NOTEBOOK WORK_ We’re Not Afraid to Die… if We Can All Be Together” by Gordon Cook and Alan East

[To write the Theme, timeline, Web Charts and Comprehension Skills in the notebook.]

For Your reference:

Theme

 Human Nature to know and

explore and taking challenges
 The tenacious Captain’s fight
for survival.
 Human bravery, grit, courage,
unity and determination.
 Optimism and sharp presence
of mind in the face of
adversity.

Write the meanings of the phrases given below:

honing our seafaring skills pinpricks in the vast ocean
ominous silence a tousled head Mayday calls

ART INTEGRATION: Draw a ‘Timeline’ showcasing the events that took place from the
day the journey began and when the ship finally reached Ile Amsterdam.

Reference to context:
Q. Read the following extract and answer the questions that follow:
 The night dragged on with an endless, bitterly cold routine of pumping, steering and
working the radio. We were getting no replies to our Mayday calls — which was not
surprising in this remote corner of the world.

i. The extract is from a story that exhibits

I. pessimism
II. optimism
III. courage
IV. endurance
V. skills
VI. procrastination
VII. repentance
(a) I, II, III and IV
(b)IV, V,VI and VII
(c) II, III, IV and V
(d) I, III,VI and VII

ii. What is ‘Mayday Call’?

(a) A call through a radio to signal a life-threatening emergency
(b) A loud cry in open during an emergency for help
(c) A shout through radio for help in the month of May
(d) Song sung by mariners or aviators during their journey

iii. What adversity did the author with his team face?
(a) The team couldn’t celebrate new year as the night wrecked the boat.
(b) Wavewalker lost its balance and turned upside down.
(c) The extreme cold was not letting Wavewalker move ahead.
(d) The tremendous explosion of water damaged Wavewalker.

iv. The author later mentions, “Our only hope was to reach these pinpricks in the vast ocean”.
What does it mean?
(a) To find a pin in the ocean (b)To be hopeful in the distress
(c) To find a tiny Island in the vast Ocean (d) To search for a pin in dark room

v. Find the statement that is NOT TRUE according to the story.

(a) Jonathan informed that they were near Ile Amsterdam and hugged his father.
(b)Sue mad a card for her father and mother.
(c) The two crewmen, Larry Vigil, and Herb Seigler hired by the author, joined the voyage
in Plymouth, England.
(d) The author and his team reached Ile Amsterdam on January 6 after a little struggle and
the help of the inhabitants.

Comprehension Skills:
1. What prompted the narrator to undertake the voyage to circumnavigate the globe?
2. What difference did you notice between the reaction of the adults and the children when
faced with danger?
3. Elucidate how the concerted efforts of all on board the Wave walker saw them through the
ordeal at sea and finally reach Ile Amsterdam. What lessons do we learn from such
hazardous experiences when we are face-to-face with death?
 IMPORTANT QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

