Previous Year: Long Questions With Answers - We are Not Afraid to Die...if We Can All Be Together | English Class 11 PDF Download

Q. 1. What made the narrator set sail from Plymouth, England in July 1976? How did he prepare for his voyage?
Ans. The narrator had dreamt of sailing in the wake of Captain James Cook, the famous explorer. 200 years earlier Captain Cook had made the round-the-world voyage. The narrator wanted to duplicate the voyage of Captain James Cook. For this purpose he had got made his boat Wavewalker. It was a 23 meter, 30 ton wooden hulled beauty, professionally built. They had spent months fitting it out and testing it in the roughest weather. As regards the seafaring skills the narrator had spent all his leisure time for the past 16 years in knowing those skills. So, he set sail in July 1976 with his wife Mary, son Jonathan, 6 and daughter Suzanne, 7 in his Wavewalker. He took two crewmen, one American Larry Vigil and the other Swiss Herb Seigler to tackle the world’s roughest sea the Southern Indian Ocean.

Q. 2. Describe the boat ‘Wavewalker’ which set sail from Plymouth, England in July 1976 for going round the world. [KVS Agra, 2017]
Ans. The narrator had dreamt of sailing in the wake of Captain James Cook, the famous explorer. 200 years earlier. Captain Cook had made the round-the-world voyage. The narrator wanted to duplicate the voyage of Captain James Cook. For this purpose he had made his boat Wavewalker. It was a 23 meter, 30 ton wooden hulled beauty, which was professionally built. They had spent months fitting it out and testing it in the roughest weather. As regards the seafaring skills the narrator had spent all his leisure time for the past 16 years in knowing those skills. So he set sail in July 1976 with his wife Mary, son Jonathan, 6 and daughter Suzanne, 7 in his Wavewalker.

Q. 3. Describe the horrifying experience of the narrator as mighty waves hit ‘Wavewalker’ in the Southern Indian Ocean?
Ans. A mighty wave hit the stern of their ship ‘Wavewalker’ in the evening of January 2. A tremendous explosion shook the deck. A torrent of green and white broke over the ship. The narrator’s head struck against the wheel. He was swept overboard. He was sinking below the wavesand losing his consciousness. He accepted his approaching death. He felt quite peaceful. Suddenly, his head appeared out of water. A few meters away, ‘Wavewalker’ was turning over in water. His mast was almost horizontal. Then a wave hurled him upright. The narrator’s lifeline jerked taught. He grabbed the guard rails and sailed through the air into Wavewalker’s main boom. Succeeding waves tossed him around the deck like a rag doll. His mouth was filled with blood and broken teeth. Somehow he found the wheel, lined up the stern for the next wave and held tightly.

Q. 4. What did the narrator do when, at the dawn on 2nd January, the waves became gigantic? How did the impending disaster indicate itself in the beginning?
Ans. On 2nd January, the waves became huge. They were sailing with only a small storm jib. The ship rose to the top of each wave. From there they could see the endless enormous seas rolling towards them. The wind screamed and showered sea water. It was very painful to the eyes. They dropped the storm jib to slow down mooring rope in a loop across the stern. They double-lashed everything. They got ready to face any danger by going through their life raft drill. They also attached lifelines, oilskins and life-jackets and waited. The impending disaster indicated itself in its ominous silence. The wind dropped and the sky grew dark. A huge cloud seemed to break over the ship. But it was not a cloud. It was a wave.

Q. 5. What damage did ‘Wavewalker’ suffer as a result of bad weather?
Ans. Mighty waves struck ‘Wavewalker’. The decks were smashed. Water was gushing in through holes and openings. The whole starboard side had bulged inwards. Clothes, crockery, charts, tins and toys moved round noisily in deep water. Their hand pumps got blocked up with the debris floating around the cabins. The electric pump, short circuited. Water level rose high. The two spare hand pumps had been wrenched overboard. Waves had also swept off the forestry soil, jib, dinghies and main anchor. There was tremendous leak somewhere below the water line. The boat’s main rib frames were smashed down to the kneel. A whole section of the starboard bull was being held up by a few cupboard partitions only. The hull of the ship had been damaged so badly that the pressure of rigging could simply pull the damaged section of the hull apart. ‘Wavewalker’ was so damaged that it could not hold together long enough to reach Australia.