The following day was cool, crisp, and windy. "Woods Hole" we told the fuel dock attendant before we left. "A lively sail you'll have," he said. And he was right. The power sail out the channel was fine, and then we set sail. The wind out of the North built. At force 5 we reefed the main. At force 6, we dropped the small genoa and put on the storm sail. At force 7, we went to 15 minute watches. Within another 15 minutes, the visibility had dropped to a 100 yards. We had a pain in our gut from fear, not seasickness. Our plotted course could no longer be confirmed by buoys given the visibility. My faith in bottom navigation, and my crusty avoidance of loran evaporated. As we crossed the Edwards, Norton, or Cross Rip Shoal my spin depth sounder recorded depths of under 5 feet. The Josephine drew 6. Our savior was nun 4 which appeared through the violent spray for just an instant before it disappeared astern. It was clear that a completed passage to Woods Hole was not possible. We set course under power (a smokey and noisy 12 HP Yanmar) for Cape Poge hoping to make Edgartown. We made it and fell in our bunks, as exhausted as if we had just completed a crossing of the Atlantic.

Anthony and I dropped the two ladies and boy off at the Cape Cod Canal and the two of us continued on to Provincetown. We didn't know what we were going to do next. We ate fried calamari ashore. A light Northwester was forecast for the following day. Anthony was up all night struggling with the calamari. I read the Duncan and Ware Cruising guide which reported the Mayflower's unsuccessful efforts in making the passage South through the Pollock Rip channel. Then I read the Eldridge while Anthony sweated in the head. The predicted currents through Pollock Rip were perfect for a southerly passage. As dawn broke on the Solstice, we made the decision to head for Nantucket down the East side of the Cape. We got underway at 4:45 A.M. It was the great slow sail of my life. The Josephine's blue and orange 170 drifter kept us moving. The occasional lobsterman actually waved at us. People stared at us from the beaches. The wind picked up through the Pollock Rip Channel as we ate our canned ham dinner. The sun was just setting as we arrived in Nantucket at 9 P.M.

The Curse is the Calling (Continued)

Nantucket
June 1987

I love late June sailing if the weather is right. We took off from Tiverton in Narragansett Bay on the 17th of June with a full crew including Anthony and his wife Linda, their 5 year old son Gian, and a very temporary but memorable girlfriend of mine from Denmark named Jytte. Jytte rammed a rock leaving Cuttyhunk Harbor almost ending this voyage. I forgave her.

We left that afternoon for Hyannis so my crew could catch a bus to Logan, and a flight back to the "no clam" state. The single handed voyage back to Tiverton was also cursed despite my skilled efforts. Yet I had gained confidence in single handing, since it had been a single handed voyage throughout.

I recently read a story in the July edition of Atlantic Magazine by William F. Buckley entitled "Aweigh". Buckley was the commencement speaker at my college graduation from Layayette in 1972. He was born in 1925. Buckley's cruising writing has been one of my inspirations for this blog. "Aweigh" is also about "notsailing" but for reasons other than family. He has decided to sell his 36 foot sloop "Patito" which he has owned for over 30 years. The article is a struggle to divine the reason for his decision. The concluding sentence reads, "So, deciding that the time has come to sell the Patito and forfeit all that is not lightly done, and it brings to mind the step yet ahead, which is giving up life itself."

With first light, I escaped the unending illness and returned to the launch dock. A great variety of sail and power had been swept ashore, dragging their anchors or moorings. A smile came to my face when I spotted the Josephine in the distance, port side to, sitting safely at her mooring. The first launch disgorged a crowd of ashen faced sailors who had chosen to weather the storm aboard. My joy at the safety of the Josephine turned to gloom as the launch turned to let me off on the starboard side. Wood chips and an unfamiliar brass railing littered her deck, two of the stanchions were bent, and the hull's gelcoat was seriously damaged over a wide area, obviously the result of a broadside by a loose wooden power boat sitting on the beach 300 yards away.

We had a fine voyage from Tiverton RI (with the Captain constantly at the helm, and the crew not sleeping below) arriving in Nantucket on August 17. Needless to say, the maintenance chores I had envisioned had not been initiated. Immediately upon arriving, the weather radio started reporting that Hurricane Charlie was moving our way. By the evening of the 18th, we decided to take refuge ashore. A wise move. To cheer ourselves up, we pulled out the credit cards and enjoyed an expensive shellfish dinner. Melissa (Rascal) is from Texas and enjoys crayfish. Clams, oysters, and lobster did not agree with her. We found that out as the wind blew a hundred knots throughout the night shaking our tiny room ashore.

