Second Wind: A Nantucket Sailor's Odyssey

by Nathaniel Philbrick

  I realized that at least part of my comfort level on the comeback trail was directly proportional to my command of the history of the place I was sailing. Just as I had consumed Sarasota history before the Midwinters in March, in the week prior to the North Americans I’d read snatches of Carl Sandburg’s biography of Lincoln. Now, as we wandered down an empty sidewalk, I remembered the words of Lincoln’s Springfield law partner, Bill Herndon. For Herndon, Lincoln was a man of secrets and sometimes profound sadness, a man with truly extraordinary powers of concentration. But it was Herndon’s description of the way Lincoln walked that spoke most powerfully to me:

  He put the whole foot flat down on the ground at once, not landing on the heel; he likewise lifted his foot all at once, not rising from the toe. . . . The whole man, body and mind, worked slowly, as if it needed oiling.

  Approaching Lincoln’s house, which still appeared just as it did in history books, I wouldn’t have been surprised to discover its original owner’s dark, scarecrow figure plodding down the road.

  There was something in the quality of the Springfield air—a dusty, voluptuous tang—that reminded me of Pittsburgh. This was how it felt to be inland. Out here in the middle of the continent, the land was the sea and the lakes were the islands; liquid islands that had served as my refuge when I was a teenager in Pittsburgh. Perhaps my move to Nantucket had been the culmination, rather than (as I’d always assumed) a repudiation, of my inland youth. I had been an islander all along. Lincoln had made a similar transition.

  Even though he had grown up in the heartland, his destiny lay to the east, where he would steer our country through the stormiest seas a people can ever know. Here, a thousand miles from Nantucket, was the ultimate captain’s house.

  Day One

  WHEN I WOKE UP the next morning, dread burned in my stomach and caused my fingers to quiver slightly; there was a dryness in my throat. Around 7:30 the phone rang. It was Melissa and the kids.

  “Go get ’em, Daddy!” Jennie said. Ethan was also encouraging. “Break a stay, honey,” Melissa said, and we both hung up. I stood in front of the bathroom mirror and painted myself with sunscreen, making sure to get the tips of my ears, which always burned. My daggerboard was in the bathtub where I’d been sanding it after returning from Mr. Lincoln’s Neighborhood the night before.

  On my way to the lake I stopped at a 7-Eleven and picked up a bottle of Gatorade and some bags of crackers. Driving down the little road to Lake Springfield, I found myself wishing the road might go on forever. I really didn’t want to go through with this, did I? That morning it seemed as if I had everything to lose and little, if anything, to gain.

  Things were very quiet as we rigged our boats. There were sixty of us in the championship division. Unfortunately, there was absolutely no wind out on the lake. Aboard a pontoon boat, the members of the race committee surveyed the water’s oily surface and shook their heads. There was nothing to do but postpone the start.

  For the next four hours we waited onshore. At one point, Paul Odegaard, a past North American champion and light-air aficionado from Connecticut, put his boat in the water and went for a sail; at least it gave us all something to watch. Although the breeze was next to nonexistent, Paul demonstrated that there was at least something out there—tacking and jibing, even sailing backward at one point.

  In the old days Paul Fendler and I would have been careful to hole up in opposite corners of the club, doing our best to keep our minds clear in preparation for the racing to come, but that morning we sat together and talked. Paul’s wife and mother had gone off to do some sightseeing, and perhaps inevitably, we found ourselves discussing each other’s personal lives, lives that we had been completely oblivious to back in the days when it had been only the racing that mattered. Now, even though we were on the verge of the finals of the North Americans, the personal stuff was what interested us.

  Although we talked about many things, especially the decidedly nonnautical turns our lives had taken, it became clear that both of us, no matter how hard we’d tried to leave the past behind, had remained haunted by our years on the racing circuit. We both admitted to having dreamt regularly about sailing, even when it had been years since we’d raced a Sunfish. My dream involved what I’d come to call the Never-Ending Sunfish Regatta, a vague sense of always sailing, always tacking on wind shifts, always tallying up the score, and always having another race to sail.

