Tom looked out the rear hatchway of the Maria Helena’s doghouse.
The enormous Westland WS-61 Sea King helicopter could only just be seen through the spume of violent windswept water, resting precariously atop the small helipad located on the aft deck of the sky blue Maria Helena. Its skids had been secured to the deck as a normal precaution to prevent it from shifting as the ship naturally rocked on the swells of the open ocean. Today, their strain could be clearly seen, as the ship dramatically lurched in the violent swells. In this weather, Tom imagined that any sudden release from its restraints would result in it being flung off into the sea, just like a bull rider in a rodeo.
The storm was raging at its worst as they neared the eye of the cyclone. It was a scientific fact that the narrower the base of a cyclone was, the faster were the wind speeds it generated.
The restraints used to secure the helicopter were rated to hold more than forty tons, considerably more than the helicopter’s fifteen ton weight. Even so, Tom would have much preferred to wait until the weather eased before preparing it for take-off. The problem was that they would have such a small window of opportunity to successfully make the transfer to the Hayward Bulk that the helicopter would need to be completely ready to take off the second they entered the eye of the cyclone.
Tom watched as the deck rose and fell several times before he mentally pictured a pause long enough to race from the Maria Helena’s protected doghouse to the helicopter’s cockpit door.
Seeing his best chance, he sprang into motion.
Reaching the Sea King just as the entire rear deck of the Maria Helena dropped thirty feet down a trough, his hand gripped the winch man’s bar on the right hand side, as his legs fell out from under him.
Tom didn’t wait for the ship to fully right itself before opening the cockpit door.
Stepping up into the large cockpit, he started his meticulous checklist, preparing for take-off.
With his left hand, he switched the Master Battery/Electrical Switch to the ON position. Instantly, the lights behind the cockpit instruments glowed a soft red. Next to it, his hand flicked the Master Avionics Switch to ON. The backlight of the avionics turned a reassuring soft red.
Looking to the right side of his control panel, he confirmed that the fuel level was reading FULL, as he always maintained it after any mission. The Fuel Valve Master was then switched to ON; the Nav Lights were switched ON, not that anyone else in their right mind would be in the air right now.
He gave the ‘all okay’ signal with his thumb and fore finger, signaling the engineers to join him. The spare impeller they were to deliver had already been brought on board.
Tom turned his head to face the back of the Sea King and watched as the four men climbed inside. Each man was sweating and unwilling to meet his eyes. Unlike the Navy SEALs he’d met in his former life with the U.S. Marines, these men were private engineers and unaccustomed to this level of risk.
Then, the fifth man opened the front passenger door.
“How soon before we can go?” It was the business man from the earlier meeting. Unlike the other engineers in the helicopter, this man exhibited none of the telltale signs of a person in distress. He might just as easily been jumping into a taxicab on the way to an important meeting.
“Soon,” Tom said. He then looked around at the scared faces of his passengers, and said, “Are you gentlemen feeling lucky?”
“They tell me that you’re the best helicopter pilot in either hemisphere,” the man seated next to him said. The grey hair at his temples indicated his age, and he carried his strong, athletic build, one befitting a much younger man, with an air of confidence. “So, do we need luck here?”
“We’re about to fly inside the eye of a cyclone,” Tom said, as he tried to fake an untroubled smile. “I’d say we could use a little bit of luck. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll get you on the Hayward Bulk and you just make sure that you get her to operate under her own power in time to save all our lives.”
“It’s a deal.”
Tom turned his head to the window, watching as the storm raged in front of him. The high winds were literally lifting the water out of the ocean.
How much worse could it get?
Tom then watched as the radar system produced a clear image of the opening ahead. The Maria Helena was about to enter the eye of the cyclone.
Tom’s left hand adjusted the throttle until the main rotary blade RPMs reached 100 %.
His right hand tapped the reset button, zeroing altimeter.
“Maria Helena this is Sea King, Yankee Victor Charlee Zero Niner.”
“Go ahead Sea King.”
“We’re ready to jump ship the second we’re through the razor’s edge.”
“Copy that, and good luck.”
The Maria Helena’s bow rode the enormous wave.
Once entering the eye, the storm was gone.
As though God had turned off a washing machine. In place of the turbulent sea, there was a placid lake. On board the ship, the pitch of the powerful diesel dropped, as its twin propellers ceased the hard work of trying to maintain forward momentum in the swell. There was an eerie absence of wind, and a seaman could easily be forgiven for thinking the storm was over and that he’d been lucky to have survived it.
Tom’s mind returned to the present, as he saw the stricken Hayward Bulk in the distance.
“Here we go, gentlemen.”
The ground crew then manually disconnected the tethers.
His left hand pulled on the collective.
Instantly, the collective pitch of the rotor blades increased, creating lift. The sound of the Sea King’s powerful Rolls Royce engine could be heard, as Tom increased the throttle to maintain RPMs, and then they were airborne.
At eighty feet, Tom could see just how small the eye of the cyclone really was. He wished the Maria Helena could have closed the gap between the two ships.
Approximately one nautical mile ahead of him was the damaged super tanker, bobbing around in the relatively calm water, with no more control over its destiny than a floating plastic bottle.
Tom immediately adjusted the pitch for fastest straight and level flying.
Behind the damaged vessel, Tom could see a vast crest, a barrage of water. It was at the far end of the eye of the cyclone, quickly approaching. He realized that it was highly unlikely that they would make it in time.
No one aboard the helicopter spoke, yet everyone had the same thought — they were all going to die.
For each hundred feet they flew towards the Hayward Bulk, the outermost wall of the eye seemed to advance two hundred feet closer.
Tom felt like a child who feared with certainty that he would be the last one standing at the end of a game of musical chairs, he would be crashing his helicopter at the same time the storm would reach the Hayward Bulk.
Five hundred feet from the Hayward Bulk, he watched the small ripples crease at the back of the vessel’s hull, then turn white — the storm had returned.
They were too late.
With the wind speed at over one hundred knots, it was going to be very hard to put the Sea King down on the helipad.
Tom started making the descent.
Unlike a normal descent by helicopter, this was more like a controlled fall than a standard approach.
Below him, the storm blew the enormous antennae off of the radar tower on top of the ship.
He was coming in fast.
When his rotors finally hit the other side of the eye of the storm, he could do little to maintain control. It was more a case of his forward momentum and gravity keeping him moving towards the helipad.