One day I was out sailing in Table Bay with a friend of mine. We had gone round the back of Robben Island and were heading back to the yacht club when a large cargo ship came out of the harbour mouth, heading out to sea.
Inevitably, we were going to cross paths with it at some stage. Since the rule is that larger ships always have right of way over smaller ships, there was no question of who was going to have to give way to who, but my friend was skipper and I got the impression that we were on a collision course. I said to him, "we'd better go round the back, we're going to cross its path in a few minutes"
But he's a cheeky bugger, and a reckless lawyer, and I could read his mind. He saw this bloody situation as a challenge, and he wanted to beat this ship to the crossover point.
Understand the physics of the situation: a big ship like that cannot turn, or change direction, or speed up or slow down at short notice. For example, it takes an oil tanker a mile to turn. This is such an old rule and so universally accepted that there are no exceptions. It is ingrained into everyone on the water. Ship captains are not even obliged to blow the horn for very small boats. It's a case of "YOYO" - You're on your own!
Clearly, my friend had no intention of diverting to go round the back of that ship. I was crapping myself because there wasn't much wind, we weren't really making any speed, and the big ship was making good time. As we got closer I could see exactly where the crossover point would be, and we were both going to get there at pretty much the same time.
It's just occurred to me now that we never even got the name of that ship. All I remember was seeing a bunch of the crew leaning over the deck rail, yelling and waving at us, but my friend had his head down and he was gunning for a point just ahead of the ship's bow. If we made it at all, it was going to be a scrape. I could actually hear the water breaking off the ship's bow (that ship, not our little floating bathtub), we were that close. By now, we could no longer see the crew up on their deck, because we were under the curve of the hull. It was black, and it loomed above us like doomsday.
And then I remembered something awful, and I don't know whether it occurred to my friend at all, because he was so intent on getting round the sharp end of the bow that I don't think he had anything else on his mind - but it's this:
Under the "sharp point" at the front of the bow (it's not really sharp, it's actually quite round), every large modern ship has a very large bulbous protrusion like a giant hot water cylender, just under the surface of the water, which bulges out IN FRONT OF THE BOW and sideways as well. Because its under the water it has no wake and it's hard to tell exactly how far ahead of the bow this thing extends - and clearly my friend was judging the potential point of impact off the wake, not something underwater and ahead of the wake.
I visualised two sorry little Jewish lawyers bobbing out there in the freezing Atlantic, dying of hypothermia or dehydration or starvation, our bodies washing up on Clifton Beach days or even weeks later - or maybe never. How long would it take our wives to get Presumption of Death orders from the High Court, and for the insurance to pay out? If they found pieces of the yacht wreckage in three or four days, the Court Order could probably follow in about six months and the insurance would pay out immediately after that ... (Courts are very reluctant to issue Presumption of Death orders because there are notorious cases of people faking their own death to get the insurance money, so they give the matter lots of air, in case the "deceased" pitches up).
So there we were, and things were moving fast.
Oh - and remember that a sailing yacht has a big keel which extends downwards below the hull for quite a few feet. We needed clearance for that over that forward protrusion, too. And at the bottom of the yacht's keel is a little radar sensor which is intended to let you know when the draught below the hull is too shallow. It gives off a beeping sound in the cabin, which speeds up as the distance closes. Suddenly, that thingy started screaming at us. Do we start saying the Shema now, or do we wait till we're in the water?(you're supposed to do the Viduy - your final expiation of sins - if there's time, just before you die, and the Shema is a big part of that. I did it for my mother at her bedside as she died). I should ask my rabbi, (I did call him, back then, but there was no time now!)
We got right under the bow. I think I could have reached out and touched it. And then there was this massive BUMP as the keel hit that bulbous thing, and a horrible scraping sound, and as the keel moved away from the ship's bow, so the top of the yacht pivoted over in the opposite direction, towards the bow, throwing my friend and I flat onto the deck. And then we were over it, and quite gently, the bow of the big ship nudged the back of our yacht out of the way, spinning it round about 90 degrees (there was that horrible scraping sound again), and suddenly we were bobbing around madly like a little toy on the landward side of the big ship, my friend and I clutching desperately at the rail, speechless in terror.
We seemed to have made it. Wounded, yes, but not dead. Were we taking on water? That remained to be seen. I assumed that the main mast would have smashed against the big ship's hull and shattered, but no, it must have missed, it was still up there. The sails were flapping around madly, the sheets were tangled, everything that wasn't fastened down in the cabin was rolling around with a terrible racket, about twenty empty beer cans were rolling back and forth across the floor, there was broken glass all over - it was hectic. But no water. Thank god, no water.
What was going on in the hull? - Who knows? But if there's no water in the cabin, that's a good start. Kind of. The rudder had been knocked off its pivot, but it was still there. With shaking hands, we fixed it back into place without speaking.
"Get the sails down!" He yelled at me. The language was out of control. Swearing at each other, at the wind, at the sea, at the ship disappearing in the distance, at our own little boat, it all helped. My deck shoes had come off and I was barefoot. Where the #*#!! had my shoes gone?
I looked for the crankhandle that would bring the sails down. Gone. "You lost the crankhandle, you stupid bastard!" He yelled at me "You owe me R500,00!" (This was 15 years ago. It was a bargain). I didn't answer. There would be time for that. So we brought the sails down by hauling on the sheets with our bare hands, just like they would have done in the 16th century. Our delicate little lawyer's hands took a beating.
Suddenly, we were into the lee side of Lion's head, the wind dropped to zero, the sea went flat as glass, the boat became still. We didn't speak. We just lay on the deck in the sun. We were shocked, bruised, aching and exhausted. Our clothes were dripping wet. Obviously we had this silent understanding. We were just going to lie there till our clothes dried and we thawed out. It might take an hour, two hours, a day or a week. The longer the better, in fact. We needed the time.
He broke the silence after a while. "Look, the motor's still there!"
Most sail boats have a small outboard motor fixed to the back. Just in case. I think we had both assumed that we had lost the motor - especially as the rudder had been knocked out of its pivot - but there it was, bobbing along cheerfully at the back of the boat, like a happy puppy. Oh motor, we love you so!
So we just put our heads back down and continued to lie there. I was thinking about the universe, and how wonderful it Is to be here.
_______________________________________ (c) Harry Friedland 16 April 2022
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