boathook

Jack put the twenty-five-horse outboard hard into reverse and my father and I each held a boathook, straining to see the rocks below the breakers.

Rebecca Chace: Shipwreck: Robinson Crusoe and Me Rebecca Chace 2010

I looked at the boathook and smiled as I pictured Richard throwing it in the trash.

Rowing the ATLANTIC Roz Savage 2009

Both sections of the boathook were already in service, and I needed something straight, rigid, and at least a foot long.

Rowing the ATLANTIC Roz Savage 2009

I had already splinted it with the first section of the boathook, so I reinforced the repair with extra duct tape, binding it tightly to make the repair as strong as possible.

Rowing the ATLANTIC Roz Savage 2009

With the sole and rather strange exception of the boathook, I had been obsessive about keeping the weight on board the boat to the absolute minimum—every pound was another pound I had to propel across three thousand miles of ocean—so I had pruned all my instruction booklets down to the few pages that I thought I was most likely to need.

Rowing the ATLANTIC Roz Savage 2009

“What do you want with a boathook in the middle of the ocean?” he had scoffed.

Rowing the ATLANTIC Roz Savage 2009

For no apparent reason I had decided when packing my boat that a long-handled boathook might be useful in the mid-Atlantic, and now its moment had come.

Rowing the ATLANTIC Roz Savage 2009

I took the remaining section of the telescopic boathook and flattened out the end with a hammer.

Rowing the ATLANTIC Roz Savage 2009

So I drilled two holes through these softer sections and used cable ties to secure the boathook to the back of the spoon.

Rowing the ATLANTIC Roz Savage 2009

The left one, with spoon intact, made a clean entry into the water, while the right one, spoon lashed to a boathook with cable ties, made a messier splash, with the occasional gurgle as a bubble escaped from the hollow tube of the broken shaft.

Rowing the ATLANTIC Roz Savage 2009