Voyages: Stories of Ten Sunsail Owner Cruises

Voyages: Stories of Ten Sunsail Owner Cruises

Nancy G. Kaull & Paul F. Jacobs

Edited by Daniela Clark

First Edition

Copyright © 2014 Nancy Kaull and Paul Jacobs

All rights reserved.

ISBN: 978-1-312-15998-3

Introduction: A Brief Summary of Chapter Contents

Chapter 1: Background

Five gifts and five trials.

Nancy Garden Kaull.

How we met.

Sailing together on Clair de Lune.

Bareboat chartering with Sunsail.

The letter from Sunsail, and a classic double take.

Questions and answers.

The Pros.

The Cons.

Purchasing the 2009 Jeanneau 36i "Sandpiper".

Becoming part of the Sunsail fleet.

The view five years later; "one of the best decisions we have ever made".

Chapter 2: The Bahamas

Our first Owners Cruise.

Getting to Marsh Harbor, Abaco, Bahamas from RI.

Provisioning, cooking aboard, and dining ashore.

High temperatures and higher humidity.

Sailing in thin water.

Violent electrical storms.

Lessons learned.

Chapter 3: Croatia

Our first European destination….a hidden gem!

Getting to Dubrovnik.

Provisioning, cooking aboard, and dining ashore.

Language, money, food, and very friendly people.

Pine trees right down to sparkling clear water.

The wonderful walled towns of Korcula, Hvar, and Dubrovnik.

Light winds.

Lessons learned.

Chapter 4: The British Virgin Islands

Our first sail on Sandpiper.

Getting to Road Town, Tortola, BVI.

Provisioning, cooking aboard, and dining ashore.

Tortola, Privateer Cove on Norman Island, Sandy Spit, Virgin Gorda and Anegada.

Sailing, swimming, snorkeling, and warm turquoise water.

Lessons learned.

Chapter 5: Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Getting to St. Vincent via Barbados.

Caribbean paradise!

Provisioning, cooking aboard, and dining ashore.

Bequia, Canouan, Union Island, Mayreau, and especially the Tobago Cays.

How to get back into a dinghy from the ocean.

Sailing, swimming, snorkeling, and gorgeous warm turquoise water.

Lessons learned.

Chapter 6: Turkey

Getting to Turgutreis via Istanbul.

Provisioning, cooking aboard, and dining ashore.

Language, money, food, people, and minarets.

Kusadasi, Ephesus, and contrary winds.

Sailing, swimming, snorkeling, and more very clear water.

Lessons learned.

Chapter 7: Saint Martin

Getting to Oyster Pond, St. Martin.

Provisioning, cooking aboard, and dining ashore.

St. Barths, St. Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla, Marigot, and especially Tintamarre.

Clearing customs and immigration, multiple times.

Squalls and magnificent double rainbows.

Sailing, swimming, snorkeling, and more incredible warm turquoise water.

Lessons learned.

Chapter 8: Greece

Getting to Vounaki via Preveza.

Provisioning, cooking aboard, and dining ashore.

Language, money, food, people, history, and Greek music.

Sailing the waters of Odysseus; Meganisi, Levkas, Ithaca, Cephalonia and Zakynthos.

Sailing, swimming, snorkeling, and more wonderfully clear water.

Lessons learned.

Chapter 9: Grenada

Getting to St. George, Grenada.

Exploring the spice island, and a land tour to learn about nutmeg.

Provisioning, cooking aboard, and dining ashore.

Carriacou, Sandy Island, and back to the Tobago Cays.

Some dicey moments!

Sailing, swimming, snorkeling, and warm turquoise water.

Lessons learned.

Chapter 10: French Polynesia

"Les Isles Sous le Vent".

Getting to Apooiti, Raiatea, via Papeete, Tahiti, and Los Angeles.

Provisioning, cooking aboard, and dining ashore.

Language, money, food, beautiful people, history, and Polynesian music.

