Arrival!

I stayed on in Delhi for a few more days. I had extra days that I had saved from skipping Athens and Beirut. It was wonderful to spend time with Mom and Dad, as well as, catch up with my old college friends. Made a visit to St. Stephen’s College, I always enjoy the College Cafe. The Mince (mashed potato with a suggestion of mince meat) and Tea was famous. Just outside the cafe sat Sukhiya with his box of ‘sweetmeats’. He sold milk pedas, samosas, delicacies and retail cigarettes! He had a following because you could buy on credit. However, he knew when and how to collect his money. The day you went to the Cafe with a girl he was sure to ask for his money. So, if you were entertaining someone you had to make sure you had extra money to pay up for last week’s supply!

There were no direct flights to Cochin those days. I had to fly to Bombay and then hop on to another flight. Travel would take the better part of the day. Richard Warren had offered to collect me from the airport. I was really looking forward to seeing him and getting back to my old stomping grounds.

The Cochin airport was on Wellington Island, it consisted of just a couple of halls – one for Arrival and one for Departure!
I got off the plane walked to the Arrival Hall in a three-piece Suit, a Bowler Hat and an Umbrella under my arm in the hot sun of a Cochin afternoon. There to receive me was my English friend in white shorts, white bush shirt, and sandals!
It did raise a few eyebrows which was my intention in the first place!

Cochin

I had forgotten how great life was in Cochin. I had my own pad inside the Cochin Club campus, and my Jeeves, Xavier – cook cum butler. Imagine waking up in the morning and seeing a ship sail past my bedroom window!

I would be picking up the threads of my visits to the tea estates, which I always looked forward to. The JT catalogue had a grown quite a bit and we had more clients. Soon I would be visiting our new clients and getting to know them.

The Tea Broker was always welcomed and made much of by the Manager of an Estate. Some Managers thought that being nice to their Broker would fetch better prices for their teas. This was not true, because Brokerage was based on percentage – the higher the price, better the income of the Broker!  We would therefore strive for the best prices even if the Manager was a pain in butt.

The Boat Ride!

During my absence Richard got Satyanath to buy a racing yacht for J. Thomas. The Malabar Sailing Club was a very active subsidiary of the Cochin Club. There were about 10 sail-worthy boats belonging to various companies, each named after Sea Birds such as:

Albatross
Gannet
Guillemot
Kittiwake
Puffin
Teal

Our Boat was Puffin! Here he is!

All these boats were made of teakwood planks, waterproofed with pitch, and painted over. Each boat had beautifully coloured sails made of polyester cloth. The yachts were 18 feet long, with an equally high masthead, and sat 6 inches above the water. They really looked racy!

We needed 3 people to man the yacht, one to handle the Mainsail, one for the Jib (small sail) and the Spinnaker, while the Skipper handled the Helm that controlled the direction of the boat. He also decided when to ‘tack’, ‘gybe’ and manage the sails to get the maximum traction for the boat. You could watch this small video if you want to know more about sailing.

The Malabar Sailing Club ran races on Saturday afternoons. Races were suspended during the monsoon season. There are thunderstorms and squalls before the monsoons. When that happens Races are abandoned.

The course is marked out before each race and the maps given to the Helmsman of each boat. These maps would have information about high tide, and low tide and so on. The Skipper had some planning to do before the race. The course was marked out and flags put on buoys to act as markers. Often the route would be around small islands in the area and the channels on both sides of Willingdon Island.

The start of the race and the ending was always in front of the Malabar Hotel just past the mouth of the harbour. The effect of the tides and crosscurrrents were felt most in this area.

There would be a motorboat with the Umpire on it. He would start the race by flagging off the yachts and accompany us on the entire course. He would also be there at the Finish line. Some of the finishes would be close. The Umpire saw to it that there were no fouls and that boats actually went around the demarcated buoys. He was also expected to help the sailors in times of distress or should a boat capsize.

Richard Warren was one of the better sailors and was very competitive. One Saturday Richard was skippering Puffin, I was on the Mainsail, and Antony (our Serang who took care of the boat) was on the Jib. We had Adi Davar, the JT accountant as the Umpire. Adi did not know much about sailing but he was sporting enough to forgo his afternoon nap and officiate as the Umpire that Saturday.

The course normally took about 2 hours to complete. Richard had a good start, and we were leading.  After about an hour the sky turned dark and a wind picked up. We saw some of the boats head back to their starting jetties. Richard was in no mood to abandon the race as he was in the lead. The wind speed increased and it became a gale – fast becoming a hurricane. We saw many Fishing trawlers head back to Harbour. That’s a sure sign that you must not be out on the water!
In our anxiety to cross the finish line we did not notice that all yachts had gone back. From the corner of my eye I saw the Umpire’s Launch also turn around and head home.

Suddenly, there was a huge burst of wind. Our boat lurched, the heavy Boom involuntarily swung to the other side missing us narrowly. The velocity of the wind tore the Mainsail in two. The next thing we knew our boat had capsized. Those days Life-jackets were rare and hardly used by anyone. We were in the middle of the Harbour directly in front of Malabar Hotel but not close enough for anyone to see us or hear us.

Our Boat nosedived and came to stand vertically under water. The bow of the boat had got stuck in a sandbar (fortunately). For a while we floundered around in the water but eventually our feet found the back end of the boat. We managed to stand on it and hold on to the Tiller and each other. We tried to shout and Antony took off his shirt and was waving it above the water. We also knew that there were sharks in the water. We must have been in the water for over an hour, though it seemed like eternity. Our limbs were getting stiff. If our yacht had shifted position we would definitely have gone under water. And that was end of story!

It was a hopeless situation – our boat had sunk, the three of us were standing on the back of the boat sharing a space of three feet across and two and a half feet deep. We were losing hope of being rescued, there was no one in sight! We thought our end had come.

Then, we heard the sound of a motor in the distance. Couldn’t see anything but as it came nearer we saw it was a fairly large Fishing Trawler, one that had strayed far into the sea, now returning home. Fortunately, the wind had died and the sea had become calmer, but it had become dark and visibility was a problem. Our Serang, Antony was waving his white apparel as high as he could. The Fishing Boat’s searchlight caught the white shirt for a second and someone on the Trawler saw it. We heard the engine reduce speed and soon the Trawler was  heading our way. She slowed down considerably as it came close. Someone threw a rope, which kept missing us. Finally, one of us caught it, and they pulled us into their Trawler. I have a poor recollection of this stage as I was floating in and out of consciousness.  I have a vague recollection of being put into a car. I don’t remember being taken for a medical checkup. If this incident happened now, we would have been taken to a hospital for medical examination and treatment. Not those days!

Richard and I were dropped to our homes I presume. And the Serang would have made his way back. I think I had a large Brandy and crashed out, to be woken by Xavier the next morning.

We pulled the Boat out a couple of days later. The teak planks had come apart. We sent it for repairs and it came back after six weeks. She was pulled apart and put back together, but even after the full re-do, a new paint job, bright blue new sails, Puffin was never the same again!

We were saved from a near death experience. Anything could have happened which would have ended in tragedy. Fortunately we capsized at a place where there was a sandbar. A few feet away was incredibly deep as it was the shipping channel. If any of us had lost our grip on each other we could have drifted away and be overcome by cramps. Or a shark could have had a go at us. Lastly, that Fishing Trawler need not have come when it did. There was a God above, who threw us a lifeline. At the time I thought it was luck. Now I know it wasn’t!