Issue 16 : Jan/Feb 2001
I have always admired my best friend. We had been sailing together for many years, sharing careers, racing similar boats, and having boats in adjacent slips. We also spent countless windless evenings just talking and dreaming about messing about in boats for the rest of our lives and what course those dreams might take. Since sailing to us was in a large inland lake, we naturally were looking forward to feeling the ocean swell and experiencing some kind of cruising lifestyle. For me, this goal is reserved for near retirement. But for my friend, a career change to the coast gave him the opportunity to make his dream a reality earlier.
The coastal cruising club and community of local liveaboard sailors was the perfect place for my friend to gain valuable experience and knowledge as well as great relationships with some wonderful people. I was impressed and a bit humbled by all the important skills needed to sail and maintain a larger boat in coastal and offshore waters. Needless to say, this was the major motivation for me to purchase a larger boat and to begin learning the necessary skills for myself. But it was the people in these sailing communities who impressed me the most: a very friendly, helpful, almost family type of people you knew you could count on if the going got rough.
My friend met and married a wonderful woman who reveled in sailing. They fell in love with a classic boat, a 45-foot ketch, and in a few months were living aboard and planning for their retirement of cruising in less than 10 years. We were lucky to sail with them on several short cruises, and it was their accomplishments that got my wife interested in the cruising lifestyle.
Shock and disbelief overwhelmed us the day we learned that they had been returning in their dinghy and were run down by a large speeding powerboat in the protected waters near their marina. Due to the extreme noise of the engines, it is possible the operator of the powerboat never even heard the collision or, even worse, chose not to stop and render aid. Sadly, my friend lost his wife in the accident, and he was badly injured and spent a terrifying night clinging to the sinking inflatable as it drifted out into the bay. Almost the entire cruising club attended his wife’s funeral, and a few days later a small flotilla followed my friend’s boat on his dear wife’s last cruise to scatter her ashes on the ocean. They did not have a legal will, so my friend lost his boat in court, and eventually he lost his desire to sail.
Everyone who was part of their lives and who knew of her love for her husband and for sailing would agree that his wife would not want him to give up his cruising dream. Grief can be a powerful, yet subtle, force to live with, and I cannot begin to understand how I would react if I were in his place.
A sailor’s life can be exciting and dangerous; please be careful out there. Always count your blessings and remember your dreams.
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