The South Pacific islands of Raiatea, Tahaa, Huahine, Bora Bora, & Maupiti.

The special Vanilla Tour on Tahaa.

The most exotic place we have ever sailed and the vacation of a lifetime.

Lessons learned.

Chapter 11: St. Lucia

Sailing on a 43 ft monohull with good friends

Rodney Bay and provisioning via dinghy

Les Pitons!

The glorious Tobago Cays as seen through friends’ eyes.

A long sail, from Admiralty Bay, Bequia to Marigot Bay, St. Lucia.

Lessons learned.

Chapter 12: Summary

Our overall assessment:  PHENOMENAL!

Unexpected joys.

Problems solved.

Yacht ownership as part of the Sunsail program.

Forty two tips!

Memories…. for the rest of our days.

Chapter 1: Background

The core material for each of the chapters included in this book was taken from the detailed notes written by Nancy Kaull during the ten voyages described herein.  Where her notes are essentially used directly, they are shown in italics. Additional descriptions adding to the stories were written by Paul Jacobs, and are shown in regular font.

This story starts long ago.  I was born on the winter solstice, 21 December 1938.  Starting life prior to Fleming’s discovery of penicillin, double mastoiditis at 18 months was a death sentence for an infant.  Somehow, I survived a bilateral mastoidectomy at New York’s Columbia Medical Center, where over 99% of previous cases in that hospital had resulted in fatalities. Further, I was not deaf, and had no facial disfigurement; both being regular after-effects of unilateral surgery.  I had thus received Gift No. 1: the chance to live a full life.  Since then I have a simple philosophy: the worst days are good, the good days are great, and the great days are sublime.

I grew up in Washington Heights, Manhattan, NY, managed to somehow avoid getting involved with any of the local gangs, made it to age 12 without being stabbed, shot at, or mugged, and had absolutely no idea what a sailboat was except as seen in photographs, paintings, or museums. Fascinated by geography and nature, my favorite way to spend a rainy Saturday as a child was to take the subway to the American Museum of Natural History, and wander exhibit after exhibit learning about triceratops, blue whales, ancient Egypt, and the rise of Greek civilization.  If mom or dad had generously given me an extra quarter that morning, at student rates I would then visit the Hayden Planetarium, to learn more about the sun, the moon, the planets, and the stars. 

When I was 13 our family moved to Bayside, NY, then at age 14 we moved to Great Neck, NY, and finally when I was 17 to West Islip, NY where I graduated from Babylon High School, and discovered sailboats on the Great South Bay.  A girlfriend took me sailing on a Sunfish for the first time, and it was love at first heel.  That was 1955, and I have been sailing ever since.

At Babylon High School, I had the good fortune to take senior physics from Mrs. Cameron, a tiny woman who loved physics, was a wonderful teacher, made complex ideas simple, and fired my love for the subject.  The prior summer she had won a teaching award that included living on campus at Union College, Schenectady, NY.  This evidently had a very positive impression upon her, as she advised me to apply there.  My family was not affluent, so a scholarship was required for me to attend a private college.  She must have written quite a letter of recommendation, as shortly thereafter Gift No. 2 arrived: admission to Union College, with a full tuition scholarship!  Working summers, at Fairchild Engine Division, Deer Park, NY, and later at Grumman Aircraft, Bethpage, NY, waiting on tables at my fraternity house to pay for my meals, and holding a grant-in-aid in the Mechanical Engineering Department to pay for my room and textbooks, I graduated with honors in 1960 owing exactly zero dollars, something almost unheard of today.

In my senior year in college my favorite professor at Union, the late Dr. Gardner Ketchum, suggested that I consider attending graduate school.   I subsequently applied to Johns-Hopkins, MIT, Brown, and Princeton, and was amazed when I was accepted at all four.  I then received Gift No. 3: a full tuition fellowship that also included room and board, as well as a position as a graduate research associate at Princeton University, Princeton, NJ!  This was among a number of dreams come true which will form a thread throughout this book.  After five halcyon years at "Old Nassau", working in plasma physics, publishing a few papers, and a dissertation, I received my Ph. D., got in my little red 1960 MG-A sports car, and drove to California, to start as a senior research scientist at Xerox Electro-Optical Systems (XEOS) in Pasadena, CA. 

