From Raft to Raft

by Bengt Danielsson

  Whether it was due to Taaroa’s intervention, or to someone on board having sent up a prayer to another and mightier God, when daylight came at last at about six on the morning of August 10th the gale had so far moderated that we were able to slip down and inspect No. 3. Incomprehensibly, she had not suffered any serious damage. Immediately afterwards the white sea-bird rose and flew away, which of course we took as a sign that the storm was over. Indeed, the wind fell gradually, but unfortunately it was still north-easterly, which gave us too southerly a course. It was therefore high time that we completed No. 3, for only if we quickly exchanged our helpless wreck for a navigable craft could we have any chance now of reaching Starbuck.

  No. 3 still had no middle float, but before we set about making one from the five large forty-gallon tanks, which were still under No. 2’s flooded deck, we ought, according to our programme, to launch her. The object of this was, of course, to prevent No. 3 from being drawn down into the depths if No. 2 should sink suddenly when the big tanks were removed. If such a disaster occurred we could then easily save ourselves by swimming across to No. 3. Or, to be more correct, we could all do it but Eric. Of course we saw that in Eric’s bad state of health he must at all costs be prevented from getting wet, and we therefore decided to put him on board No. 3 before we took up the tanks.

  No. 3, however, consisted so far only of the two side floats held together by just a few cross-beams, so if we wanted to put this excellent plan into execution we should first have to make her rather more habitable. We did this by pulling a few dozen nails out of the roof platform and constructing an oblong box of planks and masonite. This box we then made fast to the port side of No. 3. This delicate carpentry work, however, took an inordinately long time, and it was not until two in the afternoon that Eric was at last established in his box.

  Having achieved that much, we caught hold of No. 3 and shoved till our backs were near breaking. But it was not long before we prudently checked ourselves. The sea was still very high, and we were all afraid of the outrigger raft capsizing as soon as we let go. For safety’s sake, therefore, we changed our tactics and lifted Eric out before making another attempt. It was still hard work, and several times we were alarmingly near disaster, but finally No. 3 slid into the water right way up. She floated uncommonly well, but pitched a good deal worse than No. 2. But that did not worry us excessively, for we were convinced that a steadying cargo was all she needed. We hauled No. 3 in quickly with the aid of a rope, and while Juanito and I held on tight, Jean and Hans together lifted Eric over and laid him down in the box. We also passed over in quick succession a sextant, the one usable wireless receiver, some nautical books and the greater part of our food supplies and our drinking water.

  As Eric was completely helpless and many unforeseen accidents might happen, I asked Jean to keep him company. Then we gave No. 3 sixty feet of rope and let her go. But she had hardly gone a few yards when she came back with the wind and began to bump against our stem planks. It was futile to push her away, for she came back again and again as obstinately as a duckling afraid to leave its mother. At Eric’s suggestion we hoisted a sail the size of a towel on board No. 3 and let out another thirty feet of rope, and the result was unexpectedly good; indeed she was now trying to sail away from us.

  It was now three o’clock, and we therefore went to work without delay on the big forty-gallon tanks. The first one we loosened was full of water, but we were now hardened against such mishaps, and without losing any time in gloomy reflections we quickly took up the four remaining tanks—all in first-class condition. To our surprise and pleasure Tahiti Nui II sank only about four inches deeper. Nevertheless, to avoid any further collisions between the two craft we did not fasten them alongside one another but swam over to No. 3 with the tanks one by one and, with great trouble, made them fast under the middle frame. Every swim of thirty yards there and back took much time, and we were only just able to finish this tiring work before darkness fell.

  As both our vessels were almost equally unsteady, we divided the crew between them, Eric and Jean spending the night on board No. 3 and Juanito, Hans and I on board No. 2. Unlike my two comrades, I slept extremely badly, and each time I awoke I was irresistibly driven to crawl to the edge of the roof and feel whether we still had No. 3 in tow. To be quite honest I will not deny that my uneasiness was caused by consideration for my own safety, for it would have been as fatal to me and my snoring comrades as to Eric and Jean if the worn rope had parted.

