A SEA STORY

Enough of the heavy, heavy talk of the universe. It's time for a good old fashioned sea story. This sea story begins as good sea stories should, on top of a mountain. I was working as an iron worker at plant construction site on top of a mountain, 40 miles outside Evanston, WY. The season was over and I returned to Maryland to my wife at the time, Susan. She was attending college at St. Mary's College and I was unemployed. I answered a want ad for a first mate aboard the Md. "Dove", an historical replica of one of the vessels used to first colonize Md. I not only got the job but was offered a place for us to live as well. The Dove was docked on a beautiful cove on the St. Mary's River. It was situated at the base of a tall bank which led to a replica of the first statehouse for Md. The Statehouse was surrounded by the campus of St. Mary's College. Right beside the Statehouse was the last of the private homes in the complex, a rambling old house called the Brohm-Howard House. This was soon to me moved off campus and I was given the honor of being the last resident before the house was moved and turned into a restaurant. Now my wife had a two minute walk to class, I had a one minute commute to work and my dog came to work with me each day. Life was sweet. The purpose of the Dove was to provide an educational tool as well as a promotional tool for St. Mary's. We had almost daily bus loads of school children and trips to festivals and the like up and down the Chesapeake Bay. As first mate, I was responsible for seeing that all the captains orders were fulfilled, quite an responsibility for a young man. This was a true square rigger that carried 7 sails and took a crew of 12 to operate. When I first stepped on board, there was a new hire already there. A salty old dog, Abe, who was to operate a rather small chase boat that would accompany us on trips. Abe was not a sailor, he actually had more sea time at a nautical theme gift shop his wife had owned, then he had on the wheel of a vessel. I must say though, he proved himself he fine handler of a boat and his experience was to save us more then once, besides he wore that captains hat so well that no one questioned his post. We had no captain for the Dove and we had no crew. A major shake-up in personnel had happened just before my arrival and we were starting from scratch. The first task was to take the Dove around to the yard for maintenance, about a 20 mile tow, really an easy task. For a captain, the head of the St. Mary's City Commission was standing in. We drafted some college students as line handlers and we were ready. Her I must mention that up until this day, my experience on a square rigger was...well none. I had skippered a 40 footer for a living on these very waters and thought the conversion to the Dove would be seamless. I was wrong, the Dove was 90 feet at the waterline and built of solid oak. Trying to stop the Dove was like trying to stop freight train. Handling her was a whole new world for me, well for both of us, me and the stand-in captain, Mr Evers. We left the dock with high hopes, a beautiful spring day, a fresh breeze and a crew with a couple of Quick training sails. We were towed a few miles and Mr. Evers decided that conditions were right to sail. Just as we were preparing to drop our towline, the mainmast began to move violently and the fore stay, a line nearly as large around as my arm, a line that held up the mast, came loose and one end dropped on deck from a height of about 40 - 50 feet. The mast was now beating back and forth so that the top swayed some 20 feet and threatened to topple all together. The easy tow became a life or death situation in the blink of an eye. Someone had to go up to the crows nest and reattach the fore stay, not a pleasant thing while the mast was bucking like a horse, but it had to be done, the law of the sea is that you must risk live and limb to save the ship, and a dismasting on this scale can be devastating. I picked two volunteers and up the ratlines we went. By the time we had reached the crows nest, it took all of our strength to hold on. Crossing over from the ratlines to the crows nest was the worst, we had to reach up and leave the relative safety of the ratlines for a platform , the edge of which was above and behind you. You had to wait for the right time and heave yourself up and over. As soon as all three of us were up, the volunteers began to puke and seeing how there was nowhere else to puke but down, the crew below was treated to a shower of barf. About now the crew below was distracted by something else and no one was looking up. All we could do was laugh and puke as those on deck were covered by lunch. Finally someone on deck noticed a piece of green pineapple on their shoulder, looked up, took notice of our laughter and puking. Suddenly everyone was running for cover. We were safe in the crows nest but had yet to even try to reattach the fore stay and little did we know that we were sinking at the same time. It was going to be a long day. More tomorrow.