Setting off early the next Saturday morning so we could catch the tide going out at the mouth of the Narrow River, Curt and I rowed the thirty-five miles along the southern Rhode Island coastline back north to Mount Hope Bay and Tony’s barn. For a brief time, we spent our nights either in the 1978 brown Pinto wagon that we would park on the abandoned cornfield behind the barn or in a tent. When snow began to fall, we moved from our car/tent home into Tony’s barn. Tony and Edith, his wife, never questioned our living in their barn in the partially completed boat cabin. They offered cheerful encouragement when our spirits were low. Edith’s home cooking often warmed our frozen insides when we came into their cozy kitchen for a break.
There were lots of ups and downs during this period. A former president of a rowing organization heard about our project and declared, “Row across the Atlantic? It can’t be done. It simply can’t be done.” He didn’t want to hear anything more about it. Curt filled out an application to the Explorers Club in New York City for a travel grant. Surrounded by stuffed animal heads, paintings of famous male explorers, and exotic memorabilia from past expeditions, we made a personal plea for why we should be funded to row across the Atlantic. One man responded that I didn’t look strong enough to row any boat, never mind an ocean-rowing boat. I fixed him with my best steely look and said that I had been rowing since 1974 and I knew what I was doing. Curt outlined the plans for the expedition and impressed his former Arctic-climbing buddies. A few weeks later, a note on the famous red-and-blue letterhead of the Explorers Club informed us that they had decided to give us a travel grant.
To round out the sponsorship we had received for boat products and now an Explorer Club travel grant, we wrote to the oceanography school at the University of Rhode Island to ask if there was any sort of ocean water sampling we could do while at sea. Curt’s parents, professors at Duke University, had convinced us that conducting oceanographic research on board our unique platform would be a good project to break up the monotony of rowing. We succeeded in contacting an oceanographer, who asked us to collect periodic water samples in small bottles partially filled with formalin.
When the weather became colder, Curt wore his favorite old orange down vest from his climbing days over the same blue hoodie every day, all day long. He worked with the single-minded dedication of someone driven to succeed at all costs. I wore layers of T-shirts, turtlenecks with sweatshirts, and corduroy pants to protect my skin from the fiberglass while continuing to alternate between boat-building and typing letters to potential sponsors from the front seat of the Pinto. In the evenings we would walk out of the barn to crystal-clear skies with the constellation of Orion, the hunter from Greek mythology, transiting above us. Later on, Saiph or kappa Orionis in the cluster that forms the shape of Orion would become crucially important to our survival at sea.
By late January, the boat was finished and sitting pretty in her shipping cradle, ready to be taken down to the port of Baltimore. One evening before climbing into the forward cabin for bed, I leaned against the gunwales in the silence of the empty barn and looked over what we had built in the past year. The twenty-five-foot-five-inch boat, which we had painted a bright red with a blue undercoat, was long and sleek, with gently rounded curves that mimicked the graceful lines of an expanded racing shell. The boat’s lightweight, uncluttered fiberglass sandwich construction, with a half-inch Airex foam core between two stiff layers of fiberglass cloth, meant there was more storage space above and below deck in so compact a vessel. I remembered the hours we’d spent fitting the bulkheads that covered the front of each cabin, fore and aft, and the ones that divided the space below the nine-foot open deck where we rowed. All the bulkheads were heavily fiberglassed into place. The deck area where we rowed was fitted with two sets of rowing tracks, one after the other like a racing shell, and the oar locks were screwed into metal plates that were bolted into four square openings in the gunwales of the boat. When I worked with Curt to bolt one-inch-thick mahogany planks to the deck side of the starboard and port gunwales to give them extra strength and a place to put loops for tying down equipment, I was glad that Ed’s design called for a series of five-inch scuppers, or square flaps, to drain the deck from breaking waves. The boat would sit so close to the sea that the three-foot height of the gunwales might be scooping water all the time.
