THE GREAT ESCAPE
CHAPTER I
The incredible stress and frantic pace of the last few weeks at work and the three weeks between leaving DLJ and leaving the dock in Rowayton was almost impossible to cope with. The amount of preparation this time compared to when we sailed away in 1971 was staggering. Even though I had spent every weekend of the past year refitting the boat, and Kitty had spent her time organizing the logistics, our "must do" list seemed to keep getting longer as departure day approached. The only things getting shorter were our tempers and our bank balance. I now understand many older peoples' preoccupation with their net worth and the anxiety associated with no more steady income except Social Security checks and I don't even have Social Security!
Every time I turned around there was another piece of gear that we just had to have, or something had to be replaced, or a spare part for an important piece of equipment had to be acquired. I kept telling myself that out in the middle of the ocean if something were to break, I wouldn't be able to sail into a marina and say "Fix it, please!" I had to think of and be prepared for every emergency. On top of all that, we decided at the last moment to install a refrigeration system, a radar which a friend, Ed Gaynor, had given us, and a ham radio so that in an emergency we could contact civilization.
By the time we left, I had almost totally rebuilt the boat. I had pulled the engine out over the winter and had it rebuilt, reinstalling it myself. I had replaced all the old plastic ports with heavy duty aluminum ones. All the running and standing rigging, including bottle screws was replaced. I designed, had fabricated, and installed a two foot bowsprit to reduce the weather helm and give us a second head stay. I replaced the old kerosene stove with a new propane one, which entailed building an air-tight storage locker for the two 20 pound gas bottles we now carry, and running the necessary gas lines from the bottles to the stove. I reinforced some of the bulkheads, added extra cabinets and a book shelf. I enlarged one of the kids’ bunks and raised the over-head in our aft cabin 4 inches. Finally, I rewired all the electrics. By now, I know every screw, fitting and wire on the boat.
In spite of all that effort, we had to make at least 3 repairs at sea on our first leg from Charleston to St. Thomas. At sea everything works 24 hours a day and with the kind of stress we subjected the boat to, things just wear out no matter how well they are made to start with. At least we had the parts and the tools to do it.
Everything was much simpler when Kitty and I sailed around the world back in 1971. Then we had only a 30 foot boat with no electronics--not even a depth-sounder. We also had no house to rent, furniture to store-and no money to buy things with, so we went without except for the bare necessities. We also didn't have the added responsibility of two boys, aged 9 and 11.
As our hoped for departure date closed in on us, the pace became even more frenetic. And so did the stream of well wishers who found their way to the boat to see how things were progressing. To all of you whom I may have been a little short with, please accept my apologies but I was under the strain of a million things to do and not enough time to do them. I am also plagued with a one track mind that hates to be interrupted.
Finally, on Friday October 9th after a whole week of trying to just pack the boat with spare parts, tools, food, clothing, books and toys, we began to solve the Chinese puzzle and find a place on board for almost everything. Inevitably some necessary items like skateboards or second spares for the left-handed framizon were deemed expendable and left behind amid rousing protests from the offended party. However, as the puzzle came together we realized that we were coming unglued and couldn't even think of taking watches, 2 hours on, 2 hours off, for the 24 hours down the Jersey coast. So we called old friend and sailor, John Flahive. John used to work with me at DLJ, now he dials and smiles for Furman Selz. He also owns a 37 foot sailboat and had sailed with me on other occasions, one being a trip to Bermuda where his good humor and good cooking kept us all in high spirits during three days of poor weather. I could also trust John when neither Kitty nor I were on watch, which meant I could sleep soundly off watch. A call Thursday night produced John with his sea bag Friday morning. Thank god for good friends!
After a final hectic 2 hours with the boatyards' rigger up our mast fixing a jammed halyard, we were actually ready to leave at about 4:45p.m. We quickly went back to the house for a final check, rounded up the kids, hopped on the boat, and with the help of a few neighbors cast the lines off at 5:10 p.m. All along we had kept telling our friends that we were probably going to leave the next week so they wouldn't feel compelled to come and wish us luck, interrupting our last minute efforts. Consequently, our send off party was quite small consisting of only a few neighbors and a couple of neighborhood kids, some of whom stayed home from school to play with Alex and Spencer for the last time for a couple of years. Even so, it was an emotional event.
As we motored down the river, 3 of the kids' friends, Mark Cavanaugh, Michael Markus and Peter Granville-Smith, were running along the beach waving goodbye. They followed us all the way to the mouth of the river where they stood on rocks at the point and waved until we were out of sight.
