The next event was Gosia’s all girl dream team, Swan 42 National Championship, during the NYYC Race Week in Newport.
The idea wasn’t that new, we had been talking about it ever since she grabbed the 18’s wheel 18 months earlier, but the challenge lay in the timing. Elizabeth was committed to the Olympics, Martha and Chaffee to Jasha in Palma, and we had to start from scratch.
Elizabeth hooked Gosia up with Dawn Riley and Megan Gaillard and in a couple of months the list looked mighty good. Julie Louder on bow, Beth Santa mast, Basia Karpinska whom Gosia met in Hamilton floating, Paige Brooks in pit, Rachel McCloskey, the youngest and the biggest grinding power, Sue Kesler chute, Sandy Hayes, Sue Reilly and Jamie Heines trimming jib, Dawn Riley main, Gosia helm and Megan calling the shots. Sailing with twelve, they still were short almost 100lb..
Martha left us her house which I shared with most of the girls for 2 weeks, just like my own family but larger. Andrzej come later and spoiled my dream vacation.
The first week was a boot camp with Dawn in charge. A few more Amazons substituted for those who had things to do and the elephant was criss-crossing Narrangansett bay from dawn to dusk. There were lots of glitches that we had to fix and the days were quite long. After all, we had to learn the boat and each other’s names.
Caroline Hall brought her historic first carbon hockey stick to Newport, which became our magic wand and was mounted on the aft starboard pulpit, nobody knows why. Basia’s daily rations of homemade cookies served as super fuel and also as the best medicine for my freshly acquired lymes disease, which made me clumsy and useless. Surprisingly, I didn’t get fired. Instead they cared for me like sisters (noons). The hockey stick got fired instead! For breakfasts Kaja would take Andrzej and me under her wings on Tortuga after the race boats left the docks and we sampled leftovers from Bandit’s feasts.
There were some legal problems with the class rules but they did not spoil the soup.
We got plenty of support from Peter McCluskey and Chris Mathews who shared the dock with us. Chris Zaleski came with Marek to help tune the rig.
Just before the first guns were fired, Hamish asked me for permission to marry Kaja. Tears were shed, bubbles spilled.
Julie and Brendan got engaged the same week in the same place but without asking the captain.
Day one brought some extreme weather, fog, rain and the 20 plus breeze sent the 20 boat strong fleet north of Prudence Island for 2 fast and exciting races. I was watching from the Protector and not having goggles, couldn’t see much. It was howling.
There was some spectacular carnage but the gray boat didn’t seam to have boat-handling problems. We finished 17th and 12th. After fixing the instruments, engine and a few small details, we were ready for day 2.
Friday was our best day. We finished 7th and 9th. The course for the 42s and Melges 32s were set outside, a couple of miles east of the channel. The seas were still swollen from passing tropical storm Fay that rocked the whole Eastern sea-board for a week, with light winds dying in the afternoon. After a few general recalls Megan nailed a few shifts better than anybody. The second race was shortened.
That evening we had the Rolex dinner at Harbour Court. I had a good time glowing in the crowd, officially part of the team. Rachel was in charge of double celebrations having both her parents behind and it being St.John’s birthday. There were unconfirmed rumors about jelly shots served to minors.
On Saturday Andrzej joined me on the Protector and I could focus through the lens. That was my first opportunity ever to take pictures of racing boats from the outside. It was very exciting. I think I could do that more often. I hope my camera clicking didn’t spoil their day which was their worst with a 20th and 13th. There was still a large swell and a very shifty breeze in the upper teens. The crew and Andrzej went for a drink at the club. I only saw some pictures from that expedition led by Jamie, who afterward, drove them in the Protector to her mother’s house for an evening swim.
We had a lovely dinner in Salvation that night, not knowing what was coming to hit us tomorrow.
Sunday brought the most exciting conditions of the week. Andrzej and I overstood our cozy business class breakfast on the lower deck of Tortuga, with raspberry mousse, fine china and silver decorated with skeletal engravings. By the time we sped, jumping waves, to the course 7 miles east, the first race was over and they had just started the second. The sky was growing overcast, it was blowing over 20 and stiffening and after the second windward rounding, they were in the middle of the fleet. After the hoist, the puff hit a good 30 or more, boats were wiping out left and right and it was hard to maneuver between the unpredictable fleet. Andrzej did a heroic job avoiding collisions. It seamed like they were after that innocent Protector trying to get us with anything at their disposal; their masts, keels and whipping sheets. Then they shook like pack of wet dogs, ready for another attack.
I was shooting like a maniac, catching lightning for good illumination. The girls were powering gracefully through the hopelessly disarrayed fleet like a train but Andrzej sensed the end and called Z Sails to order a new chute.
I was praying, praying and shooting, holding on to the railings. Nobody would find me if I let go. Awry wave crests falling into their own shadows, spray coming from everywhere like steam from a boiling lobster pan, my eyepiece fogging. They kept going, rig bending in agony, the racing sky pierced by cries of laughing sails. Suddenly, the gray shoot against a grayer cloud twisted around the headstay, to avoid the madness, and again and again. They couldn’t slow down. Dropping it was out of question. Finally, it burst in blissful despair in front of our wide-open eyes like a firecracker and melted into the glowing pieces of a broken hand mirror. We felt they could win this one and make history, but the radio squeaked through the roaring thunder like a dying goose and announced the abandonment of the race.
Nature was furious and not letting go. The skies expanded from gray to black in seconds and the seas spat more white foam, like Linda Blair in Exorcist 2. We wanted to help but couldn’t even catch that gray surfing torpedo heading for the dead end, preparing for flight over the wall of darkness.
Julie climbed the mast, dodging pieces of debris from other less fortunate boats. She got there fast, at moments running on the mast parallel to the surface of the monster swells. We prayed loudly, not hearing our own pathetic moans. She sliced it off like a serpent’s head and descended to the safety of the deck. We saw the skipper holding the wheel, counting heads in the expanding rays of lightning. The main dropped before the rapid skies opened. There was a lot of wet water coming from wet black heaven’s cliff, more like the demolition of Hoover Dam, but darker, more dramatic. The fragile hull withstood all the impact but after a short anguished anticipation of another start, we were sent home. The regatta was over.
The parade to Newport looked like D-day invasion. Crews scared to death, hunched over, holding on to each other in their life jackets. Vessels funneling into the channel, avoiding waves like exploding shells. Lightning and thunder from all directions. Dazzling sunbeams piercing through dense darkness. Hell, let me tell you, hell.
This outburst of emotional expression is my humble tribute to the “Band of Sisters” team, built on a solid base of combined attitude, humor, able bravura and unprecedented skill.
We redistributed the equipment to our next destination and dropped the gray stallion, with a bail of hay on his neck, in the meadows of Shelter Island for 2 months of rest before jumping on another flight to Europe.
Dorota joined me for that lengthy excursion.