Atlantic High (8 page)

For l’
homme moyen sensuel
, there is a sensible inventory (for a transatlantic sail), and in response to requests from the uninitiated I asked Danny Merritt to list what he intended to take, and I sent out notice of it in a memo to the crew:

Arriving in Antigua ten days before Christmas, we were introduced to
Sealestial
. Notwithstanding my misgivings about large charter vessels and their capacity to sail, as voiced in my journal from Fiji, I had a feeling, on approaching her in the crowded dock at English Harbor, that this was a boat designed to sail. And, indeed, we discovered that the beautiful white ketch had been designed as that—a racing boat, built in 1973 at the South Ocean Shipyard in England, designed by E. G. Van de Stadt. The prototype was
Stormvogel
, against which we had once raced to Bermuda aboard
Suzy Wong. Sealestial
, its mast cut down by eight feet, was now a cruising-charter version of
Stormvogel
, 41 net tons, 47 gross, with 71 feet of length overall,
18.6
feet of beam, drawing
8.5
feet (disqualifying it for Bahamian waters, significant areas of which accommodate a maximum of
5.5
feet—
Cyrano’s
draw).

A boat is easier to visualize than to describe, and accordingly herewith a few shots of
Sealestial
, including its huge saloon and the owner’s splendid cabin.

The owner of
Sealestial
is a Yugoslav-American physician who practices in Detroit, Dr. Papo, with whom I will deal later. The dominant figure in
Sealestial
was its captain, Allen Jouning.

We stowed rapidly, eager to test the boat. I took the helm, with no objection from Captain Jouning, eased the vessel back, and headed out for a short afternoon sail to the northwest, anchoring off a small, secluded beach. I felt an instant bounciness to the vessel, which responded joyfully to wheel and wind. I could see that she pointed (came up close to the wind) well, without losing speed. She had on a less than full-cut genoa, but we did
8.5
knots in moderate airs, and that’s not only good but very nearly unheard of in heavy, large, charter sailboats. We were all very happy, and vaguely resolved that
Sealestial
would figure in our future.

Provided it is always safest to add, that Allen Jouning was aboard. I noticed first that he was quiet, emitting as few instructions to the paid crew as necessary, in comfortable contrast to the raucous types who make a drill out of every maneuver. I noticed next that he raised no objection not only to my acting as master of the vessel, but even to my maneuvering the boat into and out of tight corners. He knew, of course, that I had sailed. But it is nevertheless the practice of most captains gently to edge themselves back to the wheel at just those critical moments when you wish to exercise your own skills. On most charter boats you are made to feel like the new copilot who is welcome to take the wheel after cruising altitude is reached, always on the understanding that he will give it back to the old pro for landing and takeoffs. Elsewhere I have commented that since age thirteen I have owned the boats I have sailed with fewer than a half-dozen exceptions. I find it easy to play a purely passive role on a boat, and easy to act as the boat’s master; anything in between, I fidget.

Allen Jouning sensed this, as he seemed, with uncanny intuition, to sense other human idiosyncrasies, all of which he handled with humor, thoughtfulness, and dignity. He had been in command of
Sealestial
since November 1978. He was born in Auckland in 1946, and was schooled there. In 1969, having sailed eight years, he went to Fiji and did charter work for two years. From there he delivered a boat to Los Angeles in a harrowing forty-two-day passage, nonstop, beating all the way, running out of everything save the barest supplies.

He was determined to race, and found himself as first mate in the Onion Patch series aboard Bermuda’s
Peanut Brittle
, and then on an Erickson 46,
Alita
, on which he did the Annapolis-Bermuda race. Just before coming to
Sealestial
he was master of
Venceremos
, a Swan 65—a “gold-plater,” as they denominate boats on which no expense is spared, that they may bring home the silver. Captain Jouning wears a red walrus mustache, is balding, and his humor comes in brief, nonabrasive flashes. In the four passages I have had with him, I have heard him complain only once—about the defective workmanship of Detroit sailmakers who failed to secure with strong enough material the genoa clew, resulting in one of those noisily (and dangerous) chaotic sequences at night in uproarious seas when suddenly the sail lets go, the entire vessel vibrates with the whipping canvas, and one man starts letting down the fugitive sail halyard while two other men try, without being knocked out by the flying steel clew, to get hold of the sail and drag it down. “That’s bad work,” Allen said, examining the sail with a flashlight at the post-mortem. Such words, from that mouth, have the sound of fire and brimstone.

