# Long-liner No. 2 Pioneer.



## Cpt Dick Brooks (May 13, 2013)

Debut lay anchored in the calm languid waters of Falmouth Harbour, Antigua, the air... still and humid... causing the pores to run without effort. The sky was overcast, grey and brooding, intensifying the feeling of expectant foreboding. The news had just been broadcast that morning of the approaching hurricane, Hurricane Frederick, the second in as many weeks. It followed in the wake of the largest, strongest and most devastating hurricane to hit the islands of the Caribbean in more than a hundred years.
Hurricane David had been reported publicly when it was only 600 miles east of Barbados. It was of hurricane force to a diameter of 500 miles, with an average wind strength of 200 knots, gusting up to 270 knots. It had been a vortex of pent up emotion, and had launched its assault on these small islands within 24 hours of the news. It had smashed the small, insignificant communities into oblivion. Dominica hadn't a single building left standing, and half the buildings throughout the islands simply vanished... blown out to sea like waste paper down an empty street.
With hardly a breath drawn to recover, a new onslaught had to be faced. Tent cities thrown up by the world's relief organization, with their thousands of frightened refugees crowding them, couldn't even be considered. This wasn't just a few days of bad weather approaching... Hurricane Frederick was coming to visit, and was expected that night.
What to do... run around in circles or bury your head in the sand? All the ships and yachts were snugged down in hurricane holes. What buildings remained from Hurricane David, some hastily nailed together, had chains, beams and iron girders across their roofs, with rocks piled on top. After all, what could you really be expected to do against a hurricane... flesh and blood... mortal man... against these rampaging tantrums of nature?
Some prayed, while others took what ever woman was available. Most just huddles in the filth of their hovels and whimpered like cornered animals. But, in general, the islanders knew what to do... what they had always done... go to a bar and get hopelessly drunk on the strong island rum... blank out all thought, feeling and emotion. When they came to, the hurricane would have gone on its was to annoy someone else. It would then be time to pick up the pieces of their lives.
During this howling, screaming night, a Korean long-liner lay at anchor in Groote Bay, St. Martin. She was snubbing at her anchor chain, with only two shackles of chain out, as a knot had jammed in the spirling pipe. If they'd known about the hurricane, they still couldn't drop the port anchor because it was never used. It was seized in position by rust and time as effectively as if it had been welded. Four times the harbour master as been out during the day to tell them of the approaching hurricane. He'd also told the captain of the factory ship moored alongside the main jetty. Groote Bay is completely open to the south, and Frederick was tracking straight for the island.
The captain of the fishing-ship had been very polite to this large foreign man, who spoke in a deep guttural voice. The harbour master had spoken to him slowly in both Dutch and English, but he hadn't understood. He'd smiled politely and bowed. How could he explain that he had to unload his fish and take on more bait from the factory ship. He has to load fuel, water and stores, then go fishing again for another six months. 
They had come fishing from Korea, on the other side of the world... a whole fleet of them with their own factory ship. They would stay for another three years before going home to their families again. At least the time would go faster now the first half was finished. All the crew were asleep when the anchor started dragging along the bottom of the harbour, leaving two parallel white tracks in the rich green bed of sea grass. The eye of the hurricane was approaching the island. 
The first sign that something was wrong occurred when the anchor caught in some rocks at the foot of the cliffs below Fort Amsterdam. The chain pulled bar tight and parted with a bang, causing the No. 2 Pioneer to tremble from end to end. While the crew were lifting their heads from their pillows at the strange noise, the ship drove against the cliffs. The spray was flying over the edge of the cliffs some 200 feet above, and the fishing ship was being swept by the breakers. She soon ripped open and settled beam on to the huge crests pouring down on top of her. These were waves that had been driven across 3,000 miles of open ocean by this hurricane, which yet had a name to carve for itself in history.
If these Asian fishermen thought that their gods could do them no worse, they would soon find they were in paradise compared to what was to follow. The breakers pounded against the side of the engine room, causing the ammonia storage receiver for the refrigeration to break loose from its bed and smash into the machinery. It weighed some four tons full of liquid ammonia. 
The crew spontaneously leapt into the sea, their lungs choked with the deadly gas. They were picked up by the breakers and smashed against the cliffs, then bounced back against the wreck once more... just tossed about like flotsam in a storm. Somehow, in this hell within hell, half of them managed to cling to jaggered outcrops in the cliffs and hang on until morning. Others fought for breath in the spindrift and foam, swimming over a mile among these creating breakers to reach the nearest beach. Seven of their number would never see Korea or their families again.
The factory ship alongside the main jetty crushed in her starboard bulwarks and was coming up under the structure, ripping off large chunks of reinforced concrete. Although the jetty was on the west side of Witte Kappe and sheltered from the onslaught of the waves, it was catching a large ground-swell, which was exaggerated by the surging of the water now the depth was shelving into the bay. Below the jetty was a six inch diameter fuel oil pipe for bunkering visiting ships. The resultant of these actions was the eventual rupture of the pipe. With the crashing of the ship against the jetty, an oil fire soon erupted along its length and in the sea around the factory ship.
No one in Phillipsburg was aware of the plight of the fishing-ship, No.2 Pioneer, except the residence to the west of the harbour, who were overpowered by the smell of ammonia. When the jetty and the factory ship burst into flames, the sound of fire trucks, police vehicles and ambulances could be heard going eastward through the small town, trying to reach the jetty at the end of Witte Kappe... the eastern arm forming Groote Bay.
The town was being torn apart in the black of night and the deluge kept on unabated. Sow 1,200 people died from Hurricane Frederick in the islands this night. Not because of the wind, which only reached 140 knots, but from the floods and mud slides that followed. After dumping its cargo of rain, Frederick increased its wind strength to 200 knots and passed along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. It crossed the Atlantic again and was still force eleven on the Beaufort Scale when it hit the Shetland Islands, north of Scotland. Hurricane Frederick had made a place for itself in history. For all those who died that night, may you rest in peace. Cpt Dick Brooks.


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