Staying afloat

And learning to not sink the dinghy

It’s been 33 years. Convention would suggest I hold off on this tale for a while longer, the straggly years between decades being somehow less worthy than the ones that end in zeros. But seeing as I have a thing for numerical repetition, we’re just going to think of this as a special, duplicate-digit jubilee!

We’d known each other for all of eight months, three of them hitched, and we were preparing to hatch a bold plan. After nine hot May days south of Miami—sweaty, heady days spent commissioning Tempo, a 44-year-old wooden sailboat, we were finally leaving the dock.

For as long as it took us to travel from Florida to New York, Tempo would be our floating home. We were young, venturesome, and carefree enough to call ourselves ready. Despite our combined sailing experience, his far more notable than mine, we also had no idea what we were getting ourselves into.

Leaning heavily on entries from our ship’s log, this is the story of two young lovers with nothing better to do. That’s balderdash, of course. Aside from doing what newlyweds do often, we also had bills to pay and probably shouldn’t have parted with our incomes just then. But for a lovely little while, we threw caution to the wind and set sail.

Before we could say ‘Bob’s your uncle,’ we were introduced to Tempo’s many leaks. She’d been living the docked life for some time, no swishy-swashy waves keeping her seams moist and swollen. By the time we took ownership, she was anything but water tight. During those sweltering days in Florida, while we toiled, scrubbed, and stowed our way to launch, we noticed how everyone at the marina disappeared below deck at midday, retreating to their air-conditioned quarters. We thought the ugly blue tarp suspended above Tempo’s cabin was there to provide shade. We were wrong. It was there to keep the afternoon thunderstorms from dribbling below deck. When it rains it pours, indeed!

LOG ENTRIES: His in bold italics, mine in plain text

Mon 6-3-91
0800 Weigh anchor
Head for Fisherman’s Channel —> Miami Inlet… Boat taking on some water thru counter seams when squatting… Slower speed, less water.
Our first full day underway, we headed offshore. It felt great to be under sail at last, and the old girl seemed to respond similarly. Nightfall, with its building winds and chop, meant some long, nervous hours. We awakened with every bump and shake, and by morning’s light, we were both quite fatigued. Even so, sunrise made the coming day “doable.” Despite a wet boat and shorter nerves, we knew there would be much worse in future days. This day would be good.

My entries on the left, his on the right.

After spending that first rocky night in open water, we headed for the Intracoastal Waterway, the ICW, the Inland Waterway, “The Ditch.” We gained relative safety and an abundance of anchorages that allowed us some much-needed sleep. But we lost reliably deep water. Tempo’s lead keel extended nearly six feet below her water line, so even a slight course miscalculation meant we were apt to bottom out. Not what our forebears meant when they shouted “Land, ho!”

Me, possibly about to miss the marker.

LOG ENTRIES: His in bold italics, mine in plain text

Tues 6-4-91
1300 Entrance to Cape Canaveral Inlet. Pass thru two bridges & 1 lock on way to ICW
1605 Jim misses mark & runs Tempo aground
1800 After two miserable hours of work Tempo is afloat… Loss of one Danforth-type anchor which could not be broken out
Thur 6-20-91
[Elizabeth] strays outside the channel between green 31 and red 30. Hard aground…again. Book says the tide should be coming in but the water says the opposite. 1255—still waiting. Jim rows dinghy over to try to get info from some people clamming nearby. He brings home clams—the only plus to sitting here all day. 1645 – with help of rising tide, we kedge her off. Under way 1700. Delicious clam chowder for dinner.

Hard aground. Notice the laundry hanging from the lifelines?

An excellent sailor and decent engineer, Jim was no mechanic, and our systems exploited the weakness. We were searching for parts and repairs by day three, setting a trend for the rest of the cruise. It was ridiculous enough to be laughable, if only there’d been laughter. Our log notes mechanical issues on June 3, 5, 6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18, 19, 23, and 26.

LOG ENTRIES:

Sun 6-16-91
Engine trouble – what a pain! Perhaps at this rate, Jim will be a diesel expert by the time we get to New York. I keep wondering when he will ask a marina how much they would offer for a 3-cylinder Westerbeke engine. I’m sure he’d much rather stick his head in a big storage box and do away with this silly mechanical mess!
Mon 6-17-91
Engine still acting up. Make Georgetown. No mechanic available, nor diesel book at book store.

The added sticker said what he did not.

