A Yacht Called Erewhon Page 15

  ‘Losing your touch?’ Dad asked, as he ripped open the parcel to reveal a tarnished brass compass.

  Max Green had delivered it to the yard the previous evening. Sam took the compass from Dad’s hands and started rubbing furiously. ‘She’s the original. See, she’s got her name engraved around the base.’

  None of us noticed that Mic had slipped into the barn. ‘Why all the glum faces?’ she asked.

  ‘We need some dry pohutukawa, and it’s not something you can buy off the shelf these days,’ Dad replied.

  ‘Morning, Mic. What do you think of this?’ I asked, pointing towards the compass.

  She smiled. ‘Nana will be pleased it’s back. And Jack said, if you’re looking for pohutukawa, there’s a dead tree on a farm up at Puhoi, and the branches will match.’

  ‘Jack who?’ Sam asked.

  ‘Don’t ask, Sam,’ Dad replied. ‘In Puhoi, eh? Let’s get Bertha and go and have a look.’

  ‘It’s the second farm on the right heading along the Puhoi road from the main road. You can see the tree from the road.’

  Hepi returned half an hour later in Bertha, with a couple of chainsaws on the back. Sam and Dad climbed into the cab, and Mic and I hopped up on the back. Hepi slammed the truck into gear, and we were off down the drive.

  Above the roar of Bertha’s engine and the cackle of the twin exhausts over our head, conversation was difficult. Standing up and clinging onto the back of the cab with the wind in our faces was the most comfortable way to travel as Bertha bounced along. Half an hour later, Hepi swung off the main road and we headed towards Puhoi, looking for the tree. He pulled Bertha up, with a loud hiss of the brakes, as a dead pohutukawa came into view.

  ‘Well, look at that!’ exclaimed Sam as he climbed down from the cab and walked towards the fence between him and the ancient tree. I held the wires apart for him to bend through, then joined him as he strode over to the tree, where he produced a chisel from his pocket and stabbed vigorously at the trunk. ‘We’d better find the farmer and negotiate,’ he announced. ‘I reckon that limb to the left of the trunk has the arc we’re looking for, and we should get both frames from it.’

  Bertha roared back into life, and Hepi headed for the farm gate. The long gravel drive led to an old farmhouse set on the brow of a hill overlooking the surrounding district. As Bertha hissed to a stop at the end of the gravel drive, a man swung open the front door and walked out onto the verandah.

  ‘Can I help you?’ he asked, in a gruff tone.

  ‘You sure can!’ Dad replied. ‘Are you the owner of this beautiful property?’

  ‘Would I be standing here in my bloody socks if I wasn’t?’ he snapped.

  Dad introduced everybody and told him what we were after.

  ‘Don’t talk to me about that tree. Bloody neighbours were spraying weed-killer about eighteen months ago, and the drift got it. Bloody thing turned up its toes overnight. It’s about four or five hundred years old, and the bastards are denying they had anything to do with it. I was going to sue the sods, but I haven’t the time. What’s it worth to you?’ he asked.

  ‘That’s what I was about to ask you,’ Dad replied.

  He rocked back and forth on his heels, then looked at Dad. ‘You drop the whole thing, take what you need, and cut anything that’s left into stove lengths and put it in me woodshed.’

  ‘Deal!’ Dad replied.

  The farmer turned and went inside without another word.

  I was early to work the next morning, eager to make a start on the new frames. Sam was already there, and the heavy branches lay on the ground. I gave him a hand to lift the remains of the old broken frames on top of them. Sam’s eye had proved accurate—the broken frames closely matched the curves of the new timber. ‘Ah!’ he uttered. ‘Reckon we’re in business. Only wish we had these two days ago. Chisel would have easily run them to size. Still, it’ll be good experience for you.’

  When Sam said it would be good experience, he also meant it would be hard work. It took a day to rough the frames out, and that night I left the barn almost on my hands and knees.

  ‘Don’t be late in the morning!’ Sam called over his shoulder, as he walked off home to the cottage. I managed a feeble nod.

  We spent the next day trimming the beautiful dark timber, and on the third day we began to fit the new frames into the hull. Dad couldn’t hold back the grin. ‘We’re going in the right direction, Sam.’

  Sam smiled, as he set about preparing to varnish the first frame. ‘We’ll give each part a couple of coats.’