Selby is one of those people who can fix anything and enjoys doing so. I was encouraged that not only would this be a chance to renew our friendship, but also an opportunity to correct some unresolved maintenance problems. As it turned out, Selby and Melissa spent most of their time in the forward cabin. He called her "Rascal." They tied a blanket over the entranceway to the forward cabin, which had no door, as if the blanket provided all the privacy and sound insulation necessary to ensure the sanctity and secrets of their bliss.

My old friend Selby (sometimes called Fred) and his new fiance Melissa were eager to do some sailing. "Nantucket" I said, "Is my old friend. I know the place. Nothing bad can befall us." Selby had studied architecture at the Rhode Island School of Design and had been my neighbor in a Providence apartment house. He later did graduate work in Texas and decided to stay. Northeast winters are not his friend. I had never met Melissa before.

The Curse is the Calling (Continued)

Nantucket

August 1986
My Aunt Josephine from Mississippi had died. I didn't know it until I received a letter from her attorney telling me she had left me some money. She was an adventurer, had lived in Moscow, Warsaw, and Paris before returning to Indianola after my uncle died. I took a good chunk of my inheritance and made a down payment on a 1978 Irwin 30. I renamed her Josephine. My first real boat. The maintenance problems the first half of the summer consumed most of my time. A trip to Block Island over Memorial Day with no engine discouraged me and frightened my regular crew. By August, I was ready for my first real voyage.

The other vessel under my command (they called me the Commodore on this cruise) noticed our predicament and turned back to Nantucket with us. When we had safely secured the two vessels to a mooring, we went forward to inspect the damage. To our great surprise, there sitting on the deck in the bow was a clevis pin. This one pin secures the headstay to the bow of the boat. We unlashed the headstay system from the mast, reinserted the clevis pin at the tack of the headstay further secured by a carter pin from the tool kit, and continued on our way to Woods Hole no more than a half hour after our return from a seeming disaster.

Today is my fifth wedding anniversary. I spoke with my best man on the phone. "Boy, a lot has happened to you over the last five years" he said. "Not much sailing" I replied.

The weight of the headsail and furling system was terrific. I had an inexperienced crew, and only one with good strength. Going by instinct, I turned the vessel immediately downwind. After great effort, and finally with everyone's assistance, we succeeded in lashing the lower luff of the headsail system to the mast. Thank God for our keel stepped mast, for we surely would have lost the mast over the side in a deck stepped rig.

The next day we took off for Nantucket. We worried about the shoals but made it to port successfully. We had made plans to spend two days in Nantucket - both to enjoy the island and to exchange crews. My dad joined us as well as some others. On the second day with the two vessels well provisioned and crewed, we set off into a 25 knot northerly under power. The entrance channel to Nantucket Harbor faces North so the power sail was unpleasant. We pounded and pitched under full power barely making three knots. I was at the helm and at the point where the breakwater ends, without warning, the roller furling jib and headstay assembly came flying back toward the cockpit, crashed into the mast, and then gyrated in tune with our continuous pitching, always threatening those in the cockpit.

The Curse is the Calling (continued)

Nantucket

August 1982

I lost my log for this voyage. I say from firm recollection that I had not returned to Nantucket since my childhood trip. A group of friends had chartered two Bristol 35s. We rendezvoused in Hadley Harbor where I ran aground while at anchor - a full moon. The weather was very threatening and the next day we spent at Vineyard Haven inside the breakwater. Thank God, because a fierce storm blew for hours on end with the surf breaking over the breakwater. Everyone but I went ashore to tour the island in a drenching monsoon. I watched and worried about the storm.

After a good half hour of tough rowing (my dad) and bailing (my stepmother), they hailed another moored vessel closer in shore who had taken them aboard. I found my way through Nantucket to my relatives house and spent the night ashore. The next morning the wind had eased and shifted to the Southwest. I was retrieved, and we headed for Falmouth.

This decision was made with no reservations. No one rows to a vessel in Nantucket Harbor anymore. Very few did then. My uncle drove back to his rental house, leaving me to wait for the dinghies return. And I waited. It was the beginning of September and pitch dark by 8:00 PM. And I waited. Fortunately, there was a pay phone at the base of the dock. Eventually, I had no watch, but I did have a dime, I called the Nantucket Coast Guard station. They had already received notification that my family was safe.

