung my eyes such that I was forced to put my sunglasses on. The palm trees on the shore beside the jillion-dollar mansions were leaning heavily in the wind.
Approaching Gaia from the rear, it was obvious that the transfer between boats was going to be tricky. While the green swell wasn’t massive, at maybe six feet, her transom was jumping up and down on a different wave pattern than the dinghy. I nosed the little boat in as close as possible without risking getting her caught under the big steel hull. Diego paused on the bow, waited for a sympathetic swell, then jumped a two-foot gap to the swim ladder. He held the dinghy’s painter loosely so as not to pull us under and gestured for Liza to start handing up bags.
All four of us made it on board safely, along with our drenched bags of groceries. Liza and Diego took the supplies into the cabin while David and I discussed our options for the dinghy. There was no way we would be able to lift off the engine in that swell, so we’d have to tow it and hope for the best. Another cruiser was anchored beside us and radioed that he expected the wind to ease in an hour. Looking at the black north-western sky, I wasn’t sure what the basis of that assumption was, but it gave us time to get Gaia prepped.
A sharp metallic clank rang out from the cockpit and I turned to see the wheel spinning freely.
“Steering chain snapped,” David said. We looked at each other flatly as the boat bucked under us. We were at anchor and in no real danger yet, but the wind was supposed to increase all night and it was a lee shore. Gaia had to be moved if possible.
Lifting the top of the steering console confirmed the damage; we could see the chain resting in the engine compartment eight feet below us. David went downstairs to open the engine while I looked around for a line to drop through the console to bring the chain back up.
Joining the crew as they crowded around the captain, David showed me the broken link at one end of the chain. A two-foot chain connected at either end with cables that ran through the boat to the rudder. With no brake on the rudder, the whole assembly had been banging through its full range of motion for the past hour-plus, and the stress had snapped the weakest connection.
“I can fix this, temporarily at least,” David said. He directed Diego to steady the emergency tiller (a four-foot steel pipe) in the aft cabin while he worked, and sent me to the cockpit to bring up the ends of the chain. Liza brought him tools from the workbench and he set about replacing the snapped link.
Half an hour of work, made difficult by the movement of the decks, resulted in a patched assembly that seemed solid enough to get us the half-mile into Lyford. We had radioed the marina about a possible tow if the repair was unsuccessful, but only one person remained on a stormy Sunday night and there was no chance of sending out another boat.
The Captain and Diego moved forward to pull up the anchor, holding tight to the life-lines as the waves crashed over Gaia’s rails. The water deepened into an angry grey-green and heavy storm clouds rolled in as the sun started to set. I pushed the throttle and Gaia’s 75 hp diesel drove her forward into the swell as the guys brought up her anchor.
A sharp wind gusted more westerly and forced me to fight with the wheel to keep Gaia over the anchor chain. I responded as gently as possible, but I knew I was putting stress on the patched steering assembly. The guys successfully brought the anchor out of the water and I turned to port, pushing us out between two shoals into deeper water.
Another, familiar, clank rattled the steering console and her bow immediately began drifting to starboard, turning us into the beach.
“Chain snapped again!” I yelled over the wind.
“I’m on the emergency tiller,” David called up, “Which way?” The emergency tiller on Gaia connects to the rudder post in the aft cabin, giving the pilot no view of the water.
“Hard to port!” I replied, and gunned the throttle to keep water moving over the rudder. I felt her move to port, then a huge wave crashed over the bow and turned her nose away from the wind, which then caught her on the side and started pushing her back to shore faster than the engine could pull her out.
“Drop anchor!” I yelled to Diego and Liza up on the bow. Gaia’s oversized hook dropped into the sand and we ran out as much chain as we could risk, so close to shore. She jerked as the anchor caught and Diego wrestled with the chain to put out a snub-line to take the strain. We were no more than 20 yards from shore, in nine feet of water.
Everyone returned to the cockpit thoroughly soaked, but all seemed calm.
“She’s not going anywhere,” David said, clearly running through our options in his head.
“Second anchor?” Diego proposed. David nodded and moved forward to engage the smaller, second anchor on the bow. Diego and Liza went belowdecks to pack for an orderly departure.
David prepped the equipment on the second anchor as the light began to fade. Standing next to him on Gaia’s wildly bucking bow, I considered that we’d have to drop the anchor from the deck into the dinghy to run it out for a safe position. Given the difficulty of even just getting in the dinghy, I thought the swinging anchor would put someone seriously at risk.
“Dude, you’re going to get brained trying to catch the anchor in the dinghy,” I told him as he worked.
He paused and looked over the bow at the pounding waves.
“Fuck, you’re right,” he said. “I’m gonna end up eating that thing.” He stood up.
We had one heavy anchor out in good holding, but were facing a lee shore and winds increasing to 25 – 30 knots; not a worst-case scenario, but also not an enviable one. The swell was riding in from the west while the wind was north-west, so the boat was rolling around violently, rather than just banging up and down in the waves. It was about 5 pm; I didn’t know if we had 30 or 90 minutes of light left in the storm.
“Ok, let’s get to shore,” David said. I turned to tell the other crew but they were already prepped.
We made sure all the hatches were tightly secured then headed to the dinghy. Getting everyone in the little boat took almost five minutes as David danced it in and out from Gaia’s crashing transom. Diego came last and jumped into the boat while Liza steadied him.
As we pulled away from Gaia, we all looked back at her riding in the storm. Her anchor had never been tested in these conditions; in theory, it would be more than sufficient to hold her steady in the sand, but after only ten days of sailing, it was a hard thing for David to leave her. He was putting his crew’s safety above his anxiety about the boat, but it was obvious he wasn’t going to sleep that night.
Pulling into Lyford Cay again, we were met by John, the only person on the premises. He was apologetic about being unable to help with a tow, and began making calls to find us a hotel for the night. After an hour of last-minute calling we found a place with a decent price, and all piled into a cab. We had been wet for four hours straight, and everyone was exhausted and cold.
That night we shared two rooms at a one-star hotel where a block-party went on until 3 am around the empty concrete pool. No one slept much.
The next morning, David and Diego, with the help of Vaughan at Lyford, machined a better fix for the chain. We didn’t even know if she was still at anchor or resting on her hull on the beach. The wind hadn’t abated and the seas were still an angry green.
David and I motored out into the swell in the dinghy to install the repaired part and bring her into the marina. I was facing aft from the bow of the dinghy, huddled under my rain jacket against the heavy sea spray. We rounded the point towards Love Beach and David let out the breath he’d been holding.
Gaia was where we’d left her, rolling wildly as she got hammered by the waves, but otherwise sound.
Two hours later we limped into Lyford, where we spent a five-star night at the most expensive marina on New Providence. The Gaia crew would like to thank (in order of appearance) Vaughan, Kenya, Mr. Rahming, John, and Charlie at Lyford Cay Marina for going above and beyond to get us and Gaia sorted out safely.