These photos were taken aboard the Even Song, a 48'
ketch built in 1928 for which years of restoration had recently been completed.
In late October there was ice on
the dock the morning we departed for the long-planned year's cruise to the Caribbean.
The first day out we were warned by NOAA radio of a suddenly
approaching nor'easter. We immediately located and headed for
shelter. We then sat out the worst of the storm in a sheltered harbor on Cuttyhunk Island off Martha's Vineyard. We were pretty good boat builders, but
none of us had any real sailing experience: Our plan was to take it real slow and
easy, duck bad weather, and learn as we went along.
We should have listened to our own advice, but
Monica and I were out-voted
that morning by a determined Brad and Jim; Jeff and Karen just sort of
went along. Despite Monica's and my report of our
observations, we were going to leave Cuttyhunk Island and venture out too soon. Even the local fishermen came
down to the boat and warned us against departure. They weren't going out and I'll never
forget the words of one: "Every year we get a couple fool boaters in here who won't
listen to advice and wind up in big trouble or are never heard from again."
But Brad and Jim insisted that we could handle it, that'd it'd be a
good training experience for more to come along the cruise ahead.
Prophetic words indeed from the
local fishermen, for as we sailed out into the open
waters of Buzzard's Bay the seas increased, reaching 20 feet as day turned
into night with the wind blowing strong (as the photos will
attest!) and increasing. The plan was to just sail across the bay to New Bedford.
Eleven
harrowing hours later and lost, in the middle of the night we stumbled into
Narragansett Bay, Newport, Rhode Island -- having spotted the lights
of a large freighter in the distance crossing our course and
following it in -- battered and badly damaged, lucky just to be alive.
Not long after the storm photos were taken, conditions
continued to
worsen: The cameras got stowed away below, thoughts of photos
vaporized. It got so bad that we were resigned to sinking and death.
Three of the crew just gave up, went below
and prayed. I had a transcendental experience that changed my life forever:
Accepting that death was inevitable, I decided to go out fighting. The only way I
can describe it is, a physical and mental dead-cold calm came over me displacing the fear and
near-panic. Ever since, death has not intimidated me, for I confronted and accepted
it long ago. I've been there and done that.
By nightfall, sails started ripping before we could react, the sail track
tore off the mizzen boom; the boat filled up with oily bilge water covering the cabin sole by a good five or six
inches (we thought we were sinking but later learned the big fresh water tank had
burst); with water sloshing all around it, the 4-cylinder diesel would run on only
three cylinders, skipping and popping. (We later learned that paper wrappers
from all the canned goods we'd stowed below had fallen off from the soaking and
had clogged the bilge pump!) When we finally tried to call out a Mayday, the VHF
wouldn't transmit.
With just three of us still working
topside, Brad at the wheel,
Jim and I low-crawled up to the bow using our safety harnesses to get down the jib. I
happened to look up as we were wrestling it down and couldn't believe my
eyes. Way off in the distance ahead of us was a bigger mountain of jello
(best way I've ever been able to describe those huge swells that just kept rolling at us), much
bigger, probably a 20-footer. I yelled through the wind to Jim laying next to me to hang on -- we took what felt like a fast elevator
ride up from the deep trough of the last swell before the rogue wave to its crest
-- the
bow kept going up and over (I looked down over the bow into the trough ...
waaaaaay down there) -- suddenly we plunged -- Jim and I floated about two feet above the deck in
thin air, dropping -- the bow dug into the base of the next huge wave and we crashed
into the deck, knocking the wind out of me -- I wrapped my arms around the
downed jib and clawed the sail in a death grip -- the monster crashed over us -- I felt
my fingernails dragged down the dacron, zzzzzz -- boom! I was
violently jerked to a stop underwater as the safety harness halted me. We lifted out of the wave
as Jim and I gasped for air in utter shock. We tied down the jib and crawled back to the cockpit
to deal with the next emergencies.
Even all these years later, when I relate
this story I'm
right back there again like it's happening, seeing and feeling it all over. It was exciting, especially for my
first week of real sailing experience. Nobody but me had any idea how to navigate, and
my knowledge was rudimentary coastal piloting back then. Lost at sea for 11 hours
and limping along, finally we spotted the lights of a freighter far ahead in the
dark crossing our course and heading toward land. We followed it in and found ourselves in
Newport, Rhode Island.
On the way in, we'd lost sight of
the freighter, but for the first time since departing Cuttyhunk
Island we spotted land. Jim and I were up on the bow when Brad
inexplicably cut
the wheel and pointed Even Song straight at Brenton's Point, a rocky
peninsular off the tip of Newport Neck. I'd determined our
position before crawling out to the bow to give Jim a hand.
Both Jim and I began yelling at Brad in the cockpit to head back out
before he put the boat up on the rocks. We raced back to the
cockpit screaming for him to change course now, before we all ended
up as ground hamburger on the rocks. Even Song went back out,
got on a decent course, and we found our way safely into Newport.
We were so exhausted, mentally
drained, and relieved at having survived that we simply
dropped anchor, crawled below into clutter chaos and bilgewater-soaked bunks, and collapsed for the
night in our foul-weather gear: tomorrow would be another day but
tonight we were utterly wrung out. For about three days afterward we were on some kind
of natural high, euphoria that I'd never experienced, and I've been looking for
again ever since. I believe it's got to do with fear: Confronting it, controlling it,
defeating it. Still, I'd never intentionally put myself in that kind of situation again if
I can possibly avoid it. Nope, not if I can help it, I learned a lot
from this ordeal.
The following morning we docked Even Song in Newport.
While the girls hauled all the bilgewater-soaked clothing off to a
laundromat and Brad and Jim went out looking for parts, Jeff and I
began much needed repairs to the boat. Jeff stitched the torn
mizzen sail while I refastened the sail track to its boom where it
had torn out. There was much to do before we could get
underway again. When Monica and Karen returned with the crew's
clean laundry, the four of us walked up to a local restaurant for a
late lunch. There the discussion began: Whether to stay
the course or to abandon ship.
My position was that we should continue on with our
dream -- we had too much invested into it now to just walk away.
None of us wanted to ever again go through an experience like that
which we just had. I assured them that we never would, that
"accidents are known to happen at sea" and if we were ever pressured
into a situation like that again, another one would. With that
assurance, I finally was able to talk them into giving it another
shot.
Shortly after, Brad
and Jim declared that we were ready for departure -- though much of
the needed repairs still were incomplete or untouched. "We'll
tend to them underway," they insisted. We still didn't have
even a working VHF radio, but regardless they wanted to head off.
It was the Cuttyhunk Decision all over again. They had learned
nothing. I saw the writing on the wall -- an "accident at sea"
was clearly in the future if we left so unprepared again. That
evening Jeff, Karen, Monica and I walked, abandoned ship.
We rented a car, loaded up all our belongings, then
spent the night in adjoining rooms at The Tugboat Inn on Goat Island
across from Newport where we heartily celebrated our wisdom for
making the right, the only, decision. The next day we drove
home. After a few days, we got together again and drove down
to Key West in my old '63 Valiant to visit our friend Warren; spent
the next two weeks decompressing in the tropics.
About three weeks
after departing Newport, we later learned, the Even
Song was lost after running aground on a sand bar a mile or two off the coast of Wachapreague, Virginia,
late one November night. Wachapreague, we now know, is a small
community of depraved wreckers who thrive on the hard luck and
misfortunes of passing sailors who come too close to its protruding
sandbar. I'm sorry to say, but that ending was in all
probability inevitable, there or somewhere else, which is why we
abandoned ship when we did.