We had a smooth crossing of Nantucket Sound from Edgartown. We had a fine get together with my cousins. After dinner, my uncle drove us to the dinghy dock. A brisk wind was blowing out of the East. A bad sign, as I know now. My father and stepmother decided to row to the Chip and then dad would return for me.

The Curse is the Calling (Continued)

Nantucket

Early September 1965

In the 1965 voyage to Nantucket, the crew were my dad, stepmother, and me, then aged 14. My uncle, aunt, and two first cousins had rented a house on Nantucket for a couple of weeks. So, this was both a cruise and a visit.

We concluded seconds later that our gin and tonic celebration of the evening before had been premature. During the night one of the minefield pot buoys had entrapped itself on our prop. We had not been diligent in our morning inspection. I was age 37; Dad was 72. I put on the mask and went over the side. I came up after a split second exclaiming of the cold and the hopelessness of our situation. I rowed ashore and recruited a diver. Dad nearly died right then when I told him the price. He grabbed the mask and the butcher knife from the galley and went over the side. Whack, whack, whack! Blood, rope, and Styrofoam oozed to the surface. Dad came up! "She's free," he said. He hauled himself up, I bandaged his hacked up hands and we got underway, making it to Portsmouth that day and then onto Annisquam the next in no wind.

I noted in this morning's paper that Smarty Jones paid $3.30 to Place and $2.60 to Show. That is very good - a 65% return on an almost sure thing. That was the bet - even $2.40 to Place would have been good. He went off to Win at 0.35 to 1 which would have meant a $2.70 win payoff.

Dad cooked eggs and fried bread the next morning to fortify us for a planned passage to Cape Ann. After the second cup of coffee, with the motor chirping and Dad at the helm, I cast off the mooring and he put the engine in gear. The sound that erupted was indescribable. The Josephine shook and shrieked, small pieces of Styrofoam flew into the air, and the engine stopped. Fortunately I was able to recapture the mooring with a spectacular boat hook lunge before we drifted onto a nearby unattended Hinckley.

So much for Purge. A big bounce after his Peter Pan victory. The mile and a half was just a little too much for Smarty Jones. Birdstone was a shocker but in retrospect he was the class of the race with a big victory at Belmont last fall.

My last curse memory, less than two years before my father's death, was a lobster pot wrapped around our prop at Cape Porpoise, Maine. We had skillfully guided Josephine to avoid the pots in the entrance channel in horrible weather the previous day. We drank our gin and tonics that evening with a smile of satisfaction that we had made it South from Portland successfully.

I view Purge as the only horse with a chance at beating Smarty Jones in the Belmont. I'll take a flyer across the board, hoping for peculiar results in the Place and Show pools.

Another was a voyage from Provincetown to Isle of Shoals, a group of small islands off the New Hampshire coast. It was my first sighting of whales. "There she blows!" yelled Arn Gibb, my dad's best sailing buddy, startling me awake from the drudgery and pleasure of wading through the Junior High School summer reading list. The other outstanding memory from that trip was the evening ashore on Isle of Shoals and the dollar a pound lobsters boiled over a driftwood fire. Would the water ever boil?

One of them I remember clearly, with help from his precise logs, occurred while moving the boat east from Chesapeake City over the Memorial Day weekend in 1963. We rode the train South and hitched a ride to the Chip. We took off at dawn under sail and discovered later that the starter was not functioning when the wind died. Eventually, in desperation, he started the Atomic 4 with a hand crank but badly sprained his wrist in the effort. His pain and my exhaustion and sun stroke drove us to take refuge in the Cohansey River on the South Coast of Jersey. The mosquitoes were so thick they obstructed the visibility worse than a pea soup fog off Cuttyhunk. Biting fog. We eventually found dock space and a meal. The engine was repaired, and the rest of the trip to Atlantic City was completed.

These days there are not many people who would sail a 25 foot boat to Nantucket from City Island, New York, the Chip's home port. But Dad took the Chip everywhere while earning a 5 day a week living. I sailed on her up in the Penobscot and down in the Chesapeake. I rarely made the long trips with him. Most of them he made by himself.

I described in my March 30 and April 18 postings some history behind the preparation of "Insomniatic Eldridge Observations" which was published in this blog during March and April. As I mentioned on March 30, I prepared two manuscripts in the late 90's. The second is entitled "The Curse is the Calling", and I will be posting it over the next several weeks.

The Curse is the Calling

DAD

The curse crystallized for me on my first sailing voyage to Nantucket in the late summer of 1965. The vessel was my dad's Dobson 25 cutter named Chip, built in 1942, not Fiberglas.