A few tears welled up in my eyes as I went below to get out the chart, there wasAlex lying on his bunk, crying too. I sat down next to him and we talked for a while about how sad it was to leave all our friends; but, then we could look forward to the adventure that lay ahead.
That night we went as far as StamfordHarbor, all of 5 miles away. We weren't an hour away from the dock when John proved his worth by pointing out that the buoy I was heading for was not the one at the harbor entrance. I wasabout to run us on the rocks... I needed to get some rest. Even so it was already dark as we pulled safely inside the harbor and dropped our anchor. After a quick dinner we all collapsed for a good night's sleep.
The next day, Saturday, we got off to an early start and made the 11a.m. tide at Hell Gate. We then sped down the East River on the outgoing 4 kt ebb tide, stopping at the 23rd StreetMarina to take on fuel and to drop off our friendRonnie Shapiro, the girl who had introduced Kitty and I nineteen years ago and who had been helping us pack both the boat and the house all week. More tears.
By 2p.m. we were going by the Battery. I looked back at the towering buildings of lower Manhattan and wondered if we were doing the right thing(this was only October 10th after all a full two weeks before the market crash of October 1987). Well, no turning back now. As we sailed by the South Street Seaport, the pier was empty. No crowds milling about, no big send off from friends on their lunch break. I had hoped to be there a day earlier so that we could wave goodbye to all of my co-workers who had wanted to see us off. I had also planned to fly a banner from our rigging proclaiming"DLJ's BEST EXECUTION!!". Donaldson, Lufkin and Jenrette, better known as DLJ, is a stock brokerage firm and it’s motto is, “DLJ, Best Execution!” for its ability to execute large stock trades.
Now the canyons of Wall Street were empty. Even the Hudson River had only a few tugs going about their business. A far cry from when we were here last summer with 40,000 other boats to wish Happy Birthday to the Statue of Liberty. As we went under the VerrazanoBridge, a huge freighter came at us making two short blasts on his horn signifying his intention to pass starboardto starboard. As he passed I wondered where he had come from and realized we were about to embark on as long a voyage as he had probably just completed. The only difference being that it would take us a year to get to where we were going.
All that night we powered down the JerseyCoast. With John on watch for one 2 hour shift and Kitty for another, I was able to get a solid 4 hours of sleep between my watches. It was an easy night.
The next day, however, was a hard beat up the Delaware Bay against both wind and tide. Night fell with at least 25 miles more to cover before we could turn into the relative calm of the Chesapeake and DelawareCanal. Those fivehours were spent with John and I running between the deck and the radar scope below as we tried to pick our way between navigational buoys and the tankertraffic coming down the river. Finally at 1a.m. we were tied next to the marina dock at the end of the canal.
Very early the next day, before anyone could come to ask us for dockage fees, we were on our way again. The morning provided us with our first decent sail of the trip as we cruised down the Chesapeake under spinnaker towards Annapolis. That's where John was to get off to go back to New York to dial for dollars and where we were to meet our friends the Lymans, who, with 3 boys justour kids ages, were sailing their 49 foot sloop to Sydney along the same route we intended to take. Since Cabot and Heidi were good friends and our kids’ exuberant playmates we had planned to spend a lot of time together in various anchorages from Annapolis to Australia.
The week in Annapolis was notable for installing a new head in the boat and taking the boys on a trip to Washington, D.C.I realized the old head wouldn't last with 2 years of everyday use by a family of four and I sure didn't want it to break some place where I couldn't fix it. Knowing my luck it would have broken while in rough weather somewhere at sea so that in addition to the worries of "weathering the storm" so to speak, we would have been quite literally "knee deep in ****" . So I replaced it with a stronger, more efficient, and incidentally easier to use model.
Since we were in Annapolis, I thought that a side trip to our nation’s capitol would be our first opportunity to turn this saga into a true educational experience for our kids--or so I had hoped. We borrowed a friend's car and drove into Washington DC. After a quick lunch at McDonalds we went right to Christopher Dodds' office(our senator from Connecticut) and got a pass to get into the Senate Chambers. Then we went down to the basement of his office building and took the Senator's trolley under Constitution Avenue to the Capitol building where we maneuvered our way through endless corridors and infinite lines of other tourists until we finally ended up in the Senate Gallery to watch our elected officials making the lawsthat govern our nation. We sat down to see the Senate Chambers empty except for four or five senators and a few aides engaged in parliamentary negotiation.For those of you who have not had the privilege, a parliamentary discussion is when two or more senators talk in a language totally foreign to us mere citizens, taking a long time to say what seems to be nothing at all. After 15 minutes of that,the boys were itching to get on to The Air and SpaceMuseum, the Lincoln and Viet-Nam Memorials and the WashingtonMonument. We got up and left Senator Lowell Weicker gesticulating to an empty chamber.
