Into the Storm by Tristram Korten

Author:Tristram Korten
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
Published: 2018-04-24T04:00:00+00:00

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The wind was blowing about 30 knots, Gelera estimated, with 50-knot gusts (58 miles per hour). Dark green-blue water rose up in malevolent lines rolling toward them like huge slabs of granite. The wind hissed across the crests of the waves, lifting the froth of the whitecaps off into spindrift. The ocean spray was so dense it was hard to see. Gelera estimates the ship was battling twenty-to-thirty-foot seas. Not all the waves were that high. But some were much higher.

As the waves rushed the ship, the captain steered the Minouche to take them head-on, hitting the throttle to zoom up the face. When the ship crested, he’d ease the throttle and slide down the back of the wave into the trough. As the ship descended, the horizon would disappear from view. As soon as the bow stabilized, he’d look for the next oncoming wave, altering the ship’s direction to take each wall of water as directly—and therefore as safely—as possible.

“I told my crew we will escape this tragedy,” Gelera recalled, “if you follow me.”

He was convinced that the crew’s ability to remain disciplined in the face of nature’s fury would decide their fates.

They rode the weather like this for about an hour. Fighting the waves cut the ship’s speed in half, to about four knots, slowing their ability to sail through the most exposed stretch of the pass and its dangers. Crew members were getting seasick. Cargo was knocked loose. The rocking back and forth had shifted the freight, causing the ship to list slightly to port. Gelera ordered the chief mate to get on deck, cut the lashings with a knife, and jettison some cargo in an attempt to correct the list. Latigo tried, but returned a few minutes later to report that it was too dangerous to go on deck. So instead, Gelera ordered the engineers to pump ballast into the starboard tanks.

Then, as the ship crested a big wave, Gelera looked down at his controls to see that the engine had stopped. The boat had lost propulsion. The captain suspected the wave had lifted the propeller out of the water long enough for it to spin freely, which would prompt an automatic shutoff. The ship rode down the huge wave without power.

The engineers scrambled to rouse the old engine, using manual overrides to try to coax it back to life. Nothing worked. Slowly the ship began to turn beam to sea. Gelera ordered the engineers topside. Then he called the ship’s agents in Miami. He told them they were in an emergency: The ship had turned broadside to the waves, the port list was now about fifteen degrees, and, most critically, they had lost propulsion.

As he finished the call, Gelera looked out the window of the bridge and saw the wave. By now the thick gray clouds had choked out the sunlight. The ocean was a rough black slate, marbled by chaotic lines of whitecaps. Rushing toward Gelera and the Minouche was a dark mass of water that rose above the surrounding waves like a mountain in a range of foothills.

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