At XEOS the director of R&D was Dr. Gordon Cann who was also a sailor. Gordon owned a 41 foot catamaran, and I began sailing with him out of Newport Beach.   He decided to enter the 1968 multihull version of the Transpacific Yacht Race.  We raced locally and worked on the hardware, mast, standing, and running rigging prior to the start. Since the boat needed a navigator, I volunteered to teach myself celestial navigation, which was vital as this was prior to GPS.  Studying from three textbooks, and taking trial sights with an old WWII Bendix bubble octant from the end of the Santa Monica pier, my initial errors were about 10 nautical miles (NM), but eventually got whittled down to about 1 NM.  Since one can easily see Mauna Loa, Mauna Kea, or Haleakela when within 50 NM, I felt prepared but nonetheless inexperienced as we hit the starting line.  This all became moot as sadly we were dismasted near Catalina Island, so I still had not gotten an opportunity to do celestial navigation when it really mattered.

However, I had now been seriously bitten by the sailing bug.  In 1969 a friend, George Baker, who also worked at XEOS, and I formed a partnership and purchased the 1963 Lapworth 36, "Sea Ya, renamed her Woodwynd", cleaned and checked her from stem to stern, purchased a new mainsail and spinnaker, and entered numerous local races in southern CA over the next two years.   On the 4th of July, 1971 we hit the starting line for the Transpac and many sun, moon, planet, and star shots later we spotted Mount Haleakela on Maui, and came surfing down 10 to 12 foot waves towards the finish line off Diamond Head.  While we wound up well back in the pack, Gift No. 4 had already been received; an enduring love of deep water sailing and a direct, hands on confirmation of the very remarkable and beautiful nature of celestial navigation.

After the 1971 Transpac a number of friends asked me how one actually did celestial navigation, so I decided to offer a short course at Pacific Mariners Yacht Club, in Marina del Rey, CA where I was a member, and where Woodwynd was berthed.  I was amazed that over fifty people showed up to learn this ancient subject.  Initially using bits and pieces of information from a number of books on the subject, in the spirit of Mrs. Cameron and Dr. Ketchum I modified the course content to help make an intrinsically detailed subject as simple as possible, without sacrificing content.  I taught the course for eight years, which led to writing "Introduction to Celestial Navigation" in 1977.  I later had the good fortune to serve as navigator on a number of wonderful racing sailboats, did two more Transpacs in 1973 and 1975, 17 Newport Beach to Ensenada races, and two Marina del Rey to Puerto Vallarta races during the 70’s and 80’s.

In the 1977 Puerto Vallarta race, on the Ericson 39 "Gauntlet, a battery short on the very first day blew out every instrument! We did not even have a working knot-meter to provide dead reckoning.  However, 57 sun, moon, planet and star shots got us directly into Banderas Bay, where we finished second in class, and won a special trophy for Navigation & Seamanship".

During these years, I was married, owned a lovely home high on a hill in La Crescenta, CA, had the good fortune to be promoted to chief scientist at XEOS, and worked on three major contracts: (1) the ALPHA (ALkali Plasma Hall-Current Accelerator) project for the U.S. Air Force, (2) design and development of MILES (Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement Simulator) system for the U.S. Army, which according to the late General Norman Schwartzkopf "helped save the lives of more than 10,000 U.S. soldiers" during the first Gulf War, and (3) the CARS (Currency Authentication & Recognition System) program to rapidly, and with 99.9999% probability, detect counterfeit currency for the Reserve Bank of Australia, The Bank of Canada, The Bank of England, and the US Federal Reserve Bank as well as the Bureau of Engraving and Printing.