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.
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.
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.
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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7.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.
8.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.
9.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.
10.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.
11.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.
12.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.
13.“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.
14. 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.
15. What action did the narrator take, after having decided to fight the sea?
Answer: To protect the weakened starboard side, he decided to heave to with the undamaged port
hull facing the oncoming waves, using an improvised sea anchor of heavy nylon rope and two 22-
litre plastic barrels of paraffin.
16.What instruction did the narrator give Larry? What did he expect?
Answer: At about 2 p.m., the narrator asked Larry to steer a course of 185 degrees and said that if
they were lucky, they would see the island at about 5 p.m. He was not optimistic himself so he
went below, climbed on his bunk and slept off.
17.Why did the narrator feel that he was not the best captain? What was the surprise in store for
him?
Answer: When Jon called him the best daddy in the whole world and the best captain, the narrator
was dejected for not being able to locate the island, so he refuted the statement. The truth was that
the island was just in front of them.
18.Why did the narrator feel that it was the most beautiful island?
Answer: The narrator saw lie Amsterdam. It was an unwelcoming piece of volcanic rock, with
little vegetation, but to them it was the most beautiful island in the world because it held for them
the hope of their survival.
Long Answer Type
1.The narrator and his wife had longed to sail. What did they do to accomplish their dream?
Answer: The narrator and his wife had always dreamt of sailing. They wanted to do a round-the-
world voyage like Captain James Cook had done 200 years earlier. For sixteen years they spent all
their leisure time improving their seafaring skills in the British waters. They took a boat,
Wavewalker, that was 23 metres, and weighed 30 ton. It had been professionally built and they
spent months fitting it out and testing it in the roughest weather that they could find. Finally, in
July 1976, the family set out to sail from Plymouth, England.
2.What were the troubles that they faced on the morning of 2 January? How did they counter
nature’s wrath?
Answer: When they reached the southern Indian Ocean, one of the world’s roughest seas, they
began to encounter strong winds. Apart from the gales, the size of the waves was alarming. It was
as high as the main mast. Things became worse on 2 January when the waves became huge. The
ship rose to the top of each wave and they could see endless waves approaching them, and the
screaming of the wind seemed horrifying to them. To slow the boat down, they dropped the storm
jib and lashed a heavy mooring rope in a loop across the stem. Then they double-lashed
everything, went through their life-raft drill, attached lifelines, donned oilskins and life jackets.
3. “The first indication of impending disaster came at about 6 p.m.” What was the warning?
What was the disaster that followed?
Answer: The first warning of the approaching disaster was the threatening stillness. The wind
dropped, and the sky grew dark. Then with a roar, an enormous cloud seemed to come after the
ship. It turned out to be a vertical wave, almost twice the height of the other waves, and had
fearsome breaking crests. When they tried to move over it, a monstrous explosion shook the deck.
Water broke over the ship, and the narrator’s head hit against the wheel and he was thrown into
the sea. The narrator accepted his impending death, and felt he was losing consciousness. But
soon, he was tossed back into the ship like a ‘rag doll’.
4.How did they deal with the water that had gushed into the ship?
Answer: As Mary took control of the wheel, the narrator made his way towards the hatch. Larry
and Herb were pumping out water frantically. He saw broken timbers hanging, the starboard side
bulged inwards; clothes, crockery, charts, tin and toys sloshed about in deep water. So he struggled
into the children’s cabin, found a hammer, screws and canvas, and laboured back on deck. He
managed to stretch the canvas and secure waterproof hatch covers across the gaping holes.
Some water continued to stream below, but most of it was now being deflected over the side. The
problems cropped up when the hand pumps started to block up with the fragments floating around
the cabins and the electric pump short-circuited. The water level rose ominously. On the deck he
missed the two spare hand pumps, forestay sail, jib, dinghies and the main anchor, which were
pitched overboard. He found another electric pump and connected it to an out-pipe, and this
worked.

5.Why were they desperate to look for an island? How did they manage?
Answer: After having survived for fifteen hours since the wave hit, they knew that Wavewalker
could not hold together long enough for them to reach Australia. The narrator checked the charts
and calculated that there were two small islands a few hundred kilometres to the east. One of
them, lie Amsterdam, was a French scientific base. But the waves had put the auxiliary engine out
of action. To make matters worse, the weather continued to worsen. The wind finally eased, and
the ship rode out the storm by the morning of 6 January.
The narrator deliberated on wind speeds, changes of course, drift and current in an effort to
calculate their position. What he could determine was that they were somewhere in 150,000
kilometres of ocean looking for a 65-kilometre-wide island. About 2 p.m., he asked Larry to steer a
course of 185 degrees. He expected to see the island at about 5 p.m., and eventually reached it by 6
p.m.

6. The children braved the situation more maturely than their years. Discuss.
Answer: The children, certainly braved the situation more maturely than their years. Sue had her
head hit and swollen, worryingly. She had two huge black eyes, and a deep cut on her arm. She
did not make much of her injuries because she did not want to worry her father when he was
trying to save them. Jon, the narrator’s six-year- old son, assured him that they were not afraid of
dying if the family could all be together.
When Sue’s head injury worsened with her blackened eyes narrowed to slits, she held on to her
spirit and gave the narrator a card with drawn caricatures of Mary and him with the words: ‘Here
are some funny people. Did they make you laugh? I laughed a lot as well. ’ The underlying
message of love and positive hope overwhelmed the narrator. He was touched with the
thoughtfulness of a seven-year-old girl, who did not want her parents to worry about a head
injury, and that of the boy who was not afraid to die.