  Paul’s was more of a nightmare: A race is about to begin. Paul is there, ready to go, but discovers that he doesn’t have his daggerboard. Searching frantically for it, he realizes that he also can’t find his rudder, and where is his sail? As he runs around looking for the missing parts, the race starts without him.

  Sometime after 1:00 p.m. a tentative breeze began to blow from the northeast, and the first race of the 1993 Sunfish North Americans finally got under way. I started toward the middle of the line and was in pretty good shape at the gun.

  Since we were racing on a relatively small bay of Lake Springfield, the shoreline was never far away and had an inevitable influence on the wind. Indeed, much of what we were using to power our sails wasn’t really wind at all; it was a thermally induced movement of otherwise stagnant air between the very hot land and the cooler water. As a result, it often paid to search out the thermals in the vicinity of the shore, an intensely green place of trees, lawns, and houses.

  This meant that each windward leg posed a problem: Which shore do I go with? Choose correctly and you were golden; choose incorrectly and you were in the tank. But it wasn’t simply a question of hitting the right side of the course; there were different ways to go about hitting it. There was the bold approach: Sail with reckless abandon to what is known as the corner of the course since it’s there that you tack at roughly a 45-degree angle for the mark. Then there was the more conservative approach: tend toward what you think is the favored side of the course but tack on the little shifts you encounter along the way.

  Since the last thing I wanted to do was begin this regatta the way I had started the Midwinters, I tried to have it both ways. I played the middle cautiously. Halfway to the mark, my indecision seemed to be paying off; I was in very good shape. Then in the last hundred yards thermally assisted boats began to pass me on either side of the course. I ultimately rounded in fifth, with Bob Findlay taking up where he had left off at the Midwinters in first and Donnie Martinborough and regatta organizer Todd Gay close behind. Now that we were in the finals, Todd had apparently put the distractions of running the event behind him.

  The first reach was painfully slow and hot as the breeze gradually died to almost nothing. I rounded the jibe mark still in fifth, but during the second reach things began to happen. As the boats ahead sailed into lulls, I was able to stay in a patch of wind that moved me into second behind Martinborough at the leeward mark. Now we had what looked like an interminable beat ahead of us, with the wind barely twitching the strands of cassette tape I used for a wind indicator. With the wiggling strips of plastic leading the way, I began that second beat.

  Donnie made a bold move to the left, the side that had paid off for him on the first beat, as did Findlay. I wasn’t so sure and attempted to hedge my bet by remaining to their right. Meanwhile, behind us, a group of boats, led by Charlie Clifton’s distinctive blue hull, hit the right corner hard.

  Certainly I was doing well relative to Findlay and Martinborough, but in winning this particular battle, I was losing the war as a major shift and more wind came in on the right. The sensations that you experience at the moment when you realize that a race is falling apart before your eyes are difficult to describe. Findlay began to curse, tacking from port back onto starboard (away from what now seemed to be the favored side) with the angry bravado of a guy who wasn’t about to give up the ship. Martinborough, ever the emotional Rock of Gibraltar, sailed on silently.

  Meanwhile, I saw what seemed like a stationary band of air over on the
left side of the course. I went for it and then did everything I could to stay in the wind line. I could feel my pulse rate climb as I worked a less than ideal situation for all it was worth, tacking back and forth with a quiet frenzy that soon had me drenched in sweat. Clifton’s blue hull rounded first. Not far behind him were Todd Gay and Paul Fendler. After one last tack, I rounded in fifth.

  The run down to the leeward mark was full of dangerous holes in the wind, but just behind me Dan Feldman, a big blond guy who liked to talk, kept things interesting. I’ve never been much of a talker on the race course; I can’t concentrate on a race and speak at the same time. But this leg was so long and slow and Dan was so friendly that even I came out of my shell a little bit. As we beat toward the finish, Dan edged me out at the line to take fifth. Charlie Clifton hung on to win, with Paul in second and Todd in fourth. Donnie Martinborough scrambled to twelfth while Bob Findlay came in fourteenth. Jeff Linton had come in twenty-first, seriously jeopardizing his chances of winning the series.

