Part 1:  Red Sky at Morning, Sailor Take Warning

 Seafarers tell many stories about sunken ships, some perhaps haunted by ghosts of their crew.  I imagine she is one of those lost boats, under the ocean, about 200 miles southeast of Cape May New Jersey.

Exactly 30 years ago this week, just as I walked in the door, my phone jangled.

My mother had called me, but her voice was breathless as if it was she who rushed to pick up the phone.  She had news – about my brother.

“What?”  I cried.  It made no sense. 

Back then I was working as a technical writer, living in my very first apartment and planning my wedding.  My younger sister was still in college.  We had our whole lives ahead of us.

It was October 1980.

My brother was what we called a “boat bum.”  Dad encouraged him to go to law school but my brother resisted.  Instead, after college, he hired himself out as crew, deck hand, whatever he could get, as long as it was on the water.

He'd signed on as a member of the six-person (four men, two women) crew of Mariah, an 86-foot staysail schooner, recently refitted in City Island NY, and as far as I knew, headed south for the winter to serve as a charter craft in St. Lucia.

What I didn’t know then was that Mariah would never reach her destination.

The story was later told in a piece called “The Loss of the Mariah,” published in Yachting magazine in August 1981.  I wasn’t there, and I’m not much of a sailor myself, but I’ll tell the story as best I know it, using quotations from that piece.

 By early Thursday, October 23, 1980, we had completed provisioning and fueled up.  Our Whaler had been lashed to the deck, the bearings greased, and everything secured.  We flushed out the bilges, using every pump on board, and saw that each functioned properly.  At 0100 we tapped the keg in the cockpit. 

The night was cold, but crystal clear.  The huge clock at the Watchtower building read 44 degrees at 0600; a beautiful day, with crisp Canadian air and northwest breezes.  Both Bendix and NOAA predicted good weather, with a slight trough developing over the Middle Atlantic region which could produce some storm activity, but nothing serious. 

They enjoyed a beautiful day of sailing, a chicken dinner and “a sip of J’s renowned homemade wine,” before taking watches for the night.

But late that night, the winds began to increase, to 20, 25, then 35 knots. 

The sunrise was described as “brilliant red.”  Had he forgotten the old saying, “Red sky at morning, sailor, take warning”?

By Friday the wind was at 40 knots.  Mariah began to leak.  This is not unusual for older boats, and they had bilge pumps aboard, including the two “big guns” that could pump 50-plus and 75-plus gallons per minute, so they were not overly concerned.

 I had said with pride to visitors, “If we have anything aboard Mariah, it’s bilge pumps.” 

By 1900 Friday we were leaking badly enough to engage the Jabsco [one of the larger pumps].  . . It worked for a minute or two, but grew hot and stopped pumping altogether. 

They attempted to repair it -- but by then the water level was too high.

We then began the grueling process of bucket-passing which was to last the next 30 hours. 

During those thirty hours when my brother was bailing water for his life, I drove to work, went to lunch with co-workers, went about my daily routine -- ignorant of the drama out at sea.

The Jabsco pump failed again, the deck pump proved inadequate.  When finally the biggest pump was engaged, it would not prime.

By 2400 the decision was made to head for New Jersey and safety.  We could still keep up with the incoming water, but we had no pumps. . .  We kept bailing.

They sent MAYDAYS by radio which were relayed by other vessels to the Coast Guard, which replied that it would air-drop them a new 140-gallons-per-minute pump.

 The news gave the whole crew an emotional lift – the cavalry was coming over the hill. 

We expected a helicopter, but a huge C-130 transport appeared instead.  Slightly taken aback, we hoped they were good at high-speed air drops. . . After several practice runs, the pilot approached with amazing speed; we watched anxiously for the drop, but nothing happened.  Then Ed spotted a bright orange parachute at 200 yards behind us. . . Recovery was impossible, since we could not head upwind.  The C-130 headed back to Elizabeth City, NC, for more pumps and would not return for four hours.  For the first time, we realized we were in danger of losing the schooner and possibly our lives. 

Here's a link to the exciting conclusion of "The Ill-Fated Voyage of the Schooner Mariah."

http://www.open.salon.com/blog/faith_paulsen/2010/10/27/the_ill-fated_voyage_of_the_schooner_mariah_part_2