THE NIGHT WE NEARLY DIED

Based Upon A True Story By Christian Benjamin Seaborn

© 2024 Christian Benjamin Seaborn

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1
CHAPTER FOUR
As mom, Edie and Elna unpacked and stored the groceries in the galley, I (with a bit of family pride) showed Joey through the cabin.

On deck, dad was directing Doug, Steve, Charles, Bill and Jack on everybody’s duties to get out of dock. It is a choreographed orchestration getting Circe’s 62’ in and out of her slip.

There were two lines on each of the aft side which had to be contented with. There were two more lines at the bow. There was the dock with its large wall that had to be taken into consideration. And there was the prospect, although less likely at eleven-thirty at night, of other boats coming and going on Lake Union. People, the crew, needed to be assigned specific tasks and do them. And dad was, continuing the analogy, the orchestra leader. For dad, Circe was his third child. Of course, he would protect his living children, but his Circe was a close third.

And that was when the hint of a problem with Jack would begin.

“Don’t worry about anything,” Jack said to my dad. “I know all about getting boats in and out. I’ve been sailing like forever.”

My dad just muttered to himself.

People, like my dad, do not need to brag that they know what they are doing when they know what they are doing. People who brag about how experienced they are the ones to be worried about. This my dad knew. This was why Jack concerned my dad. With no idea of what was soon to befall us, even under the best of circumstances sailing in the Puget Sound waters of the Olympic Peninsula could be tricky. And it could get more treacherous once we cleared Washington State and be out in the Straits of Juan de Fuca. Making it a great sailing experience (as dad had told us back in Portland at Christmas) can also mean making it a tricky, even dangerous, sailing experience.

“Nora,” dad hollered from the deck down into the aft cabin. The living room, as it might be thought of.

“Yes, John,” mom said, coming to the bottom of the ladder.

“How are you guys doing? Everything stored? Ready to go?”

“We are, captain,” mom said.

Adding the “captain” part by her was never intended like a sarcastic-type of a thing. When it came to being on the Circe, she took dad’s role as Commander-In-Chief seriously and believed that even though she was his wife, she, more than anybody else, needed to show the respect he deserved. If she didn’t do it, she would tell me later, and set the example, it might throw everybody else off. She wanted no misunderstandings by her children, her children’s friends or their adult friends as to who was running the show on Circe.

“Okay,” dad said. “Then let’s get under way.”

2
Back on deck, dad had assigned Charles and Steve the positions of casting off the bow lines. This in itself required a bit of athletic abilities as you had to be on the dock casting off the large, thick lines then, as Circe was pulling out, run to the side of the dock and jump on board.

He assigned Doug to pole man.

On Circe’s deck was a pole. About twenty feet in length. It had but two purposes. If someone fell overboard, it was something that could be used from the deck over the railing for the person in the water to try to grab on to.
Its other purpose was to be used to push Circe away from the dock if she was drifting too close. That would be Doug’s responsibility.

All that was left were the two aft lines. One for Bill, on the port side. The other for Jack, on the starboard side.
The starboard one was less tricky because it was just a single mooring. The port side was attached to the dock. Still, both were tricky because if the lines were not thrown clear of the boat they could, potentially, get caught up in the rudder. And then there would be a major problem.

Dad, our orchestra leader, positioned himself on deck midship in the event anyone needed his help, he could get to them quickly. He could also oversee the whole process from there.

We were ready. Well, almost.

“Where’s my helmsman?” dad said loudly.

I poked my head up from the aft cabin.

To say, as I said earlier, that I never got to really sail would not be totally accurate. For the most part, being small, I was denied the aspects of sailing that required strength. Raising and lowering sails. Coming about. But when it came to being at the wheel, knowing how to catch the wind in the sails, these were the sailing skills that my dad taught me. Including getting Circe in and out of her slip.

“I’m here, sir,” I said.

“Okay. Well bring your buddy Joey up here too. Teach him a few things.”

Followed by Joey, I came up and then got down into the cockpit.

It was a lovely night. Mom, Edie and Elna also came up on deck. It was possible to sit on the side top of the aft part of the cabin and take in the experience and yet not be in the way.

Dad had already put the gear shift crank into place by the wheel to shift gears from idle, to forward to reverse. Which ever the situation called for. Dad had also brought the big air-engine-powered horn up on deck that would be necessary to get through the bridges.

3
“Are you ready helm?” dad asked, being about six feet behind me.

“Aye, aye, sir,” I replied.

“Okay. You’re calling the shots,” he said. “Take us out.”

It was kind of like being a Captain-In-Waiting. There was an element of truth to it, however. The person at the helm was controlling the boat. Dad was still in charge but I, for those minutes of getting us out, was in charge. It was a true responsibility.

“Why don’t you let me take the wheel, sonny,” Jack suddenly said from behind me.

Boy. Now that was the wrong thing to say. Bill, next to Jack, instantly knew it was the wrong thing to say. Not only to me, but to my dad’s son.

“Hold everything,” dad hollered out to everybody before turning his attentions, almost his wrath, on Jack.

“Jack,” dad began between a combination of nice but forceful. “First, I am the one, the only one, on this vessel who assigns positions. Your position is to release the starboard aft line and make sure it clears the boat. Chris’s position is helmsman. So, let’s get that point out of the way.”

I was kind of cringing. Elna, after all, was sitting but a few feet away and could hear all of this. Everybody could hear it.

“Second,” dad continued, “Chris has been taking the Circe in and out of her slip since I first taught him how to do it when he was ten-years-old. Five years ago. At fifteen, he has the knowledge and the experience to do it. Are we clear on both of these points?”

Jack was taken aback but muttered a “yes, sir”. He looked to Bill, as if to get some support. None was coming from Bill, a captain in his own right of his own sailboat.