In 1977 four other local friends and fellow sailors and I formed a team to design, build, and race the cold molded 39 foot sloop "Flexible Flyer".  Hand constructed using the WEST System, with four layers of western red cedar and a final Honduras mahogany outer skin, she took a year to design to the old IOR racing rule, a year to build and launch, and three months to tune and plot speed polars. Flexible Flyer was a beautiful sailboat that we raced for four years, winning hardware in 21 races until the untimely early death of Don Buck, one of the five initial partners.

After 24 years at XEOS, I left in 1989 to join 3D Systems, in Valencia, CA as director of R&D.  These were special years where dedicated zealots working insane hours helped to develop the new technology of stereolithography / 3-D printing, as well as the QuickCast process.  Working with Ciba-Geigy in Switzerland, and speaking at technical conferences in England, Germany, France, Australia, and the USA, I got to know many wonderful people, and was in the right place, at the right time to enable Gift No. 5: publication of the first book in the field, "Rapid Prototyping & Manufacturing: Fundamentals of Stereolithography in 1992. Then, in 1996 I was asked to write a companion volume: Stereolithography and Other RP&M Technologies".  At this point I felt like I was truly on top of the world.  However, always beware of hubris!

It was at this point that it seemed as if the Lord called down and said Paul, I have given you much, now you shall endure five trials.  In the short space of just over three years the five gifts were soon offset by five trials.  Trial No. 1: On 16 February 1996, while driving home from work in a torrential downpour and traveling at 57 mph (I had just glanced at the speedometer), I suddenly slammed into the rear end of an unlit, unmarked pickup truck that had been abandoned in the middle lane of the Foothill Freeway!  I suffered facial injuries requiring immediate surgery including 157 stitches under my right eye, across the bridge of my nose, under my left eye, and diagonally down the left side of my face, where some major nerves had been severed.  I had to learn how to speak properly all over again, and while I can now smile with a closed mouth, I cannot do so with a normal, open mouthed smile.  Nancy now says that I smile with my eyes.

Trial No.2: occurred in April 1997 a year after I had been promoted to VP of R&D.  3D had just hired a new Executive VP, who a week later promptly fired all five VPs!  Fortunately, as a result of the two books, and having spoken at many technical conferences over the previous eight years, I was well known in the field, and soon got a job offer from Laser Fare in Warwick, RI.

Trial No. 3 happened in June 1997 when my CA wife of 17 years definitely decided that she did not want to move to RI, and instead chose to file for divorce.  Clearly I had missed the signals, but I really never saw that one coming, erroneously believing that while hardly perfect, we had a good life together.  I still loved her, but apparently the feeling was no longer reciprocal.

Trial No. 4 occurred in November 1997 and involved moving almost 3000 miles from CA to RI, where I knew exactly ZERO people, and had to effectively start my life all over again.  While moving across the country was definitely an adventure just after graduate school at age 26, moving back across the country was hardly quite the same thing at age 59.

Trial No. 5 sadly occurred in March 1999.  My dear mother was 89 years old and living in Lake Forest, CA.   Her mother had emigrated from Ireland in 1888 during yet another potato famine, and as part of her heritage my mom could STILL do an authentic Irish jig.  She had dozens of friends, and was as mentally sharp and humorous as one 40 years younger. Then suddenly and without any warning she had a massive left brain stroke, was completely paralyzed on her right side, could not write, could not speak, and was confined to a nursing home bed.  I flew from RI to CA multiple times.  It was awful seeing what was so recently a wonderful, vital, person now a prisoner within the shell of her own withered form.  Mercifully, the Lord took her in July 1999.

So, there I was, living all by myself in Saunderstown, RI with a wonderful job, a splendid income, and a lovely home, but no nearby family (my only sister lives in VA), and exactly zero friends.  Rather than feeling sorry for myself, I decided to do something I loved, so I bought a 1982 Catalina 30 sloop, and after suitable incantations and libations offered to Poseidon, re-named her "Clair de Lune, which is French for the light of the moon", and refers to the fact that I truly love sailing at night by moonlight.  Furthermore, her name also derived from the elegant piano nocturne written by Claude Debussy that had long been a personal favorite.

