[stuartsailor]

I was relatively new to big boat offshore sailing. I had a few thousand miles sailing coastwise with a captain that was a serious pro and excellent teacher. My next job was as mate taking a classic Alden sloop from New York to Florida. She was to tall and too deep for the ICW. Again I had an excellent skipper on board. We left in Mid December with a good forcast, but by the time we were approaching Cape Hatteras we had sailed beyond the dependable duration of any forcast. Pre-internet and with a weak short wave, we watched the barometer, wind direction, etc. and made our best predictions. The Barometer dropped and dropped. We had gained alot of sea room, and found ourselves running before it way over hull speed under bare pole. As the wind built to over 80kts, (that was the max our anomometer could read and stayed pegged for over 12 hours) we took a big breaker over the transom. It broke the wheel, pushing the skipper through it. The cockpit lockers were stove in. The high water was about 6 feet up the mast.

I remember saying out loud and very seriously “shouldn’t we set off the epirb now so they will start looking for us?”

The Skip said ‘that our only option was to keep sailing, Listen to the boat and just keep sailing. The Ocean was not a place where you can just quit. We would take care of the boat and if and when she could nolonger take care of us, then the EPIRB was a last resort.’

It wasn’t like a light bulb moment. But over the next 18 hours and then the following days as we nursed our ship back to the coast, I learned about resilience, taking one step at a time. Not letting an unknown future prevent you from acting now.

Sometimes when on land I forget this lesson.