Read Looking for a Ship Online
Authors: John McPhee
Looking for a Ship (12 page)
That wave was what the
Mariners Weather Log
calls an ESW, or Extreme Storm Waveâa rogue wave, an overhanging freak wave. Coincidence tends to produce such wavesâfor example, when the waters of colliding currents are enhanced by tidal effects in the presence of a continental shelf. Often described as “a wall of water,” an Extreme Storm Wave will appear in a photograph to be a sheer cliff of much greater height than the ship from which the picture was taken. Captain Washburn calls it “a convex wave.” He goes on to say, “You don't get up it before it's down on your foredeck. The center is above sixty feet high. You can't ride over the center. You
can
ride over the edge. A ship has no chance if the wave hits just right. It will break a ship in two in one lick. Because of the trough in front of it, mariners used to say that they fell into a hole in the ocean.”
Mariners Weather Log
calls an ESW, or Extreme Storm Waveâa rogue wave, an overhanging freak wave. Coincidence tends to produce such wavesâfor example, when the waters of colliding currents are enhanced by tidal effects in the presence of a continental shelf. Often described as “a wall of water,” an Extreme Storm Wave will appear in a photograph to be a sheer cliff of much greater height than the ship from which the picture was taken. Captain Washburn calls it “a convex wave.” He goes on to say, “You don't get up it before it's down on your foredeck. The center is above sixty feet high. You can't ride over the center. You
can
ride over the edge. A ship has no chance if the wave hits just right. It will break a ship in two in one lick. Because of the trough in front of it, mariners used to say that they fell into a hole in the ocean.”
In the winter North Atlantic, the demac David Carter has oftentimes tied himself in his bunk after propping his mattress up and wedging himself against the bulkheadâto avoid getting thrown out and injured by a forty-five- or fifty-degree roll. He got his first ship after nearly everyone aboard had been injured. On one voyage, Carter had a big chair in his cabin that was “bouncing off the bulkhead like a
tennis
ball.” In his unusually emphatic, italic way of speaking, he goes on, “Pots won't stay on a
stove
. After a night of no
sleep
, a full day of
work
, you get nothing but a
baloney
sandwich if you're lucky. They soak the tablecloth so nothing
will
slide
. I hope you won't get to see that. If you wonder why we
party
and get
drunk
when we're in port, that's why.”
tennis
ball.” In his unusually emphatic, italic way of speaking, he goes on, “Pots won't stay on a
stove
. After a night of no
sleep
, a full day of
work
, you get nothing but a
baloney
sandwich if you're lucky. They soak the tablecloth so nothing
will
slide
. I hope you won't get to see that. If you wonder why we
party
and get
drunk
when we're in port, that's why.”
On February 11, 1983, a collier called Marine Electric went out of the Chesapeake Bay in a winter storm with a million dollars' worth of coal. She was a ship only about ten per cent shorter than the Stella Lykes and with the same beam and displacement. Our chief mate, J. Peter Fritz, wished he were aboard her. She was headed for Narragansett Bay, her regular run, and his home is on Narragansett Bay. He grew up there. As a kid, he used to go around on his bike visiting ships. He took photographs aboard the ships, developed and printed them at home, and went back with the pictures to show the crews. They invited him to stay aboard for dinner. (“Some guys liked airplanes. To me it was just the ships.”) He watched the shipping card in the Providence
Journal
âthe column that reports arrivals and departures. Working on a tug and barge, he learned basic seamanship from the harbormaster of Pawtuxet Coveâknots, splicing, “how to lay around boats the right way.” As a Christmas present an aunt gave him a picture book of merchant ships. As a birthday present she gave him the “American Merchant Seamans Manual.”
Journal
âthe column that reports arrivals and departures. Working on a tug and barge, he learned basic seamanship from the harbormaster of Pawtuxet Coveâknots, splicing, “how to lay around boats the right way.” As a Christmas present an aunt gave him a picture book of merchant ships. As a birthday present she gave him the “American Merchant Seamans Manual.”
