Grounding

In the world of boating, there are three kinds of groundings.  One leads to a minor irritation and embarrassment.  A second leads to substantial damage to the boat.  The third becomes tragic with the loss of human life.  All of them happen when a captain fails to assess the boat’s situation and what to do.

One of the national park sites in the British Virgin Islands is off Salt Island across the channel from Tortola.  This site includes the location of the remains of a two masted British Mail Ship,  the RMS Rhone.  The Rhone sank on October 29, 1867.  It was the first steel-hulled propeller ship to cross the Atlantic.  It was anchored in Great Harbor on the neighboring Peter Island, when the chain broke.  A hurricane was approaching.  The captain, in the middle of the night, decided that the safest course of action would be to head out to sea, away from the islands, and try to ride out the storm in the open water.  The other option would have been to drift back across the channel and crash into Tortola.  Sadly, the ship broke apart when it hit the rocks off Salt Island, and it is now a dive site, located in 12 feet of water.  Even snorkelers at the surface can catch a glimpse of the remains.  One hundred twenty-three (123) lives were lost.

RMS Rhone

 

We’ve gone aground twice with previous boats, once at night and once in the day.  The night grounding was short lived.  At the end of a 120 mile overnight sail, we were approaching a new marina on the Texas coast.  The channel markings were reversed and I veered right instead of left at one marker.  I was going slowly enough when we eased into some mud.  With a quick reverse on the engine we were able to back out before we had gone too far.  A push boat and barge behind us turned on its light beam and gave us the ability to see where we needed to go.  We had missed the turn into the marina by forty feet.  And quick action saved a towing bill and some extended embarrassment. 

The daytime grounding happened in the Bahamas on a charter boat.  Two of our three children were with us for a Spring Break week.  On our second day out, as we were entering Green Turtle Cay in the Abaco Sea, we went straight into the sand and couldn’t move.  It was about three in the afternoon.  I tried reversing the engine with no success.  I took a spare line attached to the top of the mast and using the dinghy, tried to pull the boat over to one side so the keel could break loose, with no success.   We were stuck until the tide rose five hours later.  We sat there, swam off the boat, had dinner, eventually the water lifted us off the bottom and we motored in to the harbor and dropped an anchor in the dark.

Now, there was a group of German sailors who were also chartering a boat that week and had attended the same briefing before heading out.  They were rather “full of themselves”, confident they could handle whatever the seas might offer.  And it so happened that they were headed into the same Green Turtle Cay on the same day, about an hour after we had gone aground.   They motored past us and smiled with what sure looked like a smirk to me.  I yelled to them to be careful, move their boat further left.  They ignored me and about fifty yards later, they went onto the same sand bar.  It was my turn to smile and watch the anxious response unfold.  They were no more successful removing themselves and had to wait out the tide as well.  Lessons to be learned.

All this is prelude to what happened the other day at the marina where we keep Azure Wind.  We had just returned from a week on the water with good friends.  We’d dropped them off in Road Town and motored back to the marina.  Having finished the laundry (the chore for the day), we were settling in when I noticed that a boat – a large catamaran charter boat – was not facing in the same direction as all the other boats.  Usually the wind keeps all boats on mooring balls or anchors facing the same way.  That’s how the wind works.

This charter boat had moved in front of the mooring balls deciding to anchor closer to the reef.   I called our marina office and they confirmed that, yes, they had grounded, and no, they had not asked for help.   These folks, six of them, were truly stuck, and trying everything to move off the sand and grass.  They put their engines first forward and then reverse to try to open up a spot.  It didn’t work.  They put the anchor in the dinghy and pulled it out ahead of the boat some 25 yards and dropped it there, thinking that maybe the anchor would hold and they could pull the chain in and get off the bottom.  They had taken the dinghy and started circling the boat to make waves that might rock the boat free.  Nothing was working for them.  Eventually, I was curious enough to go over and talk with the captain.  I asked if he had a plan.  Not really.  They were considering dropping all of the anchor chain into the water.  And, dumping about 100 gallons of fresh water from the tanks.  And getting everyone off the boat except the captain.  All in an effort to reduce weight, and maybe float free.  Had they called the charter company to alert them of their predicament?  No.  Had they called the marina office to ask for help?  No.

Now, I must admit that being the cocktail hour entertainment is not fun.  However, watching the cocktail hour entertainment can be.  While there was no serious risk (they were stuck in protected waters) this boat was in front of us.   If the boat broke loose in the night and no one was keeping watch, a collision was quite possible.

So… I went to the office and spoke with the manager on duty.  Because the charterers hadn’t ask for help, the marina wasn’t going to intervene.  However, I was asking for help to protect my boat, and the other boats in the marina.   The manager said, “Well, I do have some information I can share.”  Off we went to the stuck charterers.  The captain was standing on the bottom with his head above water.   The manager suggested,  “Why don’t you wait for the tide to come in?   The next high tide is at midnight and the following one is at 9am.  Wait until it’s daylight and move the boat then.”  The tide, by the way, is 7-8 INCHES in this lagoon behind the reef.  After saying goodbye to them, the manager suggested that Marney and I put out fenders on our starboard side and set an alarm for midnight to check on things.  Which we did. 

When I woke at midnight, the boat had already moved to a $30 mooring ball which was what the charterers were trying to save by anchoring in the wrong place to begin with.  My best guess is that the captain was misreading his depth meter.  A six foot reading would be actually two feet if you discount the four foot draft of the boat.  Correctly calculating that would have saved several headaches. 

Sometimes the only thing you can do in a grounding is nothing…but wait for the high tide.  It will eventually return (always does) and lift you quietly off the bottom.  It requires a knowledge of the natural order of things.  And patience. 

And there’s the thought for this reflection.  It doesn’t take much to confound our plans.  Seven to eight inches of water was all it took to ruin an evening and ground a large boat!  When that happens, too often we humans think too much of ourselves and too little about God’s world.  I’m thinking about two recent accidents in the Atlantic this winter – a cargo ship lost and a cruise ship struck by high winds and a huge storm – both of which might have been avoided if the owners and captains and officers had paid more attention to the signs around them.  We end up thinking we can over-ride the way the world works.  That we can control things that are beyond our control. 

There is purpose to this old world that God set in motion.  There are rhythms and there are roles.  We are definitely creatures who, at best, might be co-creators with our God.  But that’s it.  We are not the Creator.  We all are subject to certain realities, like gravity, and tides, and winds, and waves.   Given that, patiently waiting for those realities to take their course is a pretty good way to solve a problem sometimes. 

Fair winds, and safe seas.