  The timber responded, and the dark grain glistened when Sam looked at the finished product. ‘People have always asked me why I never wanted to be anything but a boatbuilder.’ I was beginning to understand his dedication.

  With both frames in place, we turned our attention to the stringers and started to machine the kauri. Each length was selected, honed to shape, and fitted to Erewhon with precision. I watched and learned as Sam coerced each length of timber into a perfectly fitting piece of this three-dimensional puzzle. I was eager to learn, but Sam’s greatest lesson was patience, as we slowly pieced Erewhon back together. Each plank had to fit exactly, or it was rejected. Sam wouldn’t compromise, even on the inner layer of the three skins, saying that the end product would justify the effort.

  At times Dad struggled with our rate of progress. Each day, when he arrived home, he’d head for the barn. A month passed as we gradually filled in the hole, and every night Dad would don his old clothes and continue the laborious task of stripping paint and varnish from the rest of the hull.

  He came into the barn one night, jabbering about a J-class yacht that had sailed into the harbour. Her name was Valhalla, and she was tied up at the Maritime Museum, part of the contingent here for the upcoming America’s Cup.

  As he described how she’d looked as she glided into the harbour, he stepped back from Erewhon and sighed. ‘Our lady will look even better, but we still have a long way to go!’

  Valhalla’s arrival was timely. If there was any doubt about what we were trying to achieve, it evaporated with one trip to the Viaduct Basin.

  ‘She’s bloody beautiful,’ Sam mumbled, ‘but she’s steel. Wait until you see our lady back in the water. And, what’s more, we’ll blow her out of the water when it comes down to a race!’

  The America’s Cup build-up provided a distraction over the following months, but Sam and I beavered on.

  Early one afternoon, Sam picked up the phone and rang Dad. ‘Jim, I need you here urgently!’ Dad hadn’t been near the barn for a week or more, as he had been working all hours. He was about to ask Sam what the problem was when the phone went dead.

  ‘What’s the problem?’ Dad boomed as he crashed through the door into the barn. ‘Crikey, it’s cold in here!’

  It was early October, and the days were only just beginning to warm up.

  Sam handed Dad a hammer and a copper fastening. ‘You’d better put this one in,’ he said.

  Dad looked puzzled.

  ‘It’s the last one. I thought you might like to do it!’

  Dad turned and looked at the hull and his face lit up. ‘You beauts!’ he exclaimed, as he drove the last fastening home.

  ‘We can turn her over tomorrow, Jim. I want to replace those toe-rails before we start preparing for the varnish.’

  ‘I’ll give Stan and Gorilla a ring and see if they can do it in the morning.’

  Dad snapped his cellphone shut as he walked back into the barn. ‘Stan tells me he and his mate are tied up for two weeks, shifting boats for the America’s Cup syndicates. Stuff them!’

  ‘Get a couple of cranes, and we’ll do it ourselves!’ Sam offered.

  ‘You reckon?’

  ‘Just borrow your bogies back from Stan for a couple of hours. We’ll roll her outside, and a couple of decent crane operators can do the rest.’

  The following morning, I was woken by the roar of two giant trucks grinding their way up the drive. They swung in
to the turning area in front of the barn and, with a deafening hiss of the brakes, both drivers scrambled out of their cabs and stretched their aching backs.

  Bill, the younger one, wandered over to his partner, Ted, and held out a packet of cigarettes. Ted withdrew a smoke, lit up, and handed the lighter to his mate. ‘What are we lifting today, a bloody house?’ Ted asked him.

  ‘Don’t know. Some bloody boat or something,’ Bill replied.

  Dad had taken the day off, and soon Hepi and Paint arrived in Bertha, with the bogies on the tray.

  ‘Morning, gents,’ Dad called, as he walked towards the barn. He swung open the huge doors and allowed the sunlight onto the stripped wooden hull.

  ‘Jeez!’ exclaimed Bill. ‘What a bloody beauty! She must be over 100 feet.’

  ‘One hundred and thirty-five.’

  ‘Jeez,’ Bill repeated, ‘and what does she weigh?’

  ‘About fifty ton.’

  ‘No bloody wonder you wanted both of us!’