Peter grew up, graduated from the Massachusetts Maritime Academy, and went to sea. It was his calling, and he loved it. He also loved, seriatim, half the young women in Rhode Island. He was a tall, blond warrior out of “The Twilight of the Gods” with an attractively staccato manner of speech. Not even his physical attractions, however, could secure his romantic hatches. “Dear Peter” letters poured in
after he left his women and went off for months at sea. Eventually, he married, had a son, and left the Merchant Marine. For several years, he worked for an electronic-alarm company and miserably longed for the ocean. (“I will not admit how much I love this job. The simple life. Having one boss. Not standing still, not being stagnant; the idea of moving, the constant change.”) Eventually, he couldn't stand it any longer, and went off to circle the world on the container ship President Harrison. (“I had
the
killer card. I had planned it.”) He made more money in eighty-seven days than he could make in a year ashore. After a family conference, he decided to ship out again. Like his lifelong friend Clayton Babineau, he coveted a job that would take him on short runs from his home port. Every ten days, the Marine Electric went out of Providence for Hampton Roads, and nine days later she came back. She went right past Peter's house. He night-mated her. His wife, Nancy, said to him, “Hey, wouldn't it be great if you got a job on that one? You could be home with your family.” He tried repeatedly, without success. His friend Clay Babineau, sailing as second mate, died of hypothermia that night off Chincoteague in the winter storm. The Marine Electric was thirty-nine years old in the bow and stern, younger in the middle, where she had been stretched for bulk cargo. In the language of the Coast Guard's Marine Casualty Report, her forward hatch covers were “wasted, holed, deteriorated, epoxy patched.” Winds were gusting at sixty miles an hour, and the crests of waves were forty feet high. As the Marine Electric plowed the sea, water fell through the hatch covers
as if they were colanders. By 1 A.M., the bow was sluggish. Green seas began pouring over it. A list developed. The captain notified the Coast Guard that he had decided to abandon ship. The crew of thirty-four was collecting on the starboard boat deck, but before a lifeboat could be lowered the ship capsized, and the men, in their life jackets, were in the frigid water. In two predawn hours, all but three of them died, while their ship went to rest on the bottom, a hundred and twenty feet below, destroyed by what the Coast Guard called “the dynamic effects of the striking sea.”
after he left his women and went off for months at sea. Eventually, he married, had a son, and left the Merchant Marine. For several years, he worked for an electronic-alarm company and miserably longed for the ocean. (“I will not admit how much I love this job. The simple life. Having one boss. Not standing still, not being stagnant; the idea of moving, the constant change.”) Eventually, he couldn't stand it any longer, and went off to circle the world on the container ship President Harrison. (“I had
the
killer card. I had planned it.”) He made more money in eighty-seven days than he could make in a year ashore. After a family conference, he decided to ship out again. Like his lifelong friend Clayton Babineau, he coveted a job that would take him on short runs from his home port. Every ten days, the Marine Electric went out of Providence for Hampton Roads, and nine days later she came back. She went right past Peter's house. He night-mated her. His wife, Nancy, said to him, “Hey, wouldn't it be great if you got a job on that one? You could be home with your family.” He tried repeatedly, without success. His friend Clay Babineau, sailing as second mate, died of hypothermia that night off Chincoteague in the winter storm. The Marine Electric was thirty-nine years old in the bow and stern, younger in the middle, where she had been stretched for bulk cargo. In the language of the Coast Guard's Marine Casualty Report, her forward hatch covers were “wasted, holed, deteriorated, epoxy patched.” Winds were gusting at sixty miles an hour, and the crests of waves were forty feet high. As the Marine Electric plowed the sea, water fell through the hatch covers
as if they were colanders. By 1 A.M., the bow was sluggish. Green seas began pouring over it. A list developed. The captain notified the Coast Guard that he had decided to abandon ship. The crew of thirty-four was collecting on the starboard boat deck, but before a lifeboat could be lowered the ship capsized, and the men, in their life jackets, were in the frigid water. In two predawn hours, all but three of them died, while their ship went to rest on the bottom, a hundred and twenty feet below, destroyed by what the Coast Guard called “the dynamic effects of the striking sea.”
Peter Fritz, who gives the routine lectures on survival suits to the successive crews of the Stella Lykes, carries in his wallet a shipping card clipped from the February 13, 1983, Providence
Journal
: “ARRIVING TODAY, MARINE ELECTRIC, 8 P.M.”
Journal
: “ARRIVING TODAY, MARINE ELECTRIC, 8 P.M.”
She is remembered as “a rotten ship.” So is the Panoceanic Faith, which went out of San Francisco bound for India with a load of fertilizer about six months after Fritz graduated from Massachusetts Maritime. Five of his classmates were aboard, and all of them died, including his friend John McPhee. Getting to know Fritz has not been easy. There have been times when I have felt that he regarded me as a black cat that walked under a ladder and up the gangway, a shipmate in a white sheet, a G.A.C. (Ghost in Addition to Crew). The Panoceanic Faith developed a leak, its dampened cargo expanded, its plates cracked. It sank in daytime. “People tried to make it to the life rafts but the cold water got them first.”
