WindCheck Magazine A Sailing Mishap

By Michael Rice
Introduction & conclusion by Judith Rice Meyer

When my five sisters and I were teens and tweens, our father Michael Rice worked in Manhattan and enjoyed a 40-minute commute on the Long Island Railroad to our home in Port Washington. When our parents moved to Old Saybrook, CT in the 1990s, his commute expanded to a brutal two and a half hours each way on Amtrak.

Every once in a while, Dad stayed overnight in the city, but only reluctantly (the cost offended his penny-pinching ways). So, one summer, tired of lengthy commutes and costly overnight stays, he decided to moor his Catalina 22 at City Island and stay in New York during the week, taking the train home for weekends.

The 22’s accommodations were ridiculously tight, but he really enjoyed the camaraderie of others at the marina. And, I think, he liked taking the elevator up to his Wall Street firm wearing well-worn Top-Siders and ripped jeans, to shower and change into pinstripes and wingtips in his office.

Dad had intended to stay at City Island through August, but the summer weather lingered that year so he lingered – until late October – before Mom informed him it was time to come home. So, one fine morning, after setting what should have been a straightforward one-day course home in daylight, he quickly discovered dangerously high chop in the early fall weather. Following is the overnight tale during that voyage home and one man’s will to live, as told by that man.

Rocks. Black rocks. A shade of black only slightly different from the black sky and black water. I could make them out, though, because of the surrounding gray foam from waves crashing against them. Right in front of the boat. Downwind. Ohhhhh, sh*t!

I was committed to port tack to round the headland I’d been following out into the Sound. No time to think whether to go right or left. I pushed the tiller hard over to the other side of the cockpit. The quickest thing to do.

The boat was moving fast and responded quickly, coming around to port, away from the rocks. I was headed back the way I’d come, along the headland…but much too close. I was looking at a lee shore, dreaded by mariners since man first went to sea. Wind and waves, blowing me against that headland. Doom.

“Come on, boat. Point up, claw away from that shore.” I pulled the mainsheet in as tight as it would go and then tugged on the jibsheet, wishing I had winches instead of those damn cam cleats. And more than two hands.

The waves that had pushed me up the Sound for fifteen or sixteen hours were breaking in front of me. Surf. That bottom must be awfully close. “Come on, boat. Get me out of here!”

The boat was moving along the shore, probably as fast as I’d ever gone in her. I seemed to gain a little distance from shore. But then a big roller broke against the side of the boat. Over we went. Way over. But in the trough that followed, she came back up. There was water under the boat. “Come on, boat, into the wind. Into those waves.” Another breaker, broadside again. Heeled over again, then upright. If she wouldn’t capsize in that, it wasn’t going to. Maybe I’ll get out of this.

I wasn’t going to die. I looked over to the shore. Sandy beach, beckoning. If I washed up there, I could walk away. Maybe I should just let it happen. It would be over. Or I could just turn into the shore, go aground, leave the boat, limp up to that house. The shipwrecked sailor. Help. Dry. Warm. No. Not giving up. I was sailing out of there. There was water under the keel and wind in the sails. Then I was out of the surf, still on port tack, struggling upwind. Too close to the beach to try to come about, but making progress. I was getting out.

Then ahead I saw a rock shelf, and another beyond it. About as far from the beach as I was. Would I clear it? I had to; if I tried to come about, I’d wash back up on the beach before the boat got underway in the other direction. I gained enough distance from the shore to come abreast of the first rock shelf. But the second one was farther out. I wasn’t going to make it past that one. Could I turn away? No. Could I go between them? Maybe.

Then there was no more choice. The leeway was gone. The boat was going into the first rock shelf. I pulled the tiller, turned into the rock to hit bow on…thought the boat would be stronger there. Wham! The bow hit, then the wind pushed the stern around. Wham, again. The keel. Then another crash as she rolled over and the hull hit the rock.

She banged and crashed along the rock with each wave. I waited for her to start breaking up before I tried to abandon the cockpit to get on the rock. Probably wouldn’t die. Just sit on that rock all night until someone found me the next day.

But wait. The wind and waves were pushing the boat back along the rock, stern first. Then off the end of the rock stern-to, bow pointed out to sea. Floating free.

Now, will she float? Does she still have a bottom? Is there still a rudder? I pushed the tiller over. With the mainsheet still tight, the boat moved off the starboard tack, away from the rock, away from the beach. Damn! I slipped across the cockpit, yanked the starboard jib sheet from its cleat, and reached over and pulled the port sheet tight. Away we went. Sails tight. Crowding the wind. Away from shore. Safe. Maybe.

The rudder had been pushed up, bent at its hinge, but looked alright. Designed for shoal waters, I guess. Seemed to work fine. But what about the bottom? What if I got this boat away from the beach and it sank? Then I might die. Wouldn’t be able to write this.

Still hanging on to the tiller, as I’d been since eight that morning, I reached into the cabin and felt around for the flashlight on its shelf. Found it. Turned it on and looked at the cabin floor. There was water there, but it was probably only the spray that came in the hatch. Didn’t seem to be sloshing, just wet.

Now what? The big question: Where the (expletive deleted) am I? I couldn’t identify that headland I was trying to clear. There wasn’t supposed to be anything like that along here. I had cleared the Thimble Islands, quite far back, I thought. And Sachem’s Head. What else was there? I didn’t expect to see anything out in the Sound until I reached the Saybrook outer light.