Ed’s extensive knowledge of rowing and boat design helped us outfit the boat in important ways that would make the voyage safer. For example, he designed the outside of the bow cabin to have a small overhang that protected the marine electrical plugs for the solar panels and give us a place to shelter when we needed to be on deck during a storm. On the sides of the overhang, we drilled holes and strung two-inch-thick polyester rope between the bow and stern cabins as safety lines. To charge a battery for lights in both cabins and power the radio and a small bilge pump, we attached eight solar panels donated by PD Labs, a California company, to the roof of the bow cabin.
As I stood there thinking of what it would be like to actually live on our boat at sea instead of in the relative security of a musty old barn, I felt the first pangs of excitement coupled with a tinge of anxiety. I could see Curt through the small rectangular port windows of the bow cabin in the glow of yellow candlelight, because we had yet to purchase a marine battery for electrical lights. The boat, I thought, looked very smart with its Beckson ports and hatches. Bolted and siliconed on deck were six eight-inch round hatches with metal safety tabs that Ed had made to prevent our below-deck fresh water supply, which would be housed in individual plastic five-gallon water bottles, and a small number of can goods from bursting out in the event of a rollover. In the bow cabin there were four port windows, two air vents located in the roof and in the bulkhead on the starboard side, and a large, white side opening hatch that functioned as the front door of the bow. The aft cabin had half the number of ports and vents because its space was limited by the rudder trunk that housed our extremely heavy one-piece, nearly five-foot-long rudder that ran through the roof of the cabin. Ed had pushed for such a heavy rudder, reasoning that its weight would give us more stability in stormy seas. Two dagger boards that ran through bow and aft fiberglass slots in the deck added to the boat’s stability as well.
We had been lucky with the sponsorship of oars on the boat. Concept 2, a Vermont company run by Dick and Peter Dreissigacker, two brothers who had rowed competitively, donated two sets of their extremely durable carbon fiber singles oars and one sweep oar. The Martin Marine Company (now known as Alden Rowing), located in Maine, donated two sets of their foam-filled wooden oars that we used as backups. All the oars were stored on deck in a clever arrangement that Ed had designed so the oar handles fit into small round openings on either side of the aft cabin bulkhead.
At the beginning of February, word came from Jugolinia Shipping Lines that Zvir was ready to depart Baltimore, Maryland, in approximately mid-March 1981 or even earlier, in late February. Wanting plenty of time to drive to Baltimore with the old Pinto wagon and stop along the way to camp out and row the boat on Chesapeake Bay, we prepared to leave Rhode Island and Tony’s barn well ahead of that date. At 11:30 p.m., February 3, 1981, the eve of our departure from Rhode Island, Ed Montesi came down to the boat to say goodbye. It was an emotional moment, because the three of us had been through so much over the year. Ed had stuck with us throughout the times when there seemed to be more naysayers than those who believed we could be successful. Now he wished us luck and gave us a knife, which he had designed specially for use at sea. He had made it with high-quality, rust-proof stainless steel with a special sheath. Handing it to us, Ed inadvertently gave us the perfect name for our boat when he said, “I present you with Excalibur.” As in the legend of King Arthur miraculously extracting his sword from the stone, we felt that only we could pull off a successful row of the Atlantic Ocean.
The day we left, Tony, Edith, and their son came out into the snow-filled yard to wish us well and say goodbye. Tony told us he had seen us when we were bu
ilding the boat and he wanted to see us when we got back. He had repeated this wish several times over the previous year, and now it felt like a good-luck mantra. The boat was ready to be loaded onto the passenger freighter and sent off to Casablanca, Morocco, the starting point for the Atlantic row.
PART II
NORTH ATLANTIC OCEAN
CHAPTER 6
The Expedition Begins: Casablanca
March 1981
ZVIR MOTORED SLOWLY DOWN CHESAPEAKE Bay and into the stormy waters of Cape Hatteras, toward the ports of Charleston and Savannah where she would load additional cargo before heading across the Atlantic on what was to be her last voyage as a freighter. She would soon be sold to an Egyptian company, her name would be changed, and she would be relegated to taking tourists back and forth from Alexandria to New York.
