The Last Airship
his
wrist.
    Maybe
it is for the best that it never reached its destination?
    A
weight had been lifted from his chest, as though the stress of the past few
weeks had finally been lifted from him.
    It
was the last thought he ever had as he clutched the single suitcase tightly to
his chest.

Chapter One
    Sydney
Harbor, Present Day
    Sam
Reilly took the helm of his custom built fiberglass 68 foot ketch, Second
Chance .
    At
six foot exactly, he was only slightly taller than the average man, but his
arms and shoulders were wide from years of physical labor, and his legs were strong
as tree stumps, giving him a solid, yet wiry appearance.
    Physically,
he was the product of hard labor, which the sea demanded of him.
    He had
pensive, dark blue eyes, and the sort of cheeky smile that says , I can have
it all. If life had taught him anything, it was that he of all people,
could. His gaze showed determination, and the calluses on his hands displayed
the tenacity required to make things happen. He was amiable by nature, but he
suffered from a general distrust of his fellow man. Sam felt at his most calm
when he was on his own.
    Today
was one of those days.
    The
weather was warm and there was a moderate northerly wind of 15-20 knots. To
every weekend sailor on the harbor, it looked like a great day for a sail. For
a person like himself, who’d built his life on the sea, he intuitively sensed
the disaster ahead.
    He
knew it with the certainty of a chess player, who had seen his own demise in
forty or more moves ahead; there was going to be trouble at sea. Sam knew it by
the calm air, the pale blue sky, the unusually large swell that didn’t quite
match the local weather conditions, and, like anyone with enough experience in
a given field, he just knew it instinctively. His subconscious mind had picked
up all the telltale signs and had given him the outcome; there was going to be
one hell of a storm.
    Sam
had just completed his first year at the international sea salvage company,
Deep Sea Expeditions. He’d promised himself that he’d never enter the business
after what had happened to his brother, Danny. But some things are just meant
to be, and try as he might to avoid it, he eventually realized that he must
return to the world that he grew up in – the one in which he truly belonged –
the sea.
    It
was the first time he’d taken leave since he started working for Deep Sea
Expeditions. Two weeks was all the time he had, unless something came up.
Auspiciously, he’d noted that Cyclone Petersham, which was about to slam into
the northern Queensland coast of Australia and the tropics, was moving south. If
his predictions were correct, which they almost certainly would be, the storm
would collide with the terrible low, now forming off the coast of South
Australia.
    The
collision of these two systems would produce a narrow trough between a tropical
high and a southern low, a condition known as a squeeze. The weather would
become horribly dangerous, and the seas would become incredibly violent and
unpredictable.
    The
same sort of weather that killed 9 people in the 1998 Sydney to Hobart Race,
and crippled another 39 yachts.
    These
were precisely the conditions for which Second Chance had been built to
withstand; not to fight. Sam had learned long ago that you never fought with
the powers of the sea, unless you wished to be crushed by them. Instead, your
aim should be to follow the sea's commands by making simple adjustments.
    As
he looked up at the clear blue skies, Sam knew how close these conditions were
to those which he and his brother had faced during that terrible day more than
ten years ago. He had been lucky. That’s all it was.  It had never been a
question of skill under the circumstances, just dumb luck. His brother, Danny,
had sadly not been so lucky.
    Sam
had spent a long time frightened by the sea; he had even told his mother that
he would not enter the family business, but as time passed, he knew that there
was only one
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