The storm centre.
It is the seventh day of the chase; the ships have sailed 1,500 nautical miles. The media’s interest of the initial days has subsided, but the Dutch authorities are asking for an update on the Thunder’s position. At the daily morning meeting in the messroom, Hammarstedt explains that some “pretty nasty weather” is on the way and that the Sam Simon is approaching the Antarctic convergence zone.2 The ship is now three days from the gillnets from which the Thunder was fleeing.
Captain Sid Chakravarty on the Sam Simon is preparing for an aggressive meeting with the fish poachers. The toothfish that are probably now caught in the gillnets left behind by the Thunder is worth so much that they might return to try and retrieve their catch. If that happens, Chakravarty will give them a fight. What if they have weapons on board and threaten to use them?
But the Thunder is clearly choosing the same strategy as the Japanese whalers did when they were chased by Sea Shepherd’s fleet: escape into the storm. When the whalers encountered stormy weather, they sailed the ship across the storm to make life unbearable for the far smaller Bob Barker.
Peter Hammarstedt gives the order to batten down the hatches and secure everything on the vessel. During a storm on a previous expedition he was thrown out of his berth and woke up on the floor to catch a fleeting glimpse of a refrigerator that had been torn off its wall-hinges soaring through his cabin. Before it crashed into the bulkhead, it whizzed past just a few centimetres from his head.
“I am going to assume that the Thunder have weather and ice charts and stuff like that,” says the Chief Engineer Erwin Vermeulen, who has come to the bridge.
The winds have begun blowing the foam off the crests of the waves; they are beating upon the port side of the ship. The contents of drawers and cupboards spill out across the floor, the lifeboats rock and bang against the cradles. Finally, the lock mechanism on one of them breaks, and it is now held on board only by a thin strap. Then one of the large Yokohama fenders under the wheelhouse is torn loose, the one that is meant to protect the ship when it docks or comes up alongside another vessel. It weighs more than a ton and is dancing back and forth across the foredeck like a wrecking ball. Hammarstedt must send two of the crew out into the Armageddon taking place on the foredeck before the fender crushes the motors on the dinghies. In this weather he would prefer not to send anyone out on deck; a man overboard has no chance. In 7-metre waves the Bob Barker cannot turn around.
The Australian boatswain Alistar Allan and engineer Pablo Watson volunteer to go on deck to secure the dancing fender. The majority of the crew are knocked out by the weather. Only a handful show up for meals; the few crew members who have staggered down to the messroom discuss which of the two ships are having the most hellish time of it.
Hammarstedt knows which stage of seasickness is the worst. He has navigated a ship through 15-metre high waves on the coast of Labrador all the while vomiting into a bucket. But that isn’t the worst stage; neither is it when the seasickness has drained you of all your strength and you are just tired, worn down and have the cold sweats. The worst moment is when you feel you are going to die, the moment you really believe that it’s all over, but then you realize that it isn’t over after all, that liberation will not be forthcoming. Then you start sliding in and out of your dreams, you imagine that you see family and friends, but they too are tottering around seasick in your delusions.
Throughout the entire night the wind hammers away at the two ships and the hull becomes an echo chamber of disturbing noises. Fifty litres of cooking oil spill through the galley of the Bob Barker. It leaks down over the decks and gets mixed in with the oil and diesel. Throughout the entire ship, the pounding of the fuel being thrown back and forth in the fuel tanks can be heard. It’s as if somebody is trapped inside and desperately trying to break their way out.
When the bow plunges down into the trough between the waves and sends the propeller whirring out of the water, the air bubbles meet the end of the rotating propeller blade with a high-pitched whine, sending vibrations through the body of the ship. With less resistance to the propeller, the sturdy banging from the engine room suddenly changes its rhythm and frequency. The heart of the ship trembles.
From the bridge it is impossible to distinguish the white crests of foam from ice. Hammarstedt has posted a watchstander at the clear view screen, the window that steadily rotates to throw off ocean spray, sleet and snow, and which is heated to prevent condensation and icing. He constantly monitors the autopilot to ensure that it is navigating correctly, and now and then he sees the Thunder like a dim shadow in front of him. You are doing this to frighten us, but now we are in the storm together, Hammarstedt thinks.
Now Hammarstedt is trying to understand the captain of the Thunder. He navigated into the ice, but kept their speed down, did not sail at full throttle and he was not there for long. Now he is sailing straight into the storm. Even though the waves are up to 7 metres high, he is navigating with assurance and calculation and without being foolhardy or reckless, Hammarstedt thinks.
On the Bob Barker all the lights on the bridge are turned off to enhance visibility; only a faint red light filters in from the media room behind