In the face of our mechanical debacles, it’s worth noting my guy’s incredible patience. Many times, the frustration was written across his face, but he never once threw himself or his tools overboard, nor flung obscenities at passing fish. That, and his ability to sail, motorless, into a boat slip was a sure sign I’d picked a winner.

Somewhere in our short courtship, he’d confided that he thought he’d remain single until he was out of his 20s. He missed that prediction by four months. On June 22, we rowed to shore in Belhaven, North Carolina to celebrate his 30^th birthday with a forgettable meal and a memorable slice of cheesecake, complete with candle.

We were underway nearly a month. On certain stretches, the days were long and uneventful, our excitement limited to spotting alligators basking sleepily on the shoreline. I was grateful they tended toward the shallows while we mostly coasted up the middles. If you didn’t already imagine it, go ahead and sprinkle this fairytale with heavy rains, wet underwear, and mosquitoes. Each had leading parts.  Oh, and at some point, we nearly sank our dinghy.

Of course, there was also much wonder. A stroke of dumb luck meant we were proximate to the Kennedy Center Launch Complex when the Space Shuttle Columbia went up for its 11th mission. It strikes me as significant that we have no photos of the event, and what we captured in our log is subdued compared with the memory, which we still mention from time to time, a model, perhaps, of living in the moment.

I recall seeing a reflective fire trace across the morning sky, contrail making linear art behind, and the humbling, sonic roar of rocket engines. As the projectile moved overhead, the boat and everything on it shook. In their flying ship, seven astronauts would make it into outer space and back home again long before our voyage would be done.

LOG ENTRIES:

Wed 6-5-91
Weigh anchor 0745 motor north. Bridge restrictions … Anchor at Mile 886. 0925 …Shuttle Launch!
One delay on top of another. But the sight and power of that Shuttle liftoff may just have been worth the wait.

Making progress!

Despite the tension of having to make a rendezvous deadline, we loved meeting up with family in Charleston, South Carolina. We reunited with friends in Norfolk, Virginia. I learned how to get the better of my off-shore seasickness, and as we sailed over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel at 1845 hours on Wednesday, June 26, 1991, headed back offshore for 48 hours in the final run up to New York, I forced myself to eat a tuna sandwich knowing that I’d be better off with food in my belly. Two days later, as we approached the Fire Island Inlet, a miracle of sailing happened. I finally got my sea legs!

Sea legs!

LOG ENTRIES:

Fri 6-28-91
Breakfast went down slowly and incompletely, the best of the dry Grape Nuts got fed to the fish. But somewhere in mid-afternoon, it happened—the constant queasiness disappeared! I found I could walk on deck and hang my feet in the water, and enjoy myself. What a pleasure!

We lived aboard Tempo on and off for about three years in New York before finding ourselves sailing south again, this time fetching up in Maryland. Our lives underwent a series of consequential shifts that steered us to a more land-based lifestyle. It took us a long time to admit that Tempo deserved better.

Eventually, she was sold to a new owner, her 9^th, who hoped to give her the full restoration we were never able to complete. He said he had a barn large enough to store her in the meantime. Though her seams would split open once again, we understood that a dry environment would also stave off the rot and worms to which many wooden boats eventually succumb. We have not followed her new owner’s progress. I know I still feel pangs of guilt for not sticking with her for the long haul.

Like all Concordia yawls, Tempo had a fine pedigree. She’d been the fourth of 103 similar vessels built as racing boats back in the day. She’d been owned and skippered by Henry Sears, a former commodore of the New York Yacht Club. In addition to their northern holdings, the Sears family also owned a country property, in Maryland. Her husband long gone, we had occasion to meet Mary, the matriarch, both in Manhattan, NY and Chestertown, MD. It seems fitting that Tempo came full circle with us. Her original name was Actaea, Nymph of the Shore, “the dweller on coasts.” Today, she would be 77 years old.

Looking back on it, the whole experience feels like a metaphor for the partnership my captain and I have maintained all these years. There’s been beauty, sure—endlessly, in fact—and so many supportive people. We’ve had our share of good food and good luck. We’ve worked hard. We’ve run aground. There has been a lot of imperfection and heaps of not knowing what we were doing. There have been bitey things and soggy things. There have been sleepless nights and days we couldn’t make much progress, no matter how hard we tried. There’ve been times we had to backtrack to seek out some necessary repairs, and once or twice, when we forgot to consider some of the most important details, we nearly sank.

In spite of it all, and perhaps against the odds, two people who took a chance on each other managed to find their sea legs and sail. It’s been a beautiful voyage!

~Elizabeth

Bon voyage!