This is the last part in a four-part series on a trans-Pacific crossing to Australia.
The captain of the KM Trader stopped the propellers and Louise slid up under the cargo ship's stern, the great ship bobbing up and down on top of us.
But the violent waves that had lodged Louise under the stern, also released her from it, and the crew on the KM Trader, unable to hold on to us any longer, let the lines go. As our boat rose up and down with the swells, the broken mast that had been lying over the starboard deck, lifted itself up out of the boat and slid off into the Pacific Ocean, 4 km down to the bottom of the sea.