Class:XI Hornbill Lesson: 02

Class:XI

Book: Hornbill

Lesson:02

We’re Not Afraid to Die… 

If We Can All Be Together

Questions and Answers 

Short Answer Type

Question 1.

Who was the narrator? What adventurous task did he take on?

Answer:

The narrator was a thirty-seven-year-old businessman, who along with his family, set from Plymouth, England, on a round-the-world voyage like Captain James Cook had done 200 years earlier in a 30-ton wooden-hulled boat.

Question 2.

How did they prepare for this onerous task?

Answer:

For sixteen years, they spent all their leisure time improving their seafaring skills in British waters. They bought a boat, Wavewalker, a 23-metre, 30-ton wooden-hulled vessel that had been professionally built. They spent months fitting it out and testing it in the roughest weather that they could find.

Question 3.

How many people were there in the boat?

Answer:

The four of them the narrator, his wife Mary, son Jonathan, and daughter Suzanne sailed for 105,000 kilometres to the west coast of Africa to Cape Town. They took on two crewmen with them an American, Larry Vigil, and a Swiss, Herb Seigler, before settling sail on the southern Indian Ocean.

Question 4.

What was the first indicator of rough weather?

Answer:

On their second day out of Cape Town, they encountered strong winds. For the next few weeks, the gales blew continuously. The gales did not worry the narrator but the sizes of the waves were disturbing.

Question 5.

What ordeal awaited them on 2 January?

Answer:

After they celebrated Christmas, the weather changed for the worse. On the early morning of 2 January, the waves became huge. As the ship rose to the top of each wave, they could see the vast sea rolling towards them. The wind seemed to be howling.

Question 6.

What measures did they take to counter this ordeal?

Answer:

They dropped the storm jib and lashed a heavy mooring rope in a loop across the stem to slow the boat, and then double-lashed everything, went through their life-raft drill, attached lifelines, put on oilskins and life jackets.

Question 7.

What happened on the evening of 2 January?

Answer:

On the evening of 2 January there was a lull before the storm. As the sky grew dark, they heard a growing roar, and saw a massive cloud rising at the rear of the ship. To their dismay, it was a huge wave, almost twice the height of other waves, with a fearsome breaking top.

Question 8.

What happened when they tried to ride over the wave?

Answer:

When they tried to ride over the wave, there was a loud blast that shook the deck. Water gushed over the ship, the narrator’s head hit the wheel and he was thrown overboard into the water. He accepted his impending death, and while he was losing consciousness, he felt peaceful.

Question 9.

How did the narrator get back to the ship after having been thrown into the sea?

Answer:

After the narrator felt he was losing consciousness, his head suddenly popped out of the water. A few metres away, he saw Wavewalker, nearly overturned. Then, a wave threw it upright. He grabbed the guardrails and sailed through the air into Wavewalker’s main boom. The waves tossed him onto the deck like a rag doll.

Question 10.

How did they manage to throw out water from the ship?

Answer:

With the narrator’s wife, Mary, at the wheel, the narrator half-swam, half-crawled into the children’s cabin, where he found a hammer, screws and canvas, and struggled back on deck. He secured waterproof hatch covers across the wide-open holes. With Herb and Larry’s assistance, he managed to throw out the water.

Question 11.

What were the difficulties that they faced that night?

Answer:

The night was bitterly cold, and they were pumping water out of the ship, steering the ship and working the radio. Moreover, they were getting no replies to their calls for help, as they were in a remote comer of the world.

Question 12.

What injuries did Sue sustain? What does it reveal about her?

Answer:

Sue had bumped her head and there was a big bump above her eyes. She had two black eyes, and a deep cut on her arm. She showed remarkable maturity for a seven-year-old when she said that she didn’t want to worry them when her father was trying to save all of them.

Question 13.

After the water level receded, what was their next concern? What did they decide to do?

Answer:

Having survived fifteen hours since the wave hit, the narrator checked the charts and calculated that there were two small islands a few hundred kilometres to the east. One of them was lie Amsterdam. Knowing Wavewalker would not hold for much longer, they aimed to reach the island.

Question 14.

“But our respite was short-lived.” Why does the narrator say so?

Answer:

By 4 January, they ate their first meal in almost two days after pumping out most of the water. But their breather was short-lived. Soon after, black clouds gathered and the wind rose to 40 knots; the sea kept getting higher. The weather deteriorated and by dawn on 5 January, the situation turned hopeless, again.

Question 15.

What did Jon say that left the narrator speechless?

Answer:

When the narrator tried to comfort and reassure the children, Jon said that they were not afraid of dying if all four of them could be together. The narrator could find no words to respond, but he left the children’s cabin determined to fight the sea with everything he had.

Good Evening, Dear Students.