As we rode back to Annapolis that night, I asked Alex what he learned from our trip to the Nations' Capitol. He very firmly replied "I learned I never want to be a politician because it's so boring." That night he wrote 2 sentences in his log about the boring visit to the Senate and the rest of the page was about the fact that the McDonalds had two stories and the Washington subway system was real clean--no graffiti-so much for an educational experience.
On Sunday, October 18th, we left Annapolis to slowly cruise down the
Chesapeake. Monday night I heard on the radio that the stock market had dropped 502 points!
The next day, as we were sailing down the Bay, I couldn't contain myself and called back to the office on our VHF radio telephone and got the rundown on the meltdown. It was 11:00am on October 20th and many Dow Jones stockshad still not been able to open. I can't tell you how relieved I was to have sold all my stocks before I had left. On the other hand, I felt that I was missing history being made and for a brief moment I wanted to be back at my desk to watch the happenings. But I felt so insulated from the trauma that I'm sure everyone back at the office was going through, I was more relieved to be exactly where I was.
The next three weeks found us leisurely powering down the Inter-Coastal Waterway, a collection of rivers, bays and canals that allow one to go from Norfolk, Va. to Miami, Fla.,without going out into the ocean. The "Ditch ", as it is called, was crowded with sail and powerboats all fleeing the advancing winter up north for the warm climates of Florida, the Bahamas and the West Indies.
Early in the waterway we met a Canadian boat with 2 kids, a boy Alex's age and a girl Spencer’s age. We powered together for the better part of 2 weeks leaving them in Beaufort, N.C., where after a few days of last minute maintenance chores and a good weather report they were going to leave togo straight to the Virgin Islands. We, however, were going to Charleston, S.C., before heading offshore. Charleston was far enough south so that I felt we would miss the worst of the storms that form off the Carolinas and pound CapeHatteras during the winter months. It was also far enough north to get our easting before hitting the southeast trades. The trade off is that it is well west ofBeaufort and so the need for easting is greater.
On Saturday November 6th Pip Wick, another sailing friend, and I left Charleston. Kitty and the boys were going to visit my parents in Florida with a side trip to Disney World while Pip and I got the boat to St. Thomas. My reason for not taking the family on this leg was that the North Atlantic in November can be very rough. In fact, of our whole trip to Australia, this leg had the potential of being the roughest.
The day Pip and I left, the weather forecast was for SE winds 15-20 kts backing to NE and staying that way through Tuesday. By Wednesday a low pressure system would be off the North Carolina coast which could intensify and move NE. We felt that we could be east and south of the low center by Wednesday and so we left on what we felt was a reasonably good forecast.
The first night out I felt crummy not having got my sea legs yet. Pip felt fine as we slogged into the southeasterly winds. The wind never did back or veer around to the NE as predicted so our progress was slow and hard as we beat directly into the strong ESE winds. Sunday we tacked south and Monday we tacked NE. By Tuesday we were able to make some easting but we were not as far from the oncoming storm as we had hoped to be. In the meantime, the weather forecast kept getting increasingly bad. The low we were starting to experience on Tuesday morning was nowpredicted to turn into a gale by Thursday night.
Tuesday afternoon while I was in my bunk reading and Pip was on watch I heard a voice come over the VHF. It was a ship talking to a yacht. When the yacht came up I recognized the voice to be that of Bob Orrett on "SPINDTHRIFT", the Canadian friends we left in Beaufort a few weeks earlier!
First of all, I never leave the radio on so it must have been left on inadvertently or turned on by accident. Secondly, the range is only about 35 miles, so to hear anyone's voice was a shock ---and to hear Bob's voice was mind blowing!I then got on the radio and established contact. According to our SAT NAVS, we were only 12 miles apart so we headed for each other and 45 minutes later we rendezvoused 500 miles at sea.
The weather had been so bad up until then that their kids had gotten so seasick they had decided not to continue on to the Virgin Islands, at least 6 or 7 days away. Instead they had turned and headed for the Bahamas, only 2 days away. That is how they came to be so far south of what should have been their track to the V.I. We waved and shouted for a few minutes as we circled each other five hundred miles from land, in the middle of the Bermuda Triangle.