  It was too late to attempt another race, and as we sailed in I tried to say some consoling words to a fellow sufferer on the left side of the course. After an entire day in the broiling sun, he was in no mood to talk and flashed me a single-digit response.

  I could take a hint.

  Day Two

  WHAT HAD ME worried at Springfield was the possibility of rain. In this heat, I knew my glasses would fog up and I would have a tough time seeing. Although I had managed just fine in rain during the River Race, those had been entirely different conditions: cooler, with fewer boats. With sixty boats on the line and relatively short courses, I needed all the vision I could manage.

  Sure enough, Thursday morning brought with it a steady downpour. At least there was some wind—ten to twelve miles per hour—that allowed you to sit on the deck when sailing upwind. Unfortunately, it also had the effect of blowing the rain into my face, which only compounded the vision problem.

  Instead of going out there and attacking the fleet, I began the day feeling intimidated by the conditions. What had been a lake of pure blues and greens was now a place of rain-whipped gray. The confidence I had been slowly building over the course of the last three days had suddenly vanished. It was the Midwinters all over again, and as I knew all too well, the problem wasn’t really my eyes; it was inside my head.

  The wind was directly onshore, and since we were already behind schedule the race committee got things going quickly, setting up a short triangular course with the starting line only about a hundred yards off the club docks. Before I knew it, we were in the midst of a starting sequence.

  For me it was like watching a video (and a blurry video at that) on fast-forward—everything was happening in hyperspeed. The gun went off and so did the fleet as I plodded, Lincoln-like, up the first beat. The leg was so short that before I knew it I was rounding the weather mark, Sunfish swarming all around me like flies. Boats were everywhere, the rain was in my face, and none of it made sense.

  By the time I reached the next-to-last leg—a run—I took the opportunity to watch the leaders beating up to the finish. Rod Koch, the defending champ, was in first, with Bob Findlay in second. They looked awfully confident and fast.

  I finished in twentieth and wanted to scream. I was throwing it all away. Just because of a little rain. Up to windward, boats that had already finished were luffing, their skippers talking about the race and watching people finish. I thought I knew exactly what they were saying: “Wow, looks like Philbrick tanked.”

  In a matter of minutes we were starting the second race of the day. It did not go well. Once again I was back in the twenties and slogging my way around the course, reacting instead of taking charge. On the downwind leg, a sailor jibed behind me, rounded up, and hit my rudder with his bow.

  Most people in this situation would probably have yelled at the guy and told him to do his penalty circles, which is, of course, exactly what he should have done. However, the guy gave me a plaintive, questioning look, as if to say, “I’m sorry; it was an accident. Do I have to do my circles?” Although I wasn’t happy with the situation, I was not feeling particularly vindictive. I was doing lousy; he was doing lousy; what greater good would be served by insisting that he perform two penalty circles?

  It didn’t help matters when he passed me on the next weather leg, ultimately finishing a half dozen or so places ahead of my twenty-third. But I didn’t care. I was in a colorless world of lapsed confidence and vanished hope. Cliques of top finishers killed time in the rain around me as I leaned back just to make sure my rudder was okay.

  To my horror I discovered that part of my rudder had been broken, leaving it dangling like a broken wing. No wonder the steering had felt mushy. But I had been too distracted by my visual/mental problems to give my rudder the attention it deserved. If I had known then what I knew now that guy would sure as hell have done his circles!

  Before I could start the next race I needed to make some major repairs. I sailed in to the club, tied up to the dock, took off my rudder, and went looking for help. Standing near the clubhouse snack bar was the Mother Teresa of the Sunfish class: Peg Beadle, then editor of the newsletter and the owner of a Sunfish equipment business.

