Mike Mate

Life at sea is synonymous with routine. At eight o’clock each night the
first thing I do, taking over the watch, is check the anemometer on the
consol for wind direction and speed. The second thing I do is flick
three switches, the deck lights come on. I step through the bridge wing
doorway and into the night with Deek, to discuss the setting of the
sails. On this particular night they are sheeted right out to the
shrouds; we’re on a broad reach. As we talk – the sails lit against a
black backdrop of night – we hear a rasping scream from high up in the
rigging. I look up, shielding my eyes with my hand from the glare of the
deck lights shining back down. I look into the inky blackness and then
reel back when a piece of black detaches and plummets towards us, its
shadow chases it down the illuminated sail. There is no time to run for
cover. The shadow meets the thing in the curvature of the mainsail and I
hear the slither and scrapping of feathers along canvas. It slides down
the sail, wings trying to untangle, and then, with a sickening thud,
hits the boom and is launched onto a new path narrowly missing the
ship-side railings. It hits the drink like a stuffed turkey. There is a
splash.

Deek and I rush to the rails and look over the side. Rainbow Warrior
draws a wake. In it, the bobbing body of a brown boobie.

Deek holds four pieces of chalk in his hand. He sketches onto the grey main-deck; the outline of the boat in white, the ropes yellow, the boom and condom are red, and the spinnaker he shades in blue. I stand within the semicircle of crew, looking down at him – at his sketch – following his chain of thought. We have a following sea and want to go faster.

All on the same page, we go about the deck. The sail, sheathed in its pale-green condom, is snaked onto the forecastle by a line of seven crew. It is flaked out on the deck and one end attached to a rope running up to the top of the foremast. Ra stands at the foot of the mast and grinds the winch handle, the condom snakes its way up to the top. Two ropes are left to dangle out of its mouth – from the corners of the spinnaker, sheathed inside – they are attached to blocks and tackle and are kept spread apart by the jib boom. Walter and Emma control these ends from winches on the bridge deck. Then Deek gives the signal. Flavio and Kristin start pulling, as fast as possible, on a couple of thin lines. The condom rises, unveiling a mass of royal-blue parachute material inside, releasing it to the wind. It fills and Rainbow Warrior leaps forward. We have places to go and coal to stop.

At times the boat leans over to the side and sports seven knots but today it does not. Our average speed from noon to noon is checked, just over two knots. Rainbow Warrior is becalmed. I take in the sails and let her drift. Still, the activity on board does not falter, those needle-guns keep hammering away – the battle for evermore. Crew sport splashes of red, grey, green paint on bronzing skins – they are taking on the appearance of warriors. Then, with the end of the working day, Mirror Lake beckons – “enter make me ripple” she whispers. Flavio understands, he’s from Brazil, he opens the pilot door and hangs a rope ladder over the side, then throws a red-and-white life ring into the water. The fore-mast boom is swung out and over the water, from its head a rope leads up to the bridge deck. Kristin – who is starting to resemble Robinson Crusoe – strips down to his boxers, takes hold of the rope end and leaps off the boat “Geronimo!” He swings out and then lets go, splashing down into the tropical waters of the Coral Sea. Then its Ra’s turn, then Dan, Emma… we’re all swimming, waiting for the wind to come.

I opened my cabin door this morning at the same time Hausey walked past, his face white as a sheet. He looked as though he’d seen a ghost; he turned and pointed toward the stairs leading to the lower accommodation. My heart froze. There, at the top of the stairs, was one enormous footprint, too large for any one on board to have left behind. Feeling more inquisitive then bold, I followed its course. Whatever had been on board the boat (and indeed, as I write, may still be here) had left these prints intentionally, almost as though wanting to be discovered. Hausey stood by the top of the stairs and watched my progress, I felt safer. I followed the prints around the corner of the alleyway. They led to three cabin doors: Ra, Kristin and Alex’s, and just stopped there. No sign of retreat, perhaps the thing (certainly not human) had gone inside. The handle to each of the three cabin doors was wrapped up in a stream of toilet paper – a foreboding omen – and I did not want to venture in to look. I hurriedly retraced my steps. Hausey and I did not say a word to each other until we’d reached the mess-room, and then, as I opened my mouth to speak, my eyes caught sight of the chalk-board. There, in bold green chalk, was a trident, beside which a signature that I recognized all too well as the ‘N’ of Neptune.

