Read Online The Last Airship by Christopher Cartwright - Free Book Online

last deep breath, he grasped the inside grab bar with all the
strength in both hands, and hoped that today wasn’t going to be his last.
    The
turbid wave of water hit him with the force of a Mac truck. The initial impact
nearly rendering him unconscious. The strong flow swept his feet out from under
him, and his hands, locked onto the grab bar, fought to prevent him from being
flushed down the galley passage way. 
    The
water was just starting to recede as a second wave struck the port side.
    Sam
had just enough time to take one more deep breath before the entire area was
swamped with water again.
    He
thought his ship may broach and then roll, but Second Chance held true
to her name.
    Slowly,
the water receded. Sam heard the familiar drone of the powerful automatic pumps
deep in the bilge kick into life.
    Picking
himself up, he scanned the cabin.
    It
was going to take a lot of work to clean her, and some of the electronic
equipment would need to be replaced, but all told, he had escaped lightly, he
decided.
    Another
large wave struck, and he heard the mechanical workings of the autopilot
struggling to maintain her course.
    Then,
he heard the sound that is every sailor’s worst nightmare.
    It
was the sound of a cable snapping under pressure, followed by the sudden jolt
of the yacht as its rudder stopped struggling to maintain her direction. The
tiny storm jib, the only sail which remained, and formed a triangle no longer
than a couple feet, could now be heard flapping in the wind.
    Sam
didn’t wait to feel the pounding of the giant swell on his port side. Without
the rudder, there was no way to control how Second Chance would face the
oncoming swell. 
    In
these seas, failure to run with the swell could only result in catastrophic
damage to his yacht and his certain death by drowning. 
    He
climbed up the stairs and stepped out through the tiny hatchway.
    The
storm surrounded him now. If he failed to gain control of the rudder within
minutes he, and Second Chance , would be well on their way to the bottom
of Bass Strait.
    The
autopilot was flashing and making an irritating noise as its computer tried to
determine how to make adjustments. It was completely ineffective as long as the
cable running from the steering block to the rudder was broken.
    Sam
hit the wait button on the autopilot in utter frustration.
    He
didn’t need to hear that sound anymore. Then, without waiting to harness up and
run a travel line, he quickly made his way to the transom. There, above the
enormous rudder, were the remains of his old weather vane and next to them, the
emergency tiller.
    A
simple, direct link to the rudder, the tiller was of little mechanical aid to
steering, but it was something; the emergency tiller gave Sam at least the
possibility of steering Second Chance by hand.
    Sitting
aft Sam had little protection from the giant waves, running from behind him. If
another wave flooded his deck again, harnessed or not, the force would send him
overboard to his inevitable death.
    As
if to emphasize his exposure, a medium sized wave broke and splashed over him;
its icy chill immediately jarring his mind into making a change in his course
of action.
    The
one saving grace was the fact that up ahead, his tiny storm jib, little more
than a couple of feet of canvas, provided just enough speed to maintain a
strong enough flow of water over the rudder to keep a course. Sam angled Second
Chance diagonally along the large, breaking swell, a motion more like
surfing with the wave than fighting against it.
    He
was in for a long night if he were to survive at all.
    His
survival so far had been more about luck than skill, he acknowledged, but by
the morning the storm had settled.
    The
next day, he limped to the outskirts of Hobart, where he was able to anchor in
the lee of the mountain and make repairs. Running a second steering cable on Second
Chance was easier than it sounded, because Sam had insisted on a redundant
set of cables running side by