March 6, 2006 - FLASH FLOOD
by Michel & Jane DeRidder

The greatest damage suffered in all our years afloat was not in a storm at sea, but in a flash flood in New Zealand in 1981.

Lightning lit our snug womb-world. Thunder put an end to sleep. The smell of ozone prickled our nostrils. Rain pelted on deck. Our water tanks overflowed. Michel bailed the dinghy, then eased Magic Dragon's stern line so that she aligned herself with the current. "Guess we'll have to get out of here in the morning in case the river floods. I don't like having those two boats tied up stern-to just upstream of us." We lay uneasily in our bunks thinking of the yachts in the Kerikeri Stone Store Basin.

Fourteen inches of rain fell that night onto a summer-baked land. The deluge poured off without penetrating the parched soil. Years of accumulated debris snagged on paddock fences, on shelter belts and on kiwifruit superstructures to form instant dams. Walls of trapped water built up, then let go in a rush, causing domino-effect breakaways. When the runoff reached the river, it came with a conglomeration of mud, trees, cars, sheep and outbuildings. The sloughed off junk jammed on bridges and choked narrow bends of the river bed. Throttled by bottlenecks, the water rose far above highest water levels to form pools of turbulence, in which escaped vessels and uprooted trees whirled in a mad dance, then rushed in violence through overfalls and rapids to the sea. The flash flood occurred at low tide, which meant that in a matter of a mile, sometimes less, there was a huge difference in river level. The torrent tossed boats with mooring blocks and anchors onto the river banks, or swept them out on the shoals still lashed to their snapped or uprooted piles. It all happened so suddenly there was little any of us could do. We were playthings in the grasp of a monster.

Yacht with mooring pile washed ashore.

Alerted by a sudden rush of current against the hull we hurriedly donned oilskins, started the engine and prepared to get out. As Michel was bailing the dinghy, another dinghy bore down on us, caught under ours and sank - outboard and all. Then a yacht passed by inshore of us where there should have been mere inches of water. On our other side with no lights, no engine sound, a black steel fishing boat ghosted by, accompanied by a group of equally silent outriders. Our fourteen-foot dinghy rolled over as we released it from alongside to let it trail astern. Three large vessels crashed down on us still tied together and to their pilings, taking us and the five other boats and pilings with them. Intent on saving our skins, we cast off our mooring lines and the upturned dinghy. We were trying to disentangle ourselves from the snarl of boats when by chance we found ourselves able to back out of the maze. In the muck-filled river our water intake filter plugged and the engine overheated. We turned off the engine and drifted in the fast current toward shoal mud flats. One of our twin keels planted itself; we were aground in the full force of the river and broadside to current-borne battering rams.

	Smashed porthole.

A bow-on hit by a runaway vessel stove in the galley porthole. We heard a grinding tear as a rolling car disappeared under our stern, carrying with it our self-steering rudder and spinning us so that momentarily we were bow to the current and therefore less exposed. But soon we fell off. Broadside once more, but facing the other way, Magic Dragon heeled over so that her smashed porthole was perilously close to the water. I closed off the galley sea cock as muddy water filled the sink, then piled up cushions ready to hold against the wound should they be needed. A butt-hit by a giant gum tree below the waterline forced a bank of drawers off the hull. Our sturdy hull, planked with two-inch red cedar and sheathed in a full quarter-inch of fibreglass, sprang back with astonishing resilience where it was bashed, cracking some planks and forcing the drawers four inches from the hull. And then, almost as abruptly as it had begun, the current eased. It was swift still, but no longer frenzied. Michel spent the rest of the night cleaning the clogged filter to the salt water cooling system, changing the pump impellor and replacing a section of burned-out exhaust pipe.

When dawn came, stranded boats of all sizes, many still lashed together gently, lifted to the rising tide. A young Maori fisherman arrived on the scene in a fast runabout, singing at the top of his lungs. We flagged him down and got him to take out an anchor for us. As the tide rose we were able winch ourselves away from a fishing boat on which we were leaning, a car on which we were lodged, and the flotsam and jetsam which had cushioned us from further damage. Later, after we made our way back to our now deserted river hidey hole, friends arrived, towing our dinghy. (Michel had been horrified when I'd confessed to casting it off in the excitement the night before.) They'd found it upside-down in Opito Bay full of mud, but intact, except for a missing anchor, scrubbing brush and pair of sandals. The outboard motor was still padlocked to the transom and the oars and gas tank were still inside.

Outboard filled with mud.

Although several of the boats which made the river their base were rolled, holed and filled with mud, surprisingly little damage was suffered by many of the yachts, particularly the lighter ones, a few of which came to rest unmarked by their ordeal. There was no surge whatever in the estuary. The night had been relatively windless, the dawn calm. Some of the transported vessels suffered various degree of damage: cracked planks and ribs; snapped spreaders; smashed potholes, rudders and boarding ladders; lost dinghies, oars, sails, ground tackle and life rings; bent and broken stanchions; scraped paint and scarred topsides; damaged propellers and shafts; gaping holes where winches, cleats and windlasses had been wrenched off or where hulls had been broached. But the wonder of it was that most of us were touched so lightly. Far more costly damage was sustained by farmers, home owners and orchardists who lost stock, crops, vehicles, fencing, trees, topsoil, buildings and irrigation equipment. One man returned from Auckland to find he'd lost his home, his car, his truck, his unfinished boat...and his wife. Searchers found her body miles down the estuary.

Overnight a river was transformed, its course changed, its docks, channel markers and mooring piles all gone. Yachts hauled out on Pendennis Slipway in Waipapa Landing were lifted by the flood out of their cradles, over the winch house and into the trees to make them look like huge birds sitting on their nests. Waipapa Landing, once harbouring dozens of yachts, was choked with silt. Other areas that so recently had provided secure anchorage were scoured to bed rock. Stranded fish and eels rotted, silt-choked shellfish decayed, mattresses, freezers and corrugated iron littered mud banks, bloated sheep bobbed up daily, pumpkins and watermelons travelled up and down with the current. For miles upstream the former greens of grass and rush and the tangle of native bush were now a dull monochrome spacescape of devastation. The Northern Harbour Board tug Hatea chugged about for weeks, plucking yachts from their perches, lifting out cars, salvaging boats and clearing obstructions as divers made sweeps of the channels. Then they began re-siting and re-driving navigation marks and mooring piles.

Yacht on river bank.

As we commenced repairing Magic Dragon, we realised that never again can we feel the same about this seemingly placid stream - or any other. Though we'd been warned never to shelter in rivers during cyclones or hurricanes when heavy rains can be expected to accompany the storm, we'd never dreamed of the wild side of this insignificant river with its mini-catchment area and its tame pastoral setting. Now we know that, like the sea, no river should be underestimated.

I do not know much about gods;
but I think that the river is a strong brown god -
sullen, untamed and intractable,
patient to some degree...almost forgotten
ever, however, implacable...
waiting, watching and waiting.
(T.S. Elliot)