Shackles detached from port side railings, the preventer ropes hauled in. Other shackles attached to starboard side railings, the preventer ropes run out, they’re pulled tight. Grinder handles placed on winches, hands at each station, ready to sheet in as the old once-a-fishing-boat tacks. Diek and Lesley on the Jib, Emma and Kristin on the fore, Flavio and Ra on the main, Hausey and Walter on the mizzen, ready about. I place the wheel over to starboard and Rainbow Warrior starts a labored turn into the wind. Diek works both preventers on the jib, manipulating the bow through the wind like one would a wind-surfer.

It is wonderful to have this enthusiastic Dutch chief mate sailing with me again… there is a lovely compliment on board. The three other sails luff for a moment and then the wind takes them gently to the starboard side, guided by crew pulling and then releasing the sheets. And, in so doing, we all bring the Rainbow Warrior onto a new tack. Together we zig-zag our way to Manilla.

Top speed of two knots during the morning, by midday we’re drawing a wake again. Now it is evening and we’re heeling to starboard, racing into the night.

Last night we took on a dark passenger – the Tasman Devil. It was midnight when the wind died, the devil came on board and the boat started rolling. It wallowed, the sails snapping out sharp reports each time we went over. I called for the main engine. But boy was there a swell to contend with – two, in fact, both enormous. One was from the east and the other from the south-west. The wind waves had disappeared and all that was left where these two black velvet ribbons of swell – both exquisitely trimmed with silver moon light. We tried to run away from them, but they were too big and, like brutish bullies in the school yard, they took turns pooping us, rolling us over and sideways down their broad shouldered slopes. We dunked one side of the boat in the water and then the other. The rolling of the previous night paled away in comparison – the new movement was on the limit of safety. The line of portholes on either side of the Rainbow Warrior took turns in becoming a row of washing machines at a busy launderette.

Dan was gibbering on the bridge, he felt responsible – “I’ve never been on such a small boat” he said to me as we watched the mountains come rolling past, reflecting moonlight as they did. Holding the railings on the bridge wing was more fun than gripping the bars on a roller coaster at Astro-world theme park. Dan tried all sorts of courses and eventually we settled for one that was thirty-five degrees off our intended track. I eventually turned in for the night, bent my mattress to form a hollow to reduce the movement of my body, and closed my eyes. I guess I slept.

We’re one-hundred miles south of Norfolk Island, still crossing the Tasman Sea. A clockwise rotating tropical depression, five-hundred miles to the north-east, and an anti-clockwise high, six-hundred miles south-west, power us. The two pressure systems work together like the giant cogs of a linen wrangler, squeezing Rainbow Warrior between their teeth, spitting her out into the Coral Sea. Our good speed, needless to say, comes with a fair bashing, like this morning. Everyone awoke at three-forty this morning, clutching their mattresses so as not to be tossed out their bunks. My porthole was replaced in my mind by a front-end loader going through its wash cycle at the launderette. I imagined the sails dipping into the water. We came upright, rolled to the other side, steadied a bit, then carried on… averaging fifteen degrees to either side, like the pendulum of a wound up clock

Dan, the second mate – a British merchant seaman – said that the roll went beyond the calibration of the inclinometer. It was well over forty degrees. We had another big roll this afternoon, the drawers shot out of the hospital cupboards, scattering surgical instruments and kidney dishes about the deck of Nurse Lesley’s cabin. Sometimes I imagine the rivets in the hull of this old lady, with each dunk under water the shell plates get squeezed – fifty-years of squeezing and releasing, squeezing and releasing. Pop, pop, pop goes the weasel.