End of a Season

The summer is on its last legs. Strong pre-monsoonal winds have started, strong enough to prevent boat-sounding. My son has reached Australia for a month’s holiday and is as good as flown the coop. The note-book that I am writing upon is almost over.

I feel as if a season has ended and I’m stepping into a new one. I feel like making some new resolutions. Talking about resolutions why can’t we be a little more honest about it? Let’s see - in the next one year I would like to:
- become filthy rich by hook or by crook
- develop a poison pen and write a spicy little book
- lose 10 kg and sport a charming lady-killer smile
- bed that luscious thing next door who is bent upon, literally, to attract attention
Keep dreaming man!

Our survey season is almost over. Now we have to plan to tide over the monsoons. If there is one thing I am scared of it is the weather, or rather the bad weather. Nothing in this world makes a man more god-fearing than to witness nature in all its fury.

I have personally experienced two storms on the high seas. The first time it was in 1990 when a particularly severe cyclone emerged in the Bay of Bengal and crossed the East Coast of India south of Visakhapatnam. This super-cyclone had two eyes. The second one was in 2000 when our ageing Bulk Carrier rode out a Force 9 gale in China Sea.

In May 1990 I was on a hydrographic vessel when we sailed out from Vizag for the survey grounds. We entered Madras to pick up men and material. That is where we learnt on the TV that a cyclone was brewing at sea. Weather forecasting was primitive. As the cyclone was expected to pass right over our port we were asked to leave the endangered harbour and ride out the storm at sea.

The moment our ship crossed the breakwater into the open sea we faced mountainous waves and gale-winds. As we put distance between us and the coast the seas became worse. We applied the Buys Ballot Law - Face the wind, 10 to 12 points on the starboard is the eye of the storm. In the northern hemisphere, that is. We figured out that our vessel was in the dangerous semi-circle, but we couldn’t do much thereafter. The wheel got stuck in a particular position and the vessel’s speed dropped from 15 to 2 knots due to the wind and sea.

The sea state was phenomenal. I don't remember getting any help from the weather messages. In fact it was the other way round. The ship was passing weather parameters to shore authorities. The next four days were the worst in my life. The waves became higher and higher, sea water started dripping through every pore in the ship. The engines stalled due to loss of suction. The main switchboard caught fire due to short-circuit. We were forced to adopt the ‘do-nothing’ theory in which the vessel shuts off the engines and allows free play of the waves and the winds. I guess this is what saved us ultimately.

In that storm we lost all the four boats. The radar flew off. We suffered a lot of damages and barely managed to escape with our lives. I became very religious after this event.

The second time I encountered bad weather, I was a little wiser but still helpless in the storm. The speed of a vessel in bad weather drops drastically and any action you take seems futile. This time we got better weather messages but to us it still seemed as if we were getting yesterday's weather. Our old ship developed some leakages. We were fortunate to steer the ship safely out and bring her into the port.