Torment by tapping and a tribute to Willy Oliver.
Hopefully a quiet anchorage
The wind had been screaming in the rigging as we lay in the Whitianga River. The barometer was indicating the low (956mb) pressure system passing deep to the south of us. The Admiral and I had retired to our berth, and despite the noise of whistling wind, tapping halyards, pinging wires inside the mast and the occasional log banging against the hull, we managed to single out one irregular sound that was going to drive us bonkers unless we found the source. Now, we have a protocol that I sleep on the outside of the berth, since any emergency could be seen to by my immediate leap out of bed. In other words I drew the short straw. Up I went, checking all manner of culprits. Tightened a few likely culprits. Back into bed, and it was then the Admiral’s turn. No luck. Tink tink tink. I think it was the fifth venture into the stormy night that found the source, a loose inspection hatch.
The perfect anchorage is calm of swell and wind. Ex Tauranga, Mayor Island offers no such refuge. In the seventies, Willy Oilver in his seventies, working at Oliver boat builders swas a great raconteur. One story that stuck was the time he was putting the lining into his good mate’s launch. Into a copper pipe, he inserted a steel ball bearing, sealing off the ends. He then hacksawed small incisions along one side so the ball would make a regular tapping as it rolled from one end to the other. This torture implement was inserted behind the ceiling lining in the gently cambered cabin top. You can imagine this ingenious plot playing out on a calm night at Mayor Island when a light rolling swell always plays into South East Bay.
Now, how about the time he told a new-to-the- job and not-so-bright fisherman to put a sea anchor out when entering the Mt entrance in an Easterly storm? A bit of imagination can finish the story.