During the week that Zvir stopped in several East Coast ports to take on cargo before motoring across the Atlantic, we went ashore to purchase last-minute supplies like more stainless-steel bolts and screws and dried food items too heavy to tow on the drive to Baltimore. In the evenings, we sat at our table in the small dining room for passengers, sipping our after-dinner coffees. One evening a ship’s officer came over to our table and informed us that the first mate and captain requested our presence on the bridge. We were escorted into the darkness of the bridge—all the lights were turned off except for the glow of navigation instruments. The captain and first mate stood by the bow windows looking into the night.
“So I hear you are going to row across the Atlantic,” the first mate began. “How long do you think it will take?”
“About three months.” Our eyes were becoming accustomed to the dimness. I could make out the dark shape of the third mate at the wheel and half-full cups of coffee on the counters. An air of extreme seriousness and competency reigned over the bridge. Curt later told me he felt intimidated by these men of the sea.
The first mate spoke again. “I hope she is under control, because this voyage could take more than nine months.” He laughed at his crude joke, though I didn’t find anything funny about it.
Before either of us could reply, the captain interjected, “What course will you take?”
“We plan to go from Casablanca to the West Indies or Florida,” Curt replied.
“Do you know what it’s like out there? Have you ever been to sea?” the first mate asked.
Curt had an answer ready. “Yes, I’ve crossed the Atlantic six times by boat. We feel we’ve made all the necessary preparations.” He didn’t mention the six crossings were on passenger ships. For my part, I had only flown across the Atlantic.
We stood in silence. As the first mate, Lukin Zoran, carefully lit his pipe, I could see his rough features reflected in the nearby window. There was a frown on his face as he blew out the match.
“I’ve been at sea for nine years. I’ve looked at your boat, and it seems very well thought out. I think it will come through. But I want to give you some advice. It is you that must survive. You might want to be done with the voyage and jump overboard.”
I didn’t think this would be the case, but his next comment brought home the deadly seriousness of what we were proposing to do.
“They found Puffin with nobody on board. Maybe they were washed overboard, maybe they jumped off…. You have to think of the psychology of survival.”
He knew something about ocean rowing, I thought. He knew about Puffin, whose crew had been lost in a 1966 attempt to row across the Atlantic. He went on to cite another ocean rowboat that had recently been found empty, floating upside down. Its rower vanished on his second attempt to cross the Atlantic.
As the Zvir traversed the Atlantic, a low-pressure system developed and we were soon in the middle of a full gale. Towering waves crashed over the bow, and the surrounding seas were blown white with foam. The scene in the dining room of passengers tipping over in their chairs and waiters walking Charlie Chaplin style as they balanced plates of food might have been amusing if it hadn’t been for the fact that Curt and I could someday soon be rowing in such conditions.
Four days later we were in Casablanca. The decks of Zvir swarmed with Moroccan stevedores. We had taken the precaution of securing all our gear—such as the Autohelm, a self-steering device, sextant, charts and navigation books, TR-7 ham radio, life jackets and foul weather gear, cooking stove, the Norton medical kit given to us by Ed, marine battery, bilge pump, and other essentials—in Excalibur’s cabins before Zvir docked first in the Arab port of Tangier and then Casablanca. Early on the first morning there, Curt went off to find port immigration officials who could stamp Excalibur’s boat papers. Stevedores dressed in ragged, dirty galibayahs roamed the passageways of the boat, looking for loose items of interest and a bit of baksheesh. As it was, we were going to have to pay the Moroccans extra harbor fees for off-loading Excalibur into the harbor waters instead of to the dock.
When Curt returned with our stamped papers, I was giving the bottom of Excalibur one last coat of anti-fouling paint. We were standing together surveying my handiwork when Lukin Zoran came up and announced our “welcoming committee” was here. We turned to Charles Sten, the US consul, Jean-François Polizzi, president of the local rowing club, and Patrick Everarts de Velp, an oarsman and diplomat from the Belgian embassy. With joy and undisguised relief, we shook their hands and invited them to look at our boat.