  We began Monday, August nth, by discussing how we could complete No. 3 in the shortest possible time. Our proud creation still lacked deck, mast, steering oar and additional cross-beams. But still we firmly believed that it would be possible to start our sail some time towards the end of the afternoon, if we only organized the work properly and put our backs into it. We were convinced that the storm had cleared the air for a long time ahead, and so, in making our plans, we quite ignored the possibility that the weather might worsen. This soon proved to have been a great mistake, for the sky slowly darkened again and the sea grew rougher and rougher.

  Neither Juanito, who had been given the task of nailing down a deck of masonite plates, nor Eric and I, who were trying to make a steering oar, were troubled to any extent by the motion as we crawled about on the pitching No. 3. But poor Jean and Hans, to whose lot it had fallen to loosen as much wood as possible from No. 2 and swim across with it to No. 3, fought an uneven battle with the waves. For some unexplained reason, too, the sea that day was full of unpleasantly inquisitive sharks, which of course made their thankless task still more difficult. But they stubbornly refused to give in and, like the rest of us, continued against all reason to hope that No. 3 would be ready before evening.

  But when darkness fell our escape craft still had no mast and, far more serious, we had not been able to reinforce her straining frame with No. 2’s outrigger booms. We were therefore compelled, little as we liked it, once again to postpone our departure. As I ought to have realized would happen, those two archenemies, Eric and Jean, had been unable to get along together the previous night alone on board No. 3. So this time I asked Jean to stay on board No. 2 along with his trusty chum Hans, and I stretched myself out between Eric and Juanito on board No. 3.

  I at once made two depressing discoveries, which had escaped me earlier in the day. First, the tank floats lay much deeper than we had estimated, which was the more disturbing in that we had nothing like a full cargo and crew on board. Secondly, I distinctly felt the big tanks in the central frame moving violently each time the outrigger raft climbed up on to a crest or slid down into the trough of a wave. I took counsel with the alert Eric, and we quickly agreed that it would be too risky to entrust our lives to No. 3 without first trying to reinforce her and increase her buoyancy.

  The only way in which we could make No. 3 carry a rather heavier weight was to add those of the galvanized iron drums from Constitucion which were still intact. So as soon as it grew light on the morning of August 12th we began, in a depressed mood, to take them up from their places on No. 2’s fore-deck. Three of them had rusted to pieces, but the other three were still usable, and we hastened to lash them fast in three of the outriggers four comers. In the fourth and last comer we placed, for the sake of equilibrium, an untidy-looking but very strong float, made of all our empty demijohns fastened together in a large bundle. Then we immediately set to work to make a further frame from the wood which Jean and Hans had broken loose the day before. After scratching our heads over it for a long time, we had come to the conclusion that the best way to keep the large tanks of the central float in place was to put an extra frame under them so that they were held fast between it and the first frame on the upper side. Our calculation proved correct, for the tanks immediately ceased their irregular movement, with consequent strain on the lashings. The weather gradually improved and the sea grew calmer, which made these unforeseen tasks easier; nevertheless, they took a whole day. If we had managed to complete the outrigger ra
ft we should certainly not have taken too tragic a view of the delay, but unfortunately, when the sun suddenly set, we had not yet been able to move the outrigger booms from No. 2 to No. 3. We felt downcast and irritable as we gazed out over the sea, still illuminated by a few lingering shafts of light.

  A whole week had now passed since we had begun with high hopes to build our raft, and my noon observation had shown that we were less than a hundred miles from Starbuck; yet we were a good way south of the latitude in which the island lay, and with every hour that passed the north-easterly wind increased the angle between our desired and our actual course. After a careful study of the chart Eric said, as calmly as if he had been looking at a time-table to see what train he was to take:

  ‘It’s already too late to get to Starbuck. Let us set a course for Penrhyn instead as soon as we are ready to leave tomorrow.’

