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wire so that it won't cut into the bearing on the strut or into the cutlass bearing where the propeller-shaft exits the hull. Looking around at the crew, half are sea sick, the other half frustrated and dejected. We could have been fighting that big porbeagle, and headed home soon. Instead, we are dead in the water 40 miles from land in 12 to 15 seas. We're going to need both engines to get home today. I'm in favor of sending the mate.

The kid looks scared. He has been the butt of several remarks and doesn't look too sure that he may not end up in the chum bucket before the day is through. We don't really trust that he will get the job done thoroughly, or correctly. I'm already soaked from my frolic on the swim-platform, so I volunteer. Someone staggers below to get a mask and fins.

The discussion begins on the stern about tying a line to me so I can be pulled back in if a shark shows up or in case I drift away from the disabled boat. We're drifting at nearly two knots and while that may not seem fast, swimming after a boat in 12 foots seas that's going two knots would not be easy. Meanwhile the stern is rising and falling nearly 30 feet from trough to crest and back down again. I reject the line around me, as certain death. That line will become entangled in the running gear and I'll drown! We settle on tying a rope to a fender and streaming it up current from a stern cleat, that way, I'm free to move, but can always grab on to the line if I begin to drift away.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking. We are in a big money tournament and one of the previous winners is drifting closer and closer to us. The 55-foot Viking is drifting twice as fast as we are. He was over a mile away when we set-up, now he's a half-mile and we can see his mate grinding fish in a meat grinder over the side.

As I strip to my boxers, the crew streams the line and gets wire cutters and assorted implements ready for me. Some one brings up the mask and fins and sets the mask on the gunwale. Exactly one 35-degree roll later the mask is on its way to Davey Jones' Locker, something I had been pondering for the last 30 minutes.

OK. No other mask, but the gear is still fouled and someone has to go. I kneel on the platform and look under the hull for a lurking shadow. None that I can see, but then how well can you see without a mask? Now or never! Over the side I go, hanging on to the swim platform and the boat rises and crashes down. "Damn! Don't get hit in the head by the swim platform," I think.

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