For many years after selling the Catalina we were out of sailing. Although I had one notable sailing trip.
I, along with another friend crewed, on yet, another friend's 26 foot Westerly Centaur on a sail to Bermuda. This was in 1976. (Move mouse over the picture at left for a different view.) We had no radio, no radar, no Loran, no electronics of any kind except for an RDF, which did not seem to work correctly. We had a sextant, a Timex digital watch and only enough fuel to get us in and out of port. Crazy yes, but we did hit Bermuda dead on. All to the credit for this goes to the boat captain and owner, Carl Heckrotte.
As we prepared to leave I dutifully called the Coast Guard to report our departure:
"This is the sailing vessel Tashi departing for Bermuda from Morehead City".
(Now recall that Bermuda is roughly due East of North Carolina.) The Coast Guard replied:
"Thank you Tashi are you taking the Intracostal Waterway?"
Me:
"Ouh ... "
The Intracostal Waterway runs North-South. I knew we were in trouble.
Unbeknownst to us at the time the Tall Ships were also headed for Bermuda on their way to NY City for the Bicentennial. We arrived there the same day as they did and, as a sort of a honorary tall ship, we were part of a week long party. What fun. What a headache. I was young and could take it.
The trip over was mostly uneventful. Once a Russian Cruise Ship came over to us with everyone lining the rails taking pictures. Kind of a weird feeling. Just imagining all those people showing the pictures back home was enough to make me wonder what we were doing. The only other events of note were our attempts to catch dinner. I had brought along several trolling rods, and troll we did until all lines on all rods were missing. Unlike a Charter Boat a Sailboat heading East continues East when there is a hookup with a fish determined to go West. Generally the fish won. Once we did land a medium size dolphin (fish not mammal) and once I landed the large head of a Tuna. Whoever or whatever got the other 9/10 of the fish was welcome to it and we hoped continued on West.
We did have plenty of fish to eat, even though we only actually caught one. Flying fish kept volunteering for the duty by landing on the boat. Once while I was asleep in the V-birth with the front hatch open one landed on my face. I was always suspicious that it was a "put up" job by my friends, but they vehemently denied it. Other than that we did see some whales, quite a few actually. They were big and our boat small so it was with mixed feelings that we welcomed them.
The only other time I saw a whale was with Kay on Cape Cod near Provincetown. With Judy Collins singing the song in which she uses Whale sounds in the background we drove down to a beach. There, just off shore, was a whale. Sort of spooky!
The trip back was more eventful, which roughly translates to a lot of bad weather. The Westerly is a strongly built, heavy boat which is somewhat under-canvassed. A near gale would have it sailing well, so we were never in real danger. We each took a three and a five hour shift each day. (We had no autohelm so we steered full time.) For some reason we always democratically decided that I would have the 11:00 PM to 4:00 AM shift each night. On one night a considerable storm arrived while I was on the helm. To me the waves looked mountianess. Probably an illusion, but at least one was big enough to wash me out of the cockpit and onto the lifelines. Fortunately my life harness held.
The real fun began as we neared home and I was again at the helm. It was daytime and a serious storm was coming. We could see it approaching us as a black wall. The only other boat on the horizon was a commercial ship. We double reefed the mainsail put up the storm jib and into it we went. The wind was so strong that it kept the waves down but the wind driven rain seriously stung my lips; I had to purse my lips into my mouth to avoid the sting. I could barely see Carl (Heckrotte) and George (Bissinger) watching me from the hatch top opening. I do not remember how long it took, but we did eventually emerge from the front, and saw nothing. Evidently the commercial ship could not see us either as someone, presumably them, reported us missing. As we did not have a radio we did not know that the Coast Guard was looking for us and would not know for several days.
We had managed to hit Bermuda dead on going over. We were less careful on the way back, figuring we could not miss North America. We were right about that, but we could and did miss North Carolina.
Gradually we worked our way down the coast and ended up at the Morehead Yacht Basin. On the second day there, the captain on the boat next to us asked us if we were aware that the Coast Guard was looking for us. Of course, we didn't so we called them to report we were quite safe and in port. We had, in fact, already cleared customs, but that apparently never reached the Coast Guard. We left the next day for home and barely reached the waterway North when the Coast Guard overtook us. To say the least they were angry, blaming us for the unfortunate sequence of events that preceded our return. We did not call for help, we did not report ourselves missing and we were under no obligation to have a radio. So all that they really could do was search the boat and glare at us. It was over and