  ‘Yep,’ Dad replied. ‘Now here’s the plan. We’ve got some bogies to put her on, so we can wheel her outside. What we need you boys to do is lift her up and roll her over. Then we’ll put her in that cradle and roll the whole thing back inside.’

  ‘No sweat!’ Bill announced.

  ‘Piece of cake!’ added Ted. ‘We’ll set up over there while you get her out.’

  While the boys moved their machines into position, Hepi, Paint and I jacked her up and put Erewhon on the bogies.

  Unlike every other time we’d moved her, Erewhon hardly murmured as we lifted her. I commented on this to Sam. He smiled. ‘Must have got those fastenings right. Ah, laddy, she’s as tight as a drum!’

  Dad backed the Nissan into the doorway, and Hepi slipped the towing strop from the front bogie over the tow-ball. ‘Now take it easy, Bollocks,’ he cautioned, as he picked up the steering tiller.

  Erewhon slowly inched out into the warm morning sun until her bare hull was neatly positioned in front of the waiting cranes.

  ‘That’ll do!’ Bill yelled, when he was happy with her position.

  The boys looped two strops around the waiting hull. Sam, Hepi, Paint and I watched, as Dad directed operations. Mic had slipped into the shadows by the barn, saying nothing but obviously worried. I walked over and put my arm around her shoulder. ‘Don’t worry, Hepi always uses the best.’

  She smiled nervously. ‘I still can’t help worrying.’

  The giant cranes belched clouds of black smoke as their engines roared, and the winches took up the strain. The machines didn’t miss a beat as they snatched Erewhon off the bogies, swinging her above the ground. Gradually, in a series of short lifts, the port side stayed resting on a pile of padding on the ground, while the starboard side progressively ascended until the deck was just short of vertical.

  Bill and Ted climbed down from their cabs as their engines died back to idle. They repositioned their respective strops for the next lift, but this time they didn’t pull them tight against the hull.

  Sam looked worried. ‘What are you two jokers up to?’

  ‘Just stand clear, old fella!’ Ted called.

  ‘You put a mark on her and I’ll have your balls!’ Sam bellowed back. He turned his back and walked towards the barn, nervously puffing on his pipe.

  Ted signalled to Bill, and with another cloud of smoke Erewhon headed for the sky. She was about ten feet clear of the ground when the engines settled back to idle, then roared again as Erewhon stopped swinging, her deck now vertical. Both strops were drum tight. With a prearranged nod the drivers flicked the ends of their booms and Erewhon momentarily floated on air. Both strops went slack, and the heavy keel stub descended rapidly. The strops cracked like a stock-whip as they arrested Erewhon’s fall, and the cranes bucked on their stabilisers. The hull gracefully slid around in the strops and, for the first time since I’d cast eyes on her, she was the right way up. We all stood with our mouths open, and I wasn’t sure whether it was the manoeuvre or her immense beauty that took our breath away.

  ‘Pretty to watch!’ bellowed Hepi, breaking the silence.

  ‘You’d better not have broken any ribs with that crazy stunt!’ Sam snapped.

  Bill and Ted rested the hull on the keel stub and climbed down from their machines, grinning.

  We all took a few paces back to take in the full view. Even unvarnished, she was a magnificent sight.

  I placed a ladder against the hull, and we all climbed aboard for our first glimpse of the deck layout.

  ‘Better bring your tennis rackets,’ I yelled, as I stepped over the rail. Everyone followed me up and gazed around the huge deck.

  Mic moved up and stood on the bow.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I asked.

  ‘Don’t mind me. You know I get emotional at times like this.’

  I smiled as we looked back down to where Dad and Sam were giving the remains of the toe-rail a close examination.

  ‘Bit of work there, Sam,’ Dad muttered.

  Sam nodded. ‘That’s what I’ve been waiting to get my hands on. I always reckoned it was the one feature of Erewhon that wasn’t done correctly.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘I always thought the kauri toe-rail never set the hull off. It needed a darker timber, like pohutukawa. Jack wanted all the fore and aft timber to be full length, to add to the strength of the hull. We didn’t have the glues that are available nowadays, and kauri was the only timber long enough for the job.’

  ‘You reckon we’ve got enough pohutukawa to build a toe-rail?’ Dad asked.

  ‘Yep, and I could make it so you couldn’t find the joins—and it’d be stronger than the original!’