Plaques at the maritime academies list graduates who
have been lost at sea. A schoolmate of Andy Chase was on a ship called Poet that went out of Cape Henlopen in the fall of 1980 with a load of corn. She was never heard from again. Nothing is known. In Captain Washburn's words, “Never found a life jacket, never found a stick.”
have been lost at sea. A schoolmate of Andy Chase was on a ship called Poet that went out of Cape Henlopen in the fall of 1980 with a load of corn. She was never heard from again. Nothing is known. In Captain Washburn's words, “Never found a life jacket, never found a stick.”
On the Spray, Andy went through one hurricane three times. A thousand-pound piece of steel pipe broke its lashings and “became the proverbial loose cannon.” Ten crewmenâfive on a sideâheld on to a line and eventually managed to control it, but they had almost no sleep for two days. The Spray once carried forty men. Reduced manning had cut the number to twenty. “Companies are trying to get it down to eleven or twelve by automating most functions,” he says. “When everything's going right, four people can run a ship, but all the automation in the world can't handle emergencies like that.”
A small ship can be destroyed by icing. Ocean spray freezes and thickens on her decks and superstructure. Freezing rain may add to the accumulation. The amount of ice becomes so heavy that the ship almost disappears within it before the toppling weight rolls her over and sinks her. Ships carry baseball bats. Crewmen club the ice, which can thicken an inch an hour.
To riffle through a stack of the
Mariners Weather Log
âa dozen or so quarterly issuesâis to develop a stopaction picture of casualties on the sea, of which there are so many hundreds that the eye skips. The story can be taken up and dropped anywhere, with differing names and the same situation unending. You see the Arctic Viking hit an
iceberg off Labrador, the Panbali Kamara capsize off Sierra Leone, the Maria Ramos sink off southern Brazil. A ferry with a thousand passengers hits a freighter with a radioactive cargo and sinks her in a Channel fog. A cargo shifts in high winds and the Islamar Tercero goes down with twenty-six, somewhere south of the Canaries. Within a few days of one another, the Dawn Warbler goes aground, the Neyland goes aground, the Lubeca goes aground, the Transporter II throws twenty-six containers, and the Heather Valleyâhit by three wavesâsinks off western Scotland. The Chien Chung sinks with twenty-one in high seas east of Brazil, and after two ships collide off Argentina suddenly there is one. A tanker runs ashore in Palm Beach, goes right up on the sand. The bow noses into someone's villa and ends up in the swimming pool. The Nomada, hit by lightning, sinks off Indonesia. The Australian Highway rescues the Nomada's crew. The Blue Angel, with a crew of twenty, sinks in the Philippine Sea. The Golden Pine, with a shifting cargo of logs (what else?) sinks in the Philippine Sea. A hundred and fifteen people on the Asunción drown as she sinks in the South China Sea. The Glenda capsizes off Mindanao, and seven of twenty-seven are rescued. The Sofia sinks in rough water near Crete, abandoned by her crew. The Arco Anchorage grounds in fog. On the Arco Prudhoe Bay, bound for Valdez, a spare propeller gets loose on the deck and hurtles around smashing pipes. The Vennas, with sixty-nine passengers and crew, sinks in the Celebes Sea. The Castillo de Salas, a bulk carrier with a hundred thousand tons of coal, breaks in two in the Bay of
Biscay. The container ship Tuxpan disappears at noon in the middle of the North Atlantic with twenty-seven Mexicans aboard. A container from
inside
the hold is found on the surface. Apparently, the ship was crushed by a wave. In the same storm in the same sea, a wave hits the Export Patriot hard enough to buckle her doors. Water pours into the wheelhouse. The quartermaster is lashed to a bulkhead so that he can steer the ship. In the same storm, the Balsa 24 capsizes with a crew of nineteen. In the Gulf of Mexico, off the mouth of the Rio Grande, fifteen Mexican shark-fishing vessels sink in one squall. In a fog near the entrance to the Baltic Sea, the Swedish freighter Syderfjord is cut in two in a collision and sinks in forty seconds. About a hundred miles off South Africa, the Arctic Career leaves an oil slick, some scattered debris, and no other clues. The Icelandic freighter Sudurland goes down in the Norwegian Sea. The Cathy Sea Trade, with twenty-seven, is last heard from off the Canary Islands. Off Portugal, the Testarossa sinks with thirty. Off eastern Spain, in the same storm, the cargo shifts on the Kyretha Star, and she sinks with eighteen or twenty. The Tina, a bulk carrier under the Cypriot flag, vanishes without a trace somewhere in the Sulu Sea. In a fog in the Formosa Strait, the Quatsino Sound goes down after colliding with the Ever Linking. In the English Channel, the Herald of Free Enterprise overturns with a loss of two hundred. The Soviet freighter Komsomolets Kirgizzii sinks off New Jersey. In the North Sea, the bridge of the St. Sunnivar is smashed by a hundred-foot wave. After a shift of cargo, the Haitian freighter Aristeo capsizes off Florida.