Groton Long Point sticks out in the Sound like that. Could I have come that far? I was well out in the Sound for some time, in a very strong westerly. I had no idea how far I ‘d come, or how long I’d been out there. Maybe I went on past the Saybrook light, missed it in the clutter of lights on shore.

Well, if that’s Groton Long Point I’d better not go around it. That would put me through The Race and into the ocean. Next stop, Portugal. Twenty-three hundred miles at sea with a few cans of Dr. Pepper and four ham sandwiches.

I worked my way back upward, tacking this way and that. Got out into clear water, but rough. High wind, high waves. Have to get out of this. If that was Groton Point Light, maybe I could get back into New London Harbor, get to an anchorage or dock. Or just tie up to one of the submarines at Electric Boat. Probably be shot as a spy. At least I could spend the rest of the night in a warm police station.

Hanging onto the tiller still, I fished around in the cabin for the charts. Found them, but hanging on to the tiller, the jib sheet, the flashlight, and a chart, while pitching and rolling in those seas proved impossible.

For the rest of the night, I tried to find the harbor entrance. The shapes toward shore were a mystery. Were those black things objects, big ships or barges? Or just places where there was no light?

There were channel markers to the west, white and green lights. I tacked, and tacked again, to get up to that channel. When I had almost reached the first white marker, the wind died down. A relief, really, but the waves kept rolling, wind or no wind. So I was out there, rolling and tossing, with no way to follow the channel markers in.

Then the wind picked up again, but this time from the east. Blew me past the markers. Couldn’t get back. Calm. Gusts. Calm. Gusts. Nothing to provide propulsion. No way to get into the harbor.

Fear. Penetrating fear for the last fourteen or fifteen hours. With moments, long moments of absolute terror. And that fear was not going away. But I wasn’t going to die. The boat wasn’t going to sink, and it wasn’t going to capsize. And if it did, the wind was toward the shore so I, the intrepid sailor, wearing my lifejacket, would fetch up on shore. But that wasn’t going to happen. I was doomed to sail this boat, endure this terror, until this trip was over.

Admiration. How did Henry Hudson, Adriaen Block and Lion Gardner and all those other early sailors get around in Long Island Sound in square-rigged boats? No charts, no navigation aids. Tough, resourceful, men.

Wonder. Why did they do it? Why didn’t they just stay home and sit in front of the fire? If all men were like me, humankind would still be confined to the dark continent, unable to cross water.

More wonder. This was supposed to be fun. Recreation. People buy boats, equip them, fix them, scrape their bottoms, slave over them, to sail around in Long Island Sound for pleasure. Well, they had sense enough not to do it at night, it seems.

Dawn. Calm. I found the rest of the box of doughnuts from yesterday, and a container of juice. Back to the question: Where the * am I? I tried the charts again. The large chart of Long Island Sound was hopelessly wet and falling apart. I tried the book of local charts of the harbors. New London. Looks right. Shape of the shoreline is right. But where is the entrance to the Thames River? All I see is a little inlet at the end of those channel markers. Couldn’t get a nuclear submarine or the cross-Sound ferry or the Barque Eagle in there.

Turn some pages. Niantic? No. Back some more. Westbrook? Clinton? Was that the Kelsey Point breakwater I almost hit? No. Oh, here. Guilford. Same shape along the shore, but no harbor. No headland, either. Can’t be.

I looked over at the headland that tried to wreck me last night. It wasn’t there. Only a straight shore, stretching out to the east. But there were the buildings I had almost visited, the rock shelf I had actually visited, along that shore.

Ah, so. I had been running on a slight starboard tack, pushed by the westerly that had blown all day. I was steering to keep the waves behind me. The wind must have shifted around to blow from the south during the night, and I turned toward shore. So, when I thought I was following a headland south out into the Sound, I was really going east along the coast. As I should have been. Until I got disoriented and tried to turn downwind and drive the boat up to the Guilford Town Green.

“Alright boat, we’re back in business. Let’s go sailing.” Here comes a slight westerly, not much, but enough. A nice downwind run. Wing and wing. The cam cleats are holding. The sun is shining. I looked along the shore and recognized the buildings I’d passed so closely on that lee shore last night. I looked for the rocks that caused me to turn. They weren’t there.

Here’s Hammonassett Beach. Just like the chart shows. A starboard tack to clear the land. There, Clinton Harbor. Clear the Kelsey Point breakwater. “Come on, boat.” Westbrook. Duck Island. A little passage through Duck Island Roads. Cornfield Point. And, there it is: Saybrook Light. ■

As night fell and our father failed to arrive at the Saybrook Point Marina as planned, our distraught mother called our sister Theresa Rice Sanderson, who lived nearby, to come to the house. Theresa called the Coast Guard who initiated a search, but our father hadn’t shared his course home with anyone and Long Island Sound can be a black hole in nasty weather.

Fortunately, another twelve hours (or so) after the Coast Guard started searching, our father found his own way to shore, beaching on a neighbor’s lawn at North Cove in Saybrook before stumbling the half-mile home on wobbly legs. There, after a greeting between our parents for the ages, Theresa helped our father get the trailer to the boat, get the beat-up boat on the trailer and haul it home. He never sailed it again.