  ‘I agree, it would look great.’ Dad said.

  ‘I’d like to have had Jack’s seal of approval, though,’ Sam said, as he climbed down the ladder. ‘Shame he’s not here to ask.’

  ‘Can you talk to your Nana and see if Jack would approve?’ I whispered to Mic.

  ‘He already has.’

  I chased Sam and Dad up the path as they walked towards the house. ‘Mic says Jack was never happy with the kauri rail.’

  Sam looked puzzled. Dad turned to Sam. ‘Don’t try to work that one out, Sam,’ he said.

  Sam stopped, took his pipe from his mouth, trying to think of what to say, then grunted and put the pipe back in his mouth. He blew out a cloud of smoke. ‘I’ll make a start on it in the morning,’ he muttered.

  13

  Hey, do you want to go into the city tonight, have a look around the Viaduct Basin?’ I asked Mic. ‘We could make a night of it and get a closer look at Valhalla.’

  ‘I’d like that, Ben,’ she replied, which caught me by surprise.

  ‘Great, we’ll go early so we have some daylight to see the yacht.’

  I was standing in the kitchen, gnawing on a giant sandwich to tide me over until dinner. Dad was getting another can from the fridge. ‘I’ll take your mother over to see that boat in a couple of days, we might have a—’ Dad stopped midsentence, looking past my shoulder. I wheeled around to see Mic standing in the doorway.

  ‘What do you think?’ she asked, as she brushed nervously at the front of her slinky teal dress. ‘Jenny and I picked this out the other day.’

  ‘You look stunning!’

  ‘You sure do!’ Dad added. ‘Go and paint the town red—that dress is wasted around here.’ He beckoned to me as Mic glided out the door. ‘Keep your eye on her, lad,’ he said, pressing a hundred-dollar bill into my hand. ‘She’s the closest thing I’ve ever had to a daughter, and I don’t want her coming to any harm.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ I replied. ‘When she’s dressed like that, I’ll even follow her into the ladies!’

  I hadn’t been into the city for a while, and I was surprised at the amount of activity around the Viaduct Basin. The harbour was purpose-built to accommodate the yachts and their followers who descended on Auckland for the America’s Cup regatta. Mic clung to my arm as we walked towards the Ma
ritime Museum. At the ticket desk I fumbled for my money, suddenly all thumbs.

  ‘Put that on my tab,’ boomed a strongly American-accented voice from behind.

  Without looking up, I continued to try and pay.

  ‘No, I insist,’ the Texan voice repeated. ‘I’d like you and this gorgeous young lady to be my guests on board Valhalla. I haven’t seen her for ages!’ The speaker was a jovial giant of a man, broad-shouldered and tall.

  I was stunned, and Mic smiled up at him.

  ‘Hi, TJ, what are you up to now?’

  ‘I’m the boatmaster on Valhalla. The rest of the crew has gone to Rotorua for the weekend, and you know I never like drinking alone. I’ll go chill another bottle while you have a look around the museum. See you soon.’

  I turned back to the ticket counter and drew out my wallet again.

  ‘No, I insist, your visit here is on me!’ he boomed, disappearing along the dock.

  ‘Put your wallet away, Ben. He can afford it.’

  As we came on board Valhalla, TJ gave Mic a huge bear-hug. ‘I couldn’t believe it when I saw you standing at the counter. How are you? Where’s Mike?’

  ‘Mike and I split up nearly two years ago,’ Mic said, as TJ handed her a glass of champagne.

  TJ raised an eyebrow as he looked over at me, but Mic just smiled and didn’t offer any more information.

  He grinned back and offered me his hand. ‘Hi, my mom named me Theodore, but I only answer to TJ. Welcome aboard. Help yourself to a drink and have a good look around. There’s nobody else on board tonight.’

  Mic gave me a wink, so I headed off down the companionway to explore. If Valhalla looked impressive on the outside, inside she was incredible. No expense had been spared on the fit-out: it oozed 1930s opulence and charm. I nosed into all the cabins, and it was like looking into another world. Money can’t buy everything, I said to myself, but it sure can make a difference.

  When I’d finished my tour, I returned to the saloon, where Mic, draped over a chaise longue, looked right at home.

  ‘Oh, there you are, Ben,’ she called. ‘We were thinking we might have to send out a search party.’