While structurally sound, Clair de Lune needed a lot of cosmetic work.  Throwing myself into scrubbing, sanding, varnishing, and generally upgrading her, this simple sweet sailboat slowly started to work prosthetic magic on a broken soul.  Bit by bit she came together as did I.  When she was finally ready to sail, I was up for many hours the night before, studying the chart of Narragansett Bay, especially around Apponaug where she had a slip, Greenwich Bay, nearby Patience and Prudence islands, and some thin water near Warwick Neck.  I finally took her out, and it was like a balm to my spirit. She was back doing what she was designed to do, and I was back doing something that I loved.  The Earth was still in its elliptical orbit around the sun, the sky was bright blue, the cumulous clouds were white and puffy, the prevailing SW wind was about 11 knots, there were a few whitecaps, and we were reaching along at almost seven knots.

Loneliness can be debilitating especially when endured for an extended interval.  I knew I needed to meet some people, make some friends, and while too late to start a family, I very much wanted to meet a woman who liked sailing.  It was now 2000, and technology had even influenced the dating game, so I placed a listing on Match.com.  Within days, I received multiple responses, and quickly learned that when many women said they liked "boating", this really implied going out on the water for a spin on a power boat, which is NOT the same thing as sailing.  Few of the responses indicated that any of these women really wanted to go sailing.  Then it happened; Nancy responded.  She lived in East Greenwich, RI, was divorced just a few years, had two boys, Alex and Andrew, and all of them loved sailing.  When a few nautical items came up in an early e-mail it was soon evident that she knew what she was talking about.

I called her.  We spoke for almost an hour.  I learned about her.  She learned about me.  We agreed to meet for dinner at The Coast Guard House located in Narragansett, and already one of my favorite restaurants in Rhode Island.  When I arrived, here was this lovely, slim lady with gorgeous blue eyes, a lively smile, and a warm friendly personality.  I don’t even remember what we had for dinner.  I do remember talking about her boys, their ages, what they liked to do, and what sports they played. She mentioned how much she missed sailing, asked about Clair de Lune, and we talked through dessert.  At the end of the evening, I gently kissed her goodnight and distinctly remember not being aware of anything else as I drove the 12 miles back home.

We went sailing out of Apponaug, RI the next Saturday.  Nancy had previously sailed boats with tillers, but Clair de Lune had a wheel, so it took her about 5 minutes to adapt.  It soon became apparent that she was a really GOOD sailor.  Going to weather, the windward and leeward tell-tails on the jib looked like they were glued together even as she sailed in light and variable air.  She tacked Clair de Lune beautifully, even pausing for just one or two seconds after the bow passed head-to-wind, to make it easier for me to release the previously active jib sheet on say the port side and quickly haul in the former lazy jib sheet on the starboard side, while she also tailed, since Clair de Lune had conventional as opposed to self-tailing winches.  WOW, this lady had her stuff together!   The next weekend we sailed to Newport, in and around the harbor, and started to really get to know one another.  I began to feel like a person again.

Nancy Garden Kaull was born in Newport, RI.  She and her family moved to Marblehead, MA when Nancy was about three years old.  She grew up in Marblehead, and at about age twelve her parents signed her up with Pleon Yacht Club.  Pleon is affiliated with Eastern Y.C., and while the directors are all adults to make sure that financial matters are conducted properly, the officers are all young people!  The racers are kids.  The race committee is made up of kids.  The race jury is made up of kids.  The boats and clubhouse are kept clean by kids.  What a great way to teach responsibility and help inculcate a love of sailing and knowledge of the racing rules at an early age. Nancy and her sister Janet (1 year older) raced Lightnings and 110s together, learned how to sail really well at a very early age, and she has consequently not only retained her love of sailing for decades, but has shared that love with her two sons, Alexander and Andrew, who were 12 and 11 respectively when we first met, and are now 26 and 25.