  I glanced quickly at the chart and saw that Penrhyn lay about 225 miles south-west of our position. There was no doubt that we had an infinitely better prospect of reaching this island than Starbuck, and I could not help being surprised and annoyed at not having perceived this obvious truth long before. But before I could express my agreement Jean and Hans began to attack Eric fiercely for his changeableness, stupidity, irresponsibility and a number of other disagreeable characteristics with which they saddled him. When at last they paused for a moment I tried as tactfully as possible to convince them that Eric was right, but it was of no avail, and the longer our argument continued the more bitter and violent it became.

  Curiously enough, Juanito obviously found it hard to decide which side to take, for he never opened his mouth, but that was the only consolation I had. Our safety depended, now more than ever, on agreeing and co-operating fully, and if, for example, Jean and Hans refused to take watches the end would be disaster for us all. It was impossible to divide us into two groups, for all the usable material had gone to the building of our outrigger raft. So when we saw how fanatically determined Jean and Hans were to have their way, Eric and I at last reluctantly agreed first to make an attempt to reach Starbuck.

  ‘But you must promise to let Alain and me set our course in future, if by any chance we should be unlucky enough to miss Starbuck,’ added Eric.

  Jean and Hans solemnly promised this without noticing Eric’s sarcastic tone, and they must have found this easy enough, for there seemed to be no limit to their childish faith in a speedy end to all our difficulties. We parted in a depressed mood and soon fell asleep.

  We removed the outrigger booms as soon as we had drunk our usual morning coffee on August 13th. The rolling increased quickly, but the expected catastrophe did not take place, no doubt because the sea was surprisingly calm. I therefore left Jean, Hans and Juanito on board No. 2 to recover the last pieces of timber and myself returned to No. 3 to cut out a sail under Eric’s supervision. My crew-mates had already floated several pieces across, lying on their stomachs on them, when I suddenly heard a piercing yell from No. 2. The yelling came from Jean and Juanito, and when they had succeeded in attracting my attention they pointed to Hans, who was pushing a big outrigger boom in front of him in the water some twenty yards farther away. My first thought was that he had been attacked by a shark. But no triangular fins were to be seen anywhere, and Hans himself was grinning cheerfully and waving his hand reassuringly. Not till I watched him in bewilderment for a long time did I at last realize what was wrong. Instead of approaching No. 3, as he evidently seemed to think he was doing, he was slowly but surely drifting away from her. The reason was very simple. Although the wind was rather weak, the rafts, due to their comparatively large structures above water, drifted much faster than the completely submerged boom, which in any case was too big for Hans to handle alone.

  I quickly searched through all bundles and boxes on board No. 3 to see if our last coil of rope was on board. But of course it was not. Fortunately, however, Jean had the same idea as myself, and hastily made fast one end of the rope which was still on board No. 2 round his waist and the other end round a stanchion. As soon as he had finished his preparations he threw himself into the sea. Strange to say, Hans did not seem yet to have realized that the gap was widening, for he waved reassuringly to Jean and a few seconds later calmly laid himself across the boom to draw breath for a while.

  Jean reached Hans just before the rope came to an end and his own strength gave out. As the boom was at least as valuable as Hans’s life, and Jean had his work cut out to persuade Hans that he needed saving, I jumped in and helped in the rescue. Not until we had sworn that he was really on his way back to South America, and described in detail how unpleasant it could be to float about on a log quite alone in the middle of the Pacific, did Hans reluctantly begin to show some gratitude. After this tragicomic incident we took great care to make fast to a lifeline all the wood with which we swam over from one raft to the other. The last object we took on board No. 3 was the wooden Polynesian image which we had had with us on the outward voyage on Tahiti Nui 1 and by a lucky chance had been able to save from our first shipwreck near the Juan Fernandez islands.