It was on our second outing on the
Sealestial
that we learned that in the summer of the following year, 1980, the owner desired to have the boat in the Mediterranean, for his own use and to pick up Mediterranean charters. I looked up suddenly at Dick—we were seated in the cockpit, during the cocktail hour. Allen was standing, leaning against the doghouse. I moved my head up, down, in a slow-motion gesture. Dick understood instantly. I put my index finger to my lips (meaning don’t say anything to the ladies; my wife is always certain that any ocean trip by me will be my last, and is mildly resentful when her apocalyptic predictions don’t eventuate). That night, taking a nightcap at the beach bar on Bitter End in the Virgins, Dick and I plotted…. The doc wants the boat in the Mediterranean—so, somebody has to get it there, right? … A nice route, one that would accommodate to prevailing winds, would be to head …north from St. Thomas (that is where the
Sealestial
would end its chartering season, Allen had said) to Bermuda; then across to the Azores, and then—Gibraltar-Marbella. We could arrange to fly in the wives for a joyous week’s cruise in the Azores, breaking up the passage.

The day after returning to New York I called Dr. Papo.

The negotiations lasted over a period of several months. And then:

The arrangements with Dr. Papo were, on the larger matters, entirely amicable. We approached a little snag or two over minor questions which we both had the good sense eventually to circumnavigate. On the matter of who would be in charge of the vessel, I devised a formula satisfactory to Dr. Papo which in due course we reduced to writing. I would be in charge of
Sealestial
during the passage, save that in any circumstance in which it could reasonably be held that the safety of the vessel was hostage, and Captain Jouning disagreed with WFB, Captain Jouning’s word would prevail. (After all, it was Dr. Papo’s boat.) A hypothetical situation would be a bad storm in which I elected to heave to, but the captain believed the wind so strong as to require running. Or a less melodramatic occasion: I might reason that I could wend my way between two shoals approaching, say, Bermuda; Jouning, if he disagreed, would have the authority to dictate the roundabout course. The contingency never in fact arose.

I was greatly amused when, forty-eight hours before our departure, I had an agitated telephone call from Dr. Papo informing me that his insurance broker had revealed that the understanding we had arrived at could have the effect of annulling
Sealestial’s
insurance policy, which was written around the presumptive mastership of Captain Jouning. There was no time to apply for a binder transferring authority to me. Dr. Papo suggested a solution, which was altogether agreeable. We would sign a fresh contract in which I remitted authority entirely to Captain Jouning. A single copy of this document would be typed out. No one but Dr. Papo and I would be aware of its existence. It would go from the signing ceremony, sealed, straight to Dr. Papo’s bank vault. There it would die a natural death—unless the
Sealestial
, having set out to sea, was never again heard from, the vessel and all the crew disappearing from the face of the earth. In that event—to be sure, only after the requisite exhibitions of grief—Dr. Papo would put his claim in to the insurance company. If the company confronted him with the contract granting me command, Dr. Papo would triumphantly come back at the company with my subsequent reversion. It pays to think ahead.

The only crisis was personal, though that is to overfreight what happened. As I got on with the planning, Dick had begun to reconsider. As is his mode, he ended by giving his straightforward reasons for electing to undertake only the first leg. As already noted, the 1975 crossing five years earlier Reggie had nicknamed the Big One, and we found ourselves very quickly, and ever after without self-consciousness, referring to it routinely as the “BO.” Dick felt we needed a theme for the forthcoming passage, one thatwould stress less the adventure inherent in a virginal experience, no longer possible, than the exploitation of all the passage’s possibilities. He came up with the idea of “The Ultimate Charter.” After returning from the trip, revisiting the subject, he wrote in his journal: