SAILING IS LIFE - All The Rest Is Just Details From Anne Wallerius Hoy It was in 1956 when we lived off Route 53, next to what eventually became Glen Crest Junior High, now Middle School, that Dave discovered, or should I say rediscovered, a passion for sailing. He never told me much about this. As I learned, he had sailed with his cousins at Skaneatles Lake, one of the upstate finger lakes in New York, in his youth. For some reason this interest had remained bottled up until one evening at dinner with the children gathered around the table he announced that he was invited to crew on an R boat. The immediate reaction was, "What's an R boat?" The interest was obvious; you could see it in the children's eyes. The R boat was named FANTOM. It was forty feet long and sloop rigged as I later found out, whatever that meant. Dave just reported, "It's a pretty big piece of sailing machinery." As it turned out there were eight of these harbored in Belmont Harbor in Chicago. At least six of the eight sailed, I mean raced, regularly during the summer. When I say regularly, it was every Saturday and every Sunday, and the holidays, too. Initially, it didn't seem to be so bad; but, after I made three trips that first summer to St Joseph, Michigan; Michigan City, Indiana; and Waukegan, Illinois to see the boats come in, and spend a few hours or overnight in a motel, it got to be somewhat of a chore. The parties were fun. I did have a good time. This re-interest in sailing did have an impact on family life as the children went to sailing school four days a week at Belmont Harbor, which required my driving them there in the morning and Dave picking them up later in the afternoon, after work. The landscaping suffered as did the repairs; that could always wait, the sailing weather was too good. We were into sailing! The biggest sailing event of any summer on Lake Michigan is the annual Mackinac Race. It is 333 miles from the start of the race off Monroe Street to the Island. The race draws hundreds of sailboats each with between four to ten crew members. Everyone wants to get to the island first on "corrected time." The race is scheduled about the third week in July. This is when it is liable to be steamy hot at the southern end of Lake Michigan and it can be refreshingly cool at the northern part of the lake. Somewhere in between there is a weather change, most often it is about even with Green Bay, Wisconsin and Ludington, Michigan. Dave, on his first Mackinac Race was on board an Alden Coastwise Cruiser named PYGMALION with seven others. Since he would be gone for at least four days I, with the children packed into the back of the stationwagon, went to Galena, Illinois. It was while we were there on Sunday (the race started on Saturday) that we saw huge billowing thunderheads making up as only it can on a hot summer's day in Illinois. The fierce winds and the deluge of rain forced us to seek a culvert to park and to await the end. The wind gusts rocked the car. The thoughts of the children ran to their father who was out on the lake and they knew that he would be hit. Exclamations, such as, "Oh! I'll never see my daddy, again." came from the back of the stationwagon. Well, we saw him, again. I'm not sure, but I think I joined up with him and the fleet in Mackinac and the talk of everyone was about the massive storm that swept across the lake, scattering the fleet of boats. Dave, it seems was on duty with three others about midnight Sunday becalmed with limp sails and going nowhere. The rest of the crew, all four, were asleep in their bunks, below. They had encountered dying winds in the evening and at midnight the air was completely still with the "lume" or glow of Ludington reflected from a thick overcast of clouds.. The heavy air carried the eerie sounds of lake traffic in the distance. Off to the west there was a slight glow with a darker band of clouds above that appeared to be approaching. As the crew watched, a slight breeze came up from the starboard quarter. The dark band of clouds came closer. The wind picked up and Dave started forward and he had just reached the mast to change the headsail when a sudden blast of wind quartered from the port side knocking the boat over putting spreaders, mast, sails in the water. Dave found himself in water up to his neck, clinging to the stanchions. The crew that were in the cabin fought their way through the cascade of water coming through the companionway exclaiming, "Wha' happened?" Finally, they got the boat righted, pumped the water from the cabin and tried to sort out the wet gear and sleeping bags. The weather had switched. Dave went on six Mackinac Races before we moved to Connecticut. I was never invited to go along! In Connecticut, we bought a beautiful 30' wood, masthead sloop and thirteen bags of sails, with accommodation for four of us in the cabin. Our fifth family member would have to sleep out on deck. The boat's name was MAGIC and we kept the name because we liked it and she was magical. She still sails somewhere near Long Island Sound as every now and then we read about her in a sailing magazine. We sold her before moving to Arizona. On board MAGIC we sailed extensively on Long Island Sound every summer and extended our vacations to sail to Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, the Elizabeth Islands, and Block Island. We would leave Old Greenwich at four in the afternoon at high tide, sail all night (Dave was very good at that); find our way to Fisher's Island at the eastern end of Long Island Sound in the fog by morning; we would lay over there in West Harbor until the tide was favorable; and then extend our sail eastward, catching the changing tide off the entrance to Narragansett Bay; and get swept into Vineyard Sound the next day, laying over at Tarpaulin Cove in Naushon Island; and finally we would arrive at Nantucket on the third day. The eastbound sail was almost always under our big red spinnaker. The return westbound sail, working against the winds, took us a little longer to get back home. The first couple of years the children were with us, but as they grew older they decided they didn't want to be with mom and dad. We had to bribe them to join us such as allowing them to take the cat, or a girl friend or just a friend. Never take a cat on a boat! As our lives have unfolded we have been able to move back to the sea and once again we have a boat. Her name is WYANOKE (pronounced "Wyanokee"), named in honor of a favorite uncle who had half a dozen WYANOKEs in his lifetime. He told us it is Iroquois, meaning "a quiet house." Dave lets me go on the boat, too. And, once again Dave is into racing and there is some silver on the mantle now for races in which he has placed. While the boat doesn't have thirteen bags of sails -- yet -- it is well on its way with new sails on order. If the boat isn't enough work he is a Race Committee Chairman in the Rockland Yacht Club. But, I really miss MAGIC. There was something about her that made her comfortable for me. Maybe it was because she is a wooden boat instead of plastic; and she had convenient hand holds below that I miss, now. Maybe it was because she isn't so beamy and wide because I could stand in the passageway propped against the opposite side to cook breakfast. Maybe it was because it was easier to stand in the companionway (that's my favorite spot) to look out at the waves and seas. Maybe it is just because it was then, not now. We have had some of the most delightful days of sailing on the bay, Penobscot Bay on the Midcoast of Maine. It is just minutes away from the house. You can get out on the water, and with the sails set you realize you're connected to a big ocean and you just want to keep going. Dave and Anne's WYANOKE, a Catalina 27 Fall Newsletter Front Page Newsletter Home Page