A Yacht Called Erewhon by Stuart Vaughan Page A

wheel as the keel-less hulk rolled onto her side. The huge yacht never went completely upside down, as the mast prevented that by digging into the sand.
    As the storm continued to lash the semi-submerged hulk, the mast finally snapped, punching a hole in the side of the hull.Fortunately, by this time, the hull had been driven up onto the northern side of the river mouth and was left there as the storm abated. Billy managed to scramble ashore, where he collapsed from exhaustion and was found two days later by a couple of young Maori boys who had ventured down to the river mouth to see what had been washed up in the storm.
    To their surprise, they found Billy in a state of delirium, trying to dig graves for his six dead companions, so they took him back to the marae.
    It took the kaumatua three days to settle Billy down enough to find out that he was the owner of Erewhon , and had been taking her back to Australia. The six men, later buried in unmarked graves by the river, were the sum total of the crew.
    When asked what he was going to do with the hulk, he threw his hands up in the air and said that if the iwi wanted it, it was theirs.
    The kaumatua graciously accepted the gift, but their tohunga immediately placed a tapu on it, out of respect for the sailors who had lost their lives. The kaumatua organised for the hull to be pulled up off the beach and stored until the tapu was lifted.
    Having been embroiled for some time in a land dispute with the Government, the tribe was in no mood to let the authorities know about their windfall. When Billy disappeared one morning and was never heard from again, they decided to plant a screen of trees between the hull and the shoreline to divert prying eyes.
    Some weeks later, Erewhon ’s broken mast and sails were washed ashore at Spirits Bay. On inspection of the remains, it was assumed that she had been lost at sea with all hands. The iwi had no inclination to ruin a good story, and went about their business.

6
    D ad sat up in his recliner, his part of the story now complete. He looked at Mic. ‘There’s a bit more to the story,’ she said, looking at the glowing embers.
    ‘Now how did I guess that?’ Dad replied, throwing on another log.
    Mic took a sip of her nearly empty glass. Dad reached over and topped it up.
    She cleared her throat. ‘Your story was very accurate, except for one thing.’
    Dad nodded.
    ‘Mercedes survived. The story given to me by my grandfather, Rei, was different. Nana wasn’t sure what happened, because she had blacked out, but it seems that when the weighted rope hit the bottom, the tension came off her leg and she floated free. If it hadn’t been for the strong current, she would have floated straight to the surface and into the arms of Toby, but the underwater rip-tide dragged her out into the bay and around the point.’
    Unaware that Erewhon was in the next bay, Rei was out in his punt, retrieving his long-line. He was in his mid-twenties, working on Great Barrier Island with a logging team who had felled the last of the giant kauri. Offside with the law and his own whanau, Rei was in no hurry to return to the mainland when the logging team pulled out. He remained in one of the huts they had built. He’d been on his own for some time,living off the land and the kai moana.
    That morning, as Rei hauled on his line, the peace was broken by a sound he knew only too well. Without even looking, he called over his shoulder, ‘Get your own bloody fish, you lazy bugger!’ The jabbering came from Tangle, a dolphin that had befriended him after he had untangled it from the remains of a fishing line some months before. Tangle always came around when Rei was pulling in the long-line. Even though he knew Tangle could catch his own meals, Rei enjoyed his company and always gave him a fish.
    That morning Tangle seemed more boisterous than usual. When Rei finally turned around to see what all the noise was about, he noticed the dolphin was pushing what