For an instant, I felt nothing but pride in how my dad had stood up for me. Then he climbed into the cockpit, excused himself past Joey and came up to me.

“Are you okay?” he asked me.

“Of course. Thank you, sir, for standing up for me.”

“I meant every word of it, Chris. I would not entrust you with this responsibility otherwise. But between us,” he added with a smile, “this would certainly not be the time to run her into the dock.”

He climbed out of the cockpit and retook his position.

“Okay,” he said, “let’s try this again. Everybody ready?”

Everybody, including Jack, yelled out something akin to Aye, Aye, captain.

“Helmsman,” dad said to me, “Circe is yours.”

4
I looked at Joey.

“Pretty cool,” Joey said. “Pretty cool.”

I reached down into the porthole into the engine room and started the engine with a push of a button.

Step One: Everybody release their lines.

“Lines away,” I hollered out.

Steve, Charles, Jack and Bill all simultaneously released their lines. Circe was now a free agent and it was largely my responsibility to make sure she remained a safe free agent.

Step Two: put her in reverse.

I crank shifted her into reverse. We were on the move. Charles and Steve were on the run from the bow and down the side dock.

Step Three: pay attention to both what the boat is doing and what the crew is doing.

Steve and Charles were both tall kids. Steve had jumped first, landing easily on the deck. From the dock my brother, however, was still looking for a place to jump and we were still moving backwards.

“Chris,” dad said from midship.

I was already aware.

Shifting a moving vessel in and out of gears was neither easy, safe or particularly smart. Nonetheless, that would be required.

I shifted Circe into idle. We were still moving backward, but not by power but by momentum. With the aft third, roughly twenty feet, clear of the dock, Charles still had forty feet of boat to work with. Shifting gears suddenly like that had taken Circe into a swaying mode. The bow was swinging towards the dock.

“Doug!” dad and I yelled at the same time.

Pole in hand, Doug jumped into action. Extending it over the port bow to push the boat away from the dock while I turned the wheel port. (Even though we were swaying port, we were still drifting backwards. Steering the wheel in one direction will take the boat in the opposite direction when moving backwards.)

Dad came up behind Doug. Also grasping a part of the pole, together the two pushed against the dock.

“Now would be a good time to jump, Number One son,” dad said. (By order of birth, our parents would often refer to us as Number One and Number Two sons.)

Circe was now half way out and half way in. And I needed the power of the boat not in idle.

5
I shifted Circe back into reverse.

From the dock, Charles could see his window of opportunity closing.

“Stand back,” Charles hollered to Dad, Doug and Steve.

With only twenty feet of boat still within the slip, my athletic brother stepped back and ran down twenty feet of dock and jumped, landing near the bow just as I had Circe cleared of her slip.

“Well,” dad said, moving to Charles, “that was dramatic. I thought we would be seeing you when we got back from Canada.”

Charles and I both knew that was not how this would have worked out. I would have taken Circe out to, more or less, the middle of Lake Union and brought her back into dock. And then we would have repeated the whole exercise all over again.
“I thought your boys knew how to sail,” Jack said to dad.

Dad, to his credit, let the comment pass.

As we headed towards the first bridge, I brought the huge horn up from the cockpit to the deck.

“Watch your ears,” I shouted before I let out one long blast followed by a short blast.

“Can I do it?” Joey asked.

I turned to dad. I knew bridge etiquette. You blow one long and one short. Then you waited for the bridge master to respond in same. I had never thought about what if you did it again before waiting for the response.

“Let Joey do it,” dad said. “We all might just lose our eardrums, but it won’t harm anything.”

“One long, like five seconds, and one short,” I said to Joey. “Hold your ears,” I hollered.

With a sense of satisfaction, Joey did as instructed while everybody on deck again covered their ears.

The bridge master was not responding and we were getting close. I swung Circe around and we made a complete circle, finishing as the bridge master responded and the bridge began to open.

“Take a break,” dad said to me, joining Joey and me in the cockpit. “We’ll let Joey here take us through the bridge.”

Joey beamed a smile.

“Really?” I said. A bit taken aback that Joey would be allowed to do this.

“Yes. Really. Like the first time, when you were ten, I will be right here.”

6
As I turned the helm over to Joey, I got up out of the cockpit. I could hear dad explaining to him how to do this. As he had explained it to me five years earlier.

“It’s how Joey will learn,” mom said to me. “Besides, it’s more fun doing something then watching. There are snacks in the galley. If you want.”

Going through the locks was still a dad task. First, as dad explained it to me, the locks master would not be okay with seeing a boy bringing a 62’ boat through the locks. Second, this was only my second time through the locks after that first time in 1965. On both points, I could see the point.

Once we were through the locks now it was time to sail.

While we had been in the locks, dad had Charles, Doug, Bill and Steve bring up the jib sail and fasten it. Joey, Jack and I had been busy taking off the green covering of the mainsail which was attached and rolled up on the boom.

“Did I feel some rain?” mom asked dad just before we were going to raise the mainsail.

“Don’t be silly, Nora,” dad replied. “There’s barely a cloud in the sky. Probably just spray off the Sound.”

I don’t know if it was just spray, as dad had said, or the power of suggestion, but I immediately found myself touching my neck where I thought some water had hit me.

I looked up into the night sky. While there were a few scattered clouds, for the most part it was still a starry sky. The wind I noticed had picked up. Better for sailing, I thought.

Even though we had still been under engine power and basically going straight ahead, dad had Joey stay at the helm.
 

Somebody had to be there and we were like all alone out there. Nobody really to like run into.

I looked at my watch. It was twelve-fifteen in the morning of Friday, March 26, 1971.