The Last Voyage of the Broken Bow

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Three men crossed paths over an aging vessel. Each made a choice. Only one knew what he was leaving behind.

ShipUniverse Note

• This post is part of our Wednesday Shiplog Stories series at ShipUniverse
• We spotlight the human side of the maritime industry through fiction that is based on real events.
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Rafiq watched the rain tap steadily across the port’s surface, blurring the reflection of his aging ship. He hadn’t told his wife about the bank’s final warning. He hadn’t told his daughter that university tuition wouldn’t be covered next term. He just stood there, silent, one hand resting on the rail of The Halima—a 35-year-old multipurpose vessel that hadn’t carried cargo in over six months.

The ship meant everything. His father had captained her before passing the wheel to him. For years, she kept their small company running. But now, fuel costs had surged, customers were vanishing, and the rust along the forward hull may no longer be just cosmetic.

Selling her wasn’t a choice. It was the only way out.

Rafiq hears the soft vibration of a notification. He pulls his phone from his jacket pocket, half-expecting more spam from lenders. Instead, it’s a message from his wife.

Rafiq sighs and is about to slide the phone back into his pocket when he notices a red “1” badge over his gmail app. He hesitates, then taps it open.

Rafiq reads it again, slower this time. A real inquiry. Not a broker. Not spam. Someone with a company name and a reason to inspect.

The next morning, Rafiq waited at the edge of the berth, nervously checking his watch. He’d wiped down the rails, dusted the bridge console, and double-checked the class papers though he knew they were dated. The ship looked tired, but presentable. Hopefully enough.

A white SUV pulled up near the harbor gate, and a man stepped out wearing a simple jacket, carrying a hard-shell case. He moved with the kind of calm confidence that told Rafiq he wasn’t new to this.

“Alex Dunnes,” the man said, offering a quick handshake. “Appreciate you making time.”

They boarded together. Alex barely glanced at the interior. His eyes tracked the weld seams along the deck, the corrosion around hatch edges. He asked a few polite questions about fuel use, recent voyages, and ballast tanks, but nothing that made Rafiq nervous. Not yet.

Then came the line Rafiq hadn’t expected so early:

“Mind if I start with a hull pass? I brought some gear.”

Alex popped open the case. Inside was a compact underwater drone—sleek, bright yellow, with propeller guards and a tether. The name Blueye was stamped in crisp white across the top.

He lowered it off the starboard side and began piloting from a small console. A live feed popped up on his tablet: crisp footage showing the waterline, weld seams, and hull plating in detail.

“Good visibility today,” Alex murmured, eyes focused on the screen.

Rafiq stood silently, trying not to pace.

Minutes passed. The drone swept along the forward section near the bow thruster tunnel. Alex adjusted the angle, paused, then backed up. Zoomed in.

He said nothing.

The drone moved on, scanning aft toward the keel. A few minutes later, he reeled it in.

“Thanks for letting me take a look,” Alex said, polite but unreadable. “I’ll follow up with you shortly.”

An hour later, Rafiq received another email. It was short and professional, Alex had decided not to proceed.

No explanation. Just a polite decline.

Another email followed...

📅 A Week Later…

A week passed with no new emails. No calls. Nothing.

Rafiq barely slept. He'd started quietly looking at listings for shared apartments. If the ship didn’t sell soon, they’d have to move in with his parents, a full house already. His pride had taken beatings before, but not like this.

He was going over numbers again—trying to figure out if they could survive another month—when his phone lit up with an incoming call.

Toryn stepped out of the taxi and adjusted his jacket as the humid morning air pressed in. The shipyard wasn’t much to look at, but neither was his office back in Manila—and that hadn’t stopped him.

This was the biggest deal his company had landed since he started it from a shared laptop in his son’s apartment two years ago. After months of bidding, quoting, losing out, and chasing paperwork halfway across Asia, he’d finally secured a short-term bulk contract running bagged cement to new build sites across the region. It wasn’t glamorous, but it was real money. The kind that could stabilize everything.

But there was a catch.

The contract required multiple deliveries over a 120-day term, first run due in under three weeks

He needed a ship. His own ship. Something good enough to sail but cheap enough to buy fast.

And that’s when he found Halima.

He walked through the gate and spotted a man by the railing: graying at the temples, eyes tired but alert.

“Rafiq?” he called out.

The man turned, nodded, and extended a hand.

Within hours...

Three days after the deal closed, Halima was underway—refueled, reflagged, and loaded with cement bags bound for Cebu. It was the break Toryn had worked years for. But somewhere off the coast, just beyond radar range, Halima started to speak in subtle ways. A low vibration. A soft groan in the forward tanks. Nothing serious. Not yet.

Rafiq didn’t waste time. The next morning, he wired the full balance to the bank, wiping out his overdue debt. That afternoon, he walked into his daughter’s school and handed them a check for the next two terms. For the first time in over a year, he felt like he could breathe. He didn’t buy another ship. Not right away. Instead, he took a short contract as a port operations consultant, something stable, something close to home. He still visited the docks most mornings, coffee in hand, watching the tide roll in. He’d let go of Halima, but not the sea.

🕒 Three Months Later

Halima had completed two successful voyages under Toryn’s command, short runs with good margins and tight schedules. He’d started to think maybe he’d found a hidden gem after all. The rust was manageable. The systems held up. The ship moved like she wanted to prove something.

But on the third run, something changed.

It started with a subtle tremor near the bow, barely noticeable. Toryn thought it was just sea state, maybe some uneven ballast. But by day three, the vibrations grew sharper. The chief engineer reported hearing an unusual knock near the forward bulkhead. They adjusted course to reduce strain and slowed speed slightly.

Then, in the middle of a choppy night, the crew heard it.

A deep metallic crack—not loud, but unmistakable. Toryn was on the bridge when it came. The bow dipped harder into the swell. The autopilot fought to keep course. Water ingress alarms lit up from the forward tank room.

They sealed bulkheads and issued a distress call.

The ship held together, barely, but she was taking on water. A tug arrived 18 hours later and towed Halima to port.

Toryn scrolled slowly through the PDF on the screen. His stomach sank.

What had started as a vibration was now confirmed in stark, clinical language: structural failure, forward frame. The photos in the report showed it clearly—buckled plating, cracked welds, corrosion that ran deeper than the surface ever revealed.

He leaned back in the chair, the sounds of the shipyard outside barely registering. He didn’t want to believe it, but he couldn’t unsee it. Someone had to have known.

Toryn took the loss hard—but he didn’t stop. He liquidated what he could, renegotiated the bulk contract, and managed to charter a smaller vessel to fulfill the final delivery. It wasn’t remotely profitable, but it kept his name clean. The experience changed him. He became sharper, more cautious, less trusting—and far more thorough. A few months later, he took a position with a marine logistics firm as an asset manager—steady pay, fewer risks. His son, inspired by the sea despite everything, landed a job as a deckhand on a coastal freighter. They still talk ships often. And while Toryn swore off rushed deals and paper-thin inspections, he never ruled out jumping back in—next time, with sharper eyes and detailed inspections.

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