On the Queen Elizabeth 2, Captain Lawrence Portet ties himself to a chair on the bridge. Among the eighteen hundred passengers, many bones are broken. Seas approach forty feet. After a series of deep rolls, there are crewmen who admit to fearing she would not come up. Off the Kentish coast with a hundred and thirty-seven thousand tons of crude, the tanker Skyron, of Liberian registry, plows a Polish freighter. The tanker bursts into flames. The fire is put out before it can reach the crude. Fifty-seven crewmen abandon two bulk carriers in the Indian Ocean. The Hybur Trader loses seventeen containers in a storm off Miami Beach. On the same day, off Fort Lauderdale, a Venezuelan crew of twenty-five abandons the container ship Alma Llanera. The Frio, out of Miami for Colombia, sinks off Yucatan. In the Gulf of Alaska, the Stuyvesant spills fifteen thousand barrels of Alaska crude. The Roiandiaâtwenty-seven hundred tonsâcapsizes off France. The Ro/Ro Vinca Gordon capsizes off the Netherlands. The Vishra Anurag, a cargo ship under the Indian flag, capsizes off Japan. A Philippine freighter capsizes, too, with forty thousand cases of beer. Somewhere, any time, someone is getting it.
Mariners Weather Log
âa dozen or so quarterly issuesâis to develop a stopaction picture of casualties on the sea, of which there are so many hundreds that the eye skips. The story can be taken up and dropped anywhere, with differing names and the same situation unending. You see the Arctic Viking hit an
iceberg off Labrador, the Panbali Kamara capsize off Sierra Leone, the Maria Ramos sink off southern Brazil. A ferry with a thousand passengers hits a freighter with a radioactive cargo and sinks her in a Channel fog. A cargo shifts in high winds and the Islamar Tercero goes down with twenty-six, somewhere south of the Canaries. Within a few days of one another, the Dawn Warbler goes aground, the Neyland goes aground, the Lubeca goes aground, the Transporter II throws twenty-six containers, and the Heather Valleyâhit by three wavesâsinks off western Scotland. The Chien Chung sinks with twenty-one in high seas east of Brazil, and after two ships collide off Argentina suddenly there is one. A tanker runs ashore in Palm Beach, goes right up on the sand. The bow noses into someone's villa and ends up in the swimming pool. The Nomada, hit by lightning, sinks off Indonesia. The Australian Highway rescues the Nomada's crew. The Blue Angel, with a crew of twenty, sinks in the Philippine Sea. The Golden Pine, with a shifting cargo of logs (what else?) sinks in the Philippine Sea. A hundred and fifteen people on the Asunción drown as she sinks in the South China Sea. The Glenda capsizes off Mindanao, and seven of twenty-seven are rescued. The Sofia sinks in rough water near Crete, abandoned by her crew. The Arco Anchorage grounds in fog. On the Arco Prudhoe Bay, bound for Valdez, a spare propeller gets loose on the deck and hurtles around smashing pipes. The Vennas, with sixty-nine passengers and crew, sinks in the Celebes Sea. The Castillo de Salas, a bulk carrier with a hundred thousand tons of coal, breaks in two in the Bay of
Biscay. The container ship Tuxpan disappears at noon in the middle of the North Atlantic with twenty-seven Mexicans aboard. A container from
inside
the hold is found on the surface. Apparently, the ship was crushed by a wave. In the same storm in the same sea, a wave hits the Export Patriot hard enough to buckle her doors. Water pours into the wheelhouse. The quartermaster is lashed to a bulkhead so that he can steer the ship. In the same storm, the Balsa 24 capsizes with a crew of nineteen. In the Gulf of Mexico, off the mouth of the Rio Grande, fifteen Mexican shark-fishing vessels sink in one squall. In a fog near the entrance to the Baltic Sea, the Swedish freighter Syderfjord is cut in two in a collision and sinks in forty seconds. About a hundred miles off South Africa, the Arctic Career leaves an oil slick, some scattered debris, and no other clues. The Icelandic freighter Sudurland goes down in the Norwegian Sea. The Cathy Sea Trade, with twenty-seven, is last heard from off the Canary Islands. Off Portugal, the Testarossa sinks with thirty. Off eastern Spain, in the same storm, the cargo shifts on the Kyretha Star, and she sinks with eighteen or twenty. The Tina, a bulk carrier under the Cypriot flag, vanishes without a trace somewhere in the Sulu Sea. In a fog in the Formosa Strait, the Quatsino Sound goes down after colliding with the Ever Linking. In the English Channel, the Herald of Free Enterprise overturns with a loss of two hundred. The Soviet freighter Komsomolets Kirgizzii sinks off New Jersey. In the North Sea, the bridge of the St. Sunnivar is smashed by a hundred-foot wave. After a shift of cargo, the Haitian freighter Aristeo capsizes off Florida.