  The two of us ran to her van, where she rifled through several bins of parts before finally pulling out a brand-new rudder cheek assembly. Once back at the Sunfish I took off the broken piece and tried to attach the new one in the driving rain. It was not easy. Besides a bolt, there were all these nylon pads and washers and nuts, and in the rain and with my less than ideal tools and with the fleet gathering only a hundred yards away for the start of the next race, the time pressure was intense. I was living Paul Fendler’s worst nightmare.

  At one point my hand slipped and I gashed my thumb on the sharp end of the spring that pops up the rudder. Soon my cockpit was full of blood as I struggled with the rudder. By now a group of half a dozen spectators had gathered to watch my frenzied repair in the rain. At last I got the rudder to the point that I could sail. But my thumb was bleeding terribly. Of course, Peg just happened to have a Kermit the Frog Band-Aid in her purse, and with the fleet assembled for the next race, I was off and sailing.

  The starting sequence had already begun. I had no idea how much time was left. I was about two minutes away when the red shape went up on the committee boat signaling a start. Then, miraculously, another shape went up and two horns were sounded. It was a general recall. Too many boats had been over the line early to make it a fair start. I had been given a reprieve.

  But it did not go well. Once again I finished in the twenties. At least I had been able to start.

  At lunch I wasn’t in much of a mood to talk. Three races had been sailed in as many hours; the regatta was now more than halfway through; and I had eliminated myself from contention. Although it would have been convenient to attribute all my problems to the damaged rudder, in the final analysis I knew that I had only myself to blame. While I’d been dithering about the rain, Jeff Linton, Bob Findlay, and Donnie Martinborough had moved into contention. And then of course there was my doppelgänger, Paul Fendler, whose performance had put him in the regatta lead.

  On one level (the higher plane to which we all aspire), I was happy for him, but on another and more immediate level, I was full of self-loathing and envy. As we ate lunch and the rain tapered off, Paul was exceedingly gracious. He seemed genuinely concerned about me. Also at our table was Joel Furman, the class measurer, who before scoring a thirty-fifth had started off the day with two eighths.

  In between bites of his sandwich, Paul said, “After the second race today, Joel told me I should move my gooseneck forward, so I gave it a try and I won the next race. It made a huge difference. I must have been pointing five degrees higher.”

  I perked up slightly. “Really?”

  The gooseneck is a bronze ring that attaches the boom to the mast. By moving the gooseneck forward, the sail is shift
ed aft, and this can help you point to windward. I had thought my gooseneck was already about as far forward as it should go—seventeen inches from the forward tip of the boom.

  “Where is your gooseneck, Joel?” I asked.

  “Fourteen inches.”

  “Wow.” Given the fact that this was a fairly delicate adjustment, a difference of three inches was major. Whether or not it was going to make any difference, Paul and Joel had at least given me something positive to do.

  By the time the fourth race of the day got under way, I was in a completely different mind-set. For one thing, it was no longer raining. A film had been lifted from my eyes. For another, I liked the way the boat felt with the gooseneck in the new position. The helm felt light; I felt fast. But so did, apparently, the rest of the fleet. After three general recalls, the committee imposed the black flag rule, and not wanting to repeat what had happened at the Midwinters, I vowed to take it easy at the start.

  With thirty seconds to go, I was at the windward end of the line, side to side with Don Bergman, a very fast master sailor. With ten seconds to go, Don started to sheet in the sail, and I went with him, but, fearful of being called over early, I held back slightly while Don crossed the line at full speed.

  I got a very good start. Don, however, got a start for the ages—at the awards ceremony the next day, the chairman of the race committee would mention Don’s start as one of the highlights of the regatta. Almost immediately he had a twenty-yard lead on the fleet.

  Don, who had not had a particularly good series up until this point, was in no mood to fool around. Rather than worrying about covering the fleet, he tacked over to the right side of the course and ultimately rounded with a sizable lead. Without the courage of Don’s convictions, I, too, stayed to the right, while someone over on the left did an amazing job of playing the shifts to round almost overlapped with me in second. It was Jeff Linton.