Uncompressed 25.8 MB - Disaster Pages of Dr George, PC

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much better and could sail into the general direction of the wind at a lesser angle of
incidence. Even with its large diesel engine, I figured that it would take me several hours to
sail or motor "Orpheus" the 30 or so nautical miles to where the precious coral was
supposed to be - and that would be on an upwind sail in the open sea under difficult
conditions. Since "Orpheus” was also my home where I lived with my four dogs - strays that
I had picked up - I would have to risk loosing everything. However, being young, foolish and
hungry for adventure, I decided to use "Orpheus" anyway for my quest of the precious deepocean
coral.
Preparations for the Search with "Orpheus"
During the next few weeks I prepared for the search with "Orpheus". I bought 3,000 feet of
nylon rope, pulleys and reinforced the boat's aft cleats. Subsequently, I devised and welded
a metal dredge that could be dragged along the ocean floor to break the coral. To catch the
coral after breaking it, I attached eye loops to a heavy metal bar of the dredge with bundles
of heavy strings of fishing nets I purchased from the Washington Net Factory in Seattle. In
designing the dredge, I had to make sure that it would not act as an anchor for the boat and
that I could indeed be able to drag it along the bottom by putting the diesel engine of
"Orpheus" in forward gear and advancing its speed accordingly. However, there were still
too many unknowns whether my scheme would work. I had absolutely no idea whether I
could indeed find the precious coral, whether my dredge would actually work, whether the
nets would actually tangle some of the coral that would break, or whether I could bring some
up to the surface. I had no electric or any other type of winch on the boat that I could use. I
would have to lower and lift the dredge by hand using old fashion block pulleys and making
sure that about 3,000 feet of nylon line did not tangle. Also, I had to figure out the buoyancy
of the nylon line and determine whether my dredge weight exceeded it so that the bottom of
the ocean could be reached. Wire cable would have been better, but 3,000 feet of cable that
I would need would be too expensive to buy and I had no power winch installed on
"Orpheus" that could handle such a long cable. At the time, there were too many obstacles
and simply too many unanswered questions. I could only proceed by trial and error.
"Orpheus" - in search of "Euridice"
To make matters worse, the weather was not favorable at that time of the year. The trade
winds were strong, the waves were high and "Orpheus" was a small boat, slow and very
vulnerable. I did not know if I had enough horsepower in the diesel engine to pull the dredge
I had designed. Furthermore, and as mentioned, I was not sure if the Albatross expedition
coordinates were correct and whether they had been taken with celestial navigation or by
triangulation, using visible distant coastal references from the islands of Molokai and Oahu.
The charts used around the turn of the 20th Century were not very accurate for the Hawaiian
Archipelago. Depth measurement was also inaccurate. They were taken sporadically with
line and lead - a very difficult process in those days. The Proceedings did not give specific
information. Regardless, I decided to try to search anyway for the precious coral - to see if it
really existed and in large enough quantity to mine it effectively. Already, I had given up on
the manganese nodules - it was the precious coral that I would go after.