A Perfect Summer Day
It is rare when things turn out like you planned. Rarer, still, when they exceed expectations. This is especially true when the weather is involved. More often than not, the warm, sunny, "perfect" days are reserved for those times when you are stuck in the office. When the weekend or long-planned vacation day rolls around, Mother Nature typically chooses to exhibit her dark side, filling the sky with clouds, or rain, or worse.
Knowing the fickleness of the weather, it was with a bit of trepidation that we signed on for a sailing trip one recent Saturday on a co-worker's 50-foot ketch. Sailing is particularly prone to weather-related disappointment. Not only do you have to hope for a sunny, warm day to counteract the ocean's built-in cooling effect, but you also need to plead to the weather gods for good, sustained winds. A trip on a sailboat under motor power rather than wind power runs counter to everything that sailing stands for and should be - sort of like putting ketchup on filet mignon.
As "sailing day" approached, the weather report went from overcast with the chance of rain, to partly cloudy and little chance of rain (not surprising, with the dry summer we've been having). The sun was shining when we hopped in the car and headed for Castine. Ironically, it is about a 45 mile drive to Castine, whereas it is about a seven mile trip via water. We tried to talk our sailing hosts into picking us up at the dock here, but they couldn't be persuaded.
It was a very busy day in the little town of Castine. The town is rich in history, having been occupied by the British during much of the Revolution, and a large number of it's Colonial-era houses are still standing. And while it does get it's share of tourists, it is far enough removed from Rt. 1 to be considered a "convenient" stop, so it usually isn't overwhelmed. Today, however, it was difficult to find a parking space anywhere in the town.
Having eventually found a space well down one of the town roads, it wasn't long before we discovered what all these people were doing here. While searching for our sailing crew at the town dock, we were surprised to be greeted by our next-door neighbor. He had come across the bay by boat (in a very thick fog) to crew on one of the boats that was going to take part in the "Retired Captain's Race." This is an annual sailboat race in which the captain of the boats must be at least 65 years old. There were 57 entries in this year's race, which explained the lack of parking spaces in the town.
We eventually did find our hosts, but the sailboat was nowhere to be seen. A quick trip in a motorized dinghy, briefly accompanied by a curious seal, brought us to the masted behemoth. Chuck and Dianne, who own the boat, plan to one day sail around the world on it. With a steel hull, impressive stability, and plenty of room to move around beneath the deck, the boat seems to be ideally suited for the task (and, in fact, it was sailed around the world by the previous owner). Today, however, our "world" would consist of Penobscot Bay, which was just fine by all of us (although I plan to be a stowaway when they do set out on their circumnavigation).
We were ready to sail at about 10:30 a.m., but the wind wasn't cooperating. We were told that there was going to be a parade of the boats involved in the Retired Captains race at 11 o'clock, so we decided to stay put for awhile to watch that and hope the wind picked up. Turns out the "parade" didn't get going until about 11:30, but by then the hors d’oeuvres had already been broken out, so we were pretty content.
The parade was led by the schooner Bowdoin, a legendary vessel that was built in the late 1800s and was often sailed northward to Newfoundland and the Arctic. The boat is now owned by the Maine Maritime Academy, which is based in Castine, and used as a training vessel. Boats of all shapes and sizes followed the Bowdoin, including seven of them from our home port in Northport. And most of them had a silver-haired gentleman at the helm.
Like clockwork, the winds began to pick up at noon, so we set off in search of sailing adventure. Wanting to clear ourselves of the 57-sailboat race traffic, we motored out of Castine harbor. About a mile out, the sails raised, we killed the motor and depended on the breeze to move us. We were not disappointed. With an ample amount of sail area, "Bear" cut through the water effortlessly, it's steel hull turning aside the waves and whitecaps without so much as a "bounce" registering on deck.
As we continued on through the bay, some of us "landlubbers" took turns at the helm, attempting to keep Bear on course and moving efficiently. I lucked out when it was my turn at the wheel, in that we were on a fairly straightforward tack that was reasonably easy to maintain. This was my first experience with a wheel rather than a tiller, and as any sailor will tell you, there is a fundamental difference between the two. If you want to steer the boat to the right using a tiller, you push the tiller to the left, and visa versa. With a wheel, however, things are set up just like with the steering wheel of a car - if you want to go right, you turn the wheel right. If you want to go left, you turn the wheel left. If you are me, you get confused and turn the wheel right when you want to go left and left when you want to go right and test the patience of the captain on more than one occasion.
But, eventually, I did get the hang of it and my confidence in guiding the huge beast grew with every passing mile. Of course, all good things must come to an end, and the end of my "easy" course came in the form of an approaching island. It was time to come about, and the trusting (fool hearty?) boat owners were going to have me do the honors. Well, part of the honors anyway - I would take care of the wheel while Chuck and Diane took care of the sails.
I passed the "coming about" test with flying colors and even managed to pull it off another time. Clearly, they are going to need me to crew for them on their circumnavigation. They still aren't aware of that fact yet, though.
The amusement for the day came when I decided I had had enough of the captain's life and handed over the reins of Bear to Bill, who had taken the helm earlier in the day and had done a very admirable job of it. This time, however, as Bill took the wheel, Chuck called out for him to turn the boat to the right to correct the course. Bill obliged, but the boat didn't. Chuck called out again, Bill turned the wheel harder, and the boat did not respond. Chuck was quickly loosing confidence in Bill's helmsmanship, when he chanced upon the reason for Bill's sudden incompetence. At some point, between when I relinquished the helm and Bill took over, Chuck had managed to unknowingly hit the auto-pilot switch with his foot. The auto-pilot disables the wheel altogether, so from that point on anything Bill did was merely an exercise in futility. Nonetheless, we felt it necessary to hold Bill responsible for the wayward travel and reminded him of his questionable captaining abilities for the rest of the trip.
As afternoon gave way to early evening, we made our way back towards Castine. About five hours after we first set sail, we were back at the mooring. The Retired Captain's race had was rounding up as well, and we discovered that the boat our neighbor was on came in a very respectable 5th place. Walking off our sea legs, we found the car and headed back home - the long way.
Copyright © 2001 by Greg Closter (closter@acadia.net)