On the Queen Elizabeth 2, Captain Lawrence Portet ties himself to a chair on the bridge. Among the eighteen hundred passengers, many bones are broken. Seas approach forty feet. After a series of deep rolls, there are crewmen who admit to fearing she would not come up. Off the Kentish coast with a hundred and thirty-seven thousand tons of crude, the tanker Skyron, of Liberian registry, plows a Polish freighter. The tanker bursts into flames. The fire is put out before it can reach the crude. Fifty-seven crewmen abandon two bulk carriers in the Indian Ocean. The Hybur Trader loses seventeen containers in a storm off Miami Beach. On the same day, off Fort Lauderdale, a Venezuelan crew of twenty-five abandons the container ship Alma Llanera. The Frio, out of Miami for Colombia, sinks off Yucatan. In the Gulf of Alaska, the Stuyvesant spills fifteen thousand barrels of Alaska crude. The Roiandiaâtwenty-seven hundred tonsâcapsizes off France. The Ro/Ro Vinca Gordon capsizes off the Netherlands. The Vishra Anurag, a cargo ship under the Indian flag, capsizes off Japan. A Philippine freighter capsizes, too, with forty thousand cases of beer. Somewhere, any time, someone is getting it.
Not every ship that goes down is destroyed by time or nature. Or by collision or navigational error. Crews have been rescued from lifeboats with packed suitcases and box lunches. Say South Africa needs oil desperately as the result of an embargo and is willing to pay at ransom rates. You disguise your supertanker by painting a false name, take it into a South African port to discharge the Persian crude,
leave South Africa, open your skin valves to replace the oil with water, pack your suitcase, make your sandwiches, leave the valves open until the ship sinks. If you follow this scenario, you will win no awards for originality. Possibly you will collect insurance payments for the ship, and possibly for the “oil” that went down inside her. You may have to explain why there was no slick.
leave South Africa, open your skin valves to replace the oil with water, pack your suitcase, make your sandwiches, leave the valves open until the ship sinks. If you follow this scenario, you will win no awards for originality. Possibly you will collect insurance payments for the ship, and possibly for the “oil” that went down inside her. You may have to explain why there was no slick.
There is a lot of pentimento on the bows of the Stella Lykes. Former names are visible, even in fading light. The ship was built in 1964 and stretched in 1982. When she belonged to Moore-McCormack, she was called the Mormacargo. After Moore-McCormack died and United States Lines bought her, she became the American Argo. After United States Lines died, Lykes Brothers chartered her from financial receivers. Phil Begin, our chief engineer, has said, “We're operating someone else's ship. It's like a rental car. You don't want to come on here and spend a lot of money for one or two years. You want it to be safe and efficient but no more. You put up with irritations. You can't afford to scrimp and save, though. When you read about ships going down, that's what happens.”
In Peter Fritz's letters home he avoids mentioning storms. He doesn't want to worry Nancy. On his long vacations, as he leans back, stretches his legs, and watches the evening news, a remark by a television reporter will sometimes cause him to sit straight up. To Peter it is the sort of remark that underscores the separateness of the American people from their Merchant Marine, and it makes him
feel outcast and lonely. After describing the havoc brought by some weather system to the towns and cities of New England-the number of people left deadâthe reporter announces that the danger has passed, for “the storm went safely out to sea.”
feel outcast and lonely. After describing the havoc brought by some weather system to the towns and cities of New England-the number of people left deadâthe reporter announces that the danger has passed, for “the storm went safely out to sea.”
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