With that, we were invited to moor Excalibur at the Casablanca Yacht Club for the week we expected to be in port before departure.
A few hours before the boat was to be off-loaded, Lukin Zoran invited Curt to his cabin. Handing him a glass of Yugoslavian wine, he said, “Now, you must be careful of compass deviation. How will you set your compass to stay on course when you are out to sea?”
Curt replied that he planned to consult the lines of magnetic deviation on the charts and apply them to our course.
“But you have solar panels, wires, and electricity,” Lukin Zoran said patiently. “These can disrupt the magnetic field and cause additional compass error. Now you will copy these tables.” He handed Curt a Yugoslavian volume on navigation and indicated the pages we would need. He translated the instructions for Curt so he could check the boat’s compass using the bearings of the sunset and sunrise. “We cannot have you zigzagging your way across the Atlantic.” He laughed as he pulled out a set of vector drawings that he had made for Curt to use in plotting direction and speed on the chart of the Atlantic we would be using.
When the permit arrived, Excalibur was lowered into the dirty harbor waters by boat crane, and a rope ladder was unfurled. Lukin Zoran went down first and stood on the gunwales, bouncing up and down. The boat was so heavily laden and well balanced that it barely tipped either way with his weight. Curt and I followed, legs shaking slightly from the new experience of climbing down a rope ladder into Excalibur with all eyes watching.
A week later, amid departure festivities, we stepped onto Excalibur’s nine-foot-long deck. I sat in the bow rowing station and Curt went to the stern deck and leaned against the cabin. As I began backing the boat away from the docks of the Casablanca Yacht Club, Curt suddenly put up his hands as if he wanted to say something. In the rowing station, I sat facing backward, toward the stern, and watched Curt; I rested the oars. A feeling had come over him that he had to say something significant to the people assembled to bid us a bon voyage. Jean-François, Patrick, their families, Norberto, a Moroccan ham radio operator that the US consul had arranged for us to be in touch with throughout the row, and many others who had so generously hosted us during our week in Casablanca, and well-wishers who had come for our departure looked at him expectantly. He looked nervous, I thought. Holding on to the cabin edge, he began, “Why … ?” People on the dock became silent and looked at him. “Because through exploration, people and nations can learn to live and work together in peace,” he said. The crowd broke into applause, and he waved his hand and added in French, “Merci beaucoup. Thank you for your help. We love Morocco!”
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Curt took his seat in the stern rowing station, and together we continued backing the rowboat away from the dock of the Casablanca Yacht Club. Maneuvering Excalibur forward, we began the long row toward the harbor entrance, past the phosphate plants spewing white clouds of dust as it was loaded onto ships, and past the anchored, decrepit wooden fishing trawlers. A number of small motorboats, sailboats, and competitive rowing boats escorted us. A large French cruise ship steamed by, her deck crowded with passengers clicking away with their cameras and waving madly. Horns sounded all around. We passed a French aircraft carrier with the crew standing at attention in their bright white, pristine uniforms. A few minutes later, an old Russian trawler came into port and cut very close to us, sending a wake that tossed Excalibur back and forth. Russian seamen looking down from the deck saw our American flag mounted on the cabin top and laughed. Curt shouted, “It looks like you need a paint job!!” The rowers in our entourage added their comments in the form of obscenities.
I remembered something I had forgotten. Paula, the teenage daughter of Jean-François, had asked me for the words to the Beatles’ song “Yellow Submarine.” I had written them out but neglected to give them to her, so when we came to the end of the sea wall, I beckoned to Jean-François to draw closer in his single rowing shell. Carefully putting the notepaper with the words to the song on the tip of my oar blade, I passed it over to Jean-François, who grabbed it quickly and pushed off. Once again alongside us together with his son and Patrick, all three singles matched Excalibur stroke for stroke.
We rowed on and came to the end of the breakwater. The ocean waves were choppy, and conditions became difficult for the smaller boats. Bailing frantically, they turned back, one by one. We waved a last farewell, and in a short time we were alone at the beginning of our voyage. The date was March 18, 1981.
Rowing for My Life Page 4