  To our inexpressible relief we at last completed No. 3 in time to make a start before dusk. None the less, we postponed our departure till next day, as we wanted to be absolutely sure that our new raft was seaworthy before we cut the line which connected us with No. 2 and the still quite considerable amount of repair material on board her. After we had taken away the outrigger it was positively dangerous to remain on board No. 2, and the only thing regarding her fate which we could not predict with certainty was whether she would capsize before she sank or sink before she capsized. For the first time, therefore, we all clambered on board No. 3 for the night.

  Just to find room for us all on the little deck platform, which measured only five feet by six feet six inches and was almost entirely hidden by all our boxes, sacks and bundles, was a difficult problem. Unable to find any other solution, we finally lay down on top of all the equipment and pressed ourselves together like sardines. Even worse was that the raft lay so deep that the waves licked the underside of the thin deck. I estimated our freeboard at a foot, which undeniably was the lowest possible.

  These new trials naturally aggravated our irritability and nervous tension, and we bickered ceaselessly over the most absurd things. Eric was the only one who kept silent, but it was clear from his angry snortings that he heard every word of our petty quarrels and strongly condemned our behaviour. None the less I was started when, towards midnight, he announced that he was through with us and would rather be left behind on board our old, sinking raft. At first I took him to mean that he was voluntarily seeking death solely because he could no longer put up with these occasional unpleasantnesses, which were really extremely trivial, and I tried to appeal to his reason and make him see how precipitate his decision was.

  But when Eric refused to see reason I began to wonder whether there was not some other and weightier reason for his stubbornness. More than once during the hardships and sufferings of the last few months he had confessed to me that he was dead tired and could not think of any better end for an old sailor than to find eternal peace and quiet in the sea which alone had given purpose and meaning to his life. Could it be, too, that he wanted to disappear just at this moment to make the outrigger raft lighter, give us more room and so assist our escape?

  I felt that only the most drastic arguments would have any effect, and declared that I would stay behind with him if he persisted in his resolve. He gave way at last, slowly and reluctantly.

  During the night of August 13 th-14 th an almost dead calm set in. When, the following morning, we saw the long, gentle swell we thought we might as well continue to use No. 2 as a drogue—which was now all that she was good for—and complete our last preparations in peace and quiet while waiting for a wind. The first thing we did was to tidy up. By stowing the sextant, provisions and nautical books into Eric’s box, and lashing the water tanks firmly to the outriggers, we succeeded in making room enough on deck
for two of us at a time to stretch ourselves out in something like comfort. As we reckoned that one of us would always have to stand aft and steer, all that was needed was to find one more place, and seeing no other way out, I offered to sleep on the top of Eric’s box when not on watch.

  After that we tried to ship the mast, which proved to be a good deal more difficult than we had expected on account of the slippery aluminium tanks on which it stood. But gradually we got it shipped according to plan, at an angle of 75 degrees, in Polynesian style.

  Then we paid a sentimental farewell visit to No. 2, which was now exactly like a submarine ready to dive.

  When we crawled on board No. 3 again the sea was rippled by the first capful of wind, and to the general delight we agreed to cast off at once. We had been stupid enough, however, not to ask Eric’s advice, so it was with justified impatience that he said, rather cuttingly:

  ‘You silly mutts, you’ve forgotten to make a centreboard. I think you might have learnt by this time that a raft must have a centreboard if one’s going to steer it. But don’t use any of No. 2’s centreboards: they’re too heavy.’ Looking rather foolish, we hurriedly set to work to make a small centreboard of wooden spars and slabs of masonite and lashed it under the middle float as firmly as we could. While occupied with this tricky piece of work we did not keep a proper lookout, and suddenly the rafts came into collision with a violent crash. No. 3 had not suffered any visible damage, but it was far from certain that it would stand any more collisions of the kind, so when the next breeze came racing along the sea’s surface a little later we cast off quickly and set sail. The breeze lasted just long enough to fill the sails, and we moved off slowly with Juanito grinning cheerfully at the steering oar.