Alex and Andrew are both wonderful young men that I have grown to greatly admire.  They are as different as night and day…so much so that it is sometimes hard to believe that they share common parents.  Alex is tall and slender, Andrew is shorter and stockier.  Alex is blond, Andrew has dark black hair.  Alex is more scholarly, Andrew is more hands-on.

Alex received a BS in Mechanical Engineering from The University of Rhode Island, was a member of the URI sailing team all four years, currently is employed at Composite Rigging in North Kingstown, RI assisting in the design of ultra-strong, light weight rigging for high tech racing sailboats, and races often in major regattas. Alex was recently featured in the June 2013 issue of Sailing World magazine, and currently is a bachelor living in Newport, RI.

Andrew attended the International Yacht Restoration School (IYRS) in Newport, RI, where he fell in love with boatbuilding, learned the details of marine joinery in the process of restoring an elderly Beetle Cat, sailed on the 141 ft. tall ship Mystic out of Mystic, CT to the Bahamas, met his future bride, Erin, on that voyage, is now married, living in Petoskey, MI in a home on 5 acres, has two dogs, and works as a shipwright at Irish Boat Shop located in Harbor Springs, MI.

Nancy completed Marblehead High School and then went on to Connecticut College in New London, graduating Magna Cum Laude in Economics.  When we met she was the Director of Computing at the American Mathematical Society (AMS) in Providence, RI.  She led a group of ten people and was responsible for keeping AMS’s network operating 24/7/365.  This often required being there in the wee hours to rescue a system that had gone down.  The good news was that this job provided her with the financial income to ably support her two children after her divorce, own and maintain a lovely home in East Greenwich, RI, save for eventual retirement, and enjoy abundant annual vacation. We quickly became good friends, then very good friends, and then best buddies.  Figure 1 shows Nancy on a Baltic cruise we took on The Sovereign of the Sea in 2004 to Copenhagen, Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Tallinn, and Gdańsk.

Figure 1: Nancy in 2004

Figure 2 shows Nancy at the helm of Clair de Lune in her beloved straw hat, while my head is just barely visible trimming the jib, as we sail close-hauled on port tack in the East Passage of Narragansett Bay, with Jamestown, RI visible in the background.

Figure 2:  Clair de Lune off Jamestown, RI

Two stories speak volumes about this wonderful woman.  After we had been together less than a year, I thought it might be fun to attend the in-water boat show at Newport, RI.  As a sailboat owner in addition to being able to look at the latest sailing hardware, it is also a chance to not only see, but to board and go below some other very beautiful new sailboats.  During the next few hours we went aboard a brand new Beneteau, Catalina, J Boat, Jeanneau, Sabre, and even a Swan.  When we were on our way home crossing the Jamestown-Verrazano Bridge back to Saunderstown, I asked her which was your favorite sailboat?  Nancy paused for a while, was obviously thinking about a number of them, and then said "Clair de Lune!  I responded by saying you are far too kind, but why would you say that about a humble, 21 year old Catalina 30 when we had just seen some brand new million dollar sailboats?  I still remember her answer:  for two people many of them are far too big, and most of them have way too much "fru-fru" (her exact words!).  I had always believed that we go sailing to get AWAY from the house, not to bring the house with us.  I don’t need, or really want, air conditioning, a TV, a microwave, or a dishwasher.  I fell in serious like with Nancy at that very moment!

About a year later, we were sailing mostly east along the north shore of Martha’s Vineyard from an anchorage at Menemsha heading towards Edgartown.  As anyone who has sailed these waters knows very well, the currents in Vineyard Sound can be up to three knots, and there are multiple shoals hither and thither.  While sailing close hauled on starboard tack in about 12 to 15 knots of true wind, as we approached West Chop I looked forward and spotted some very white water up ahead.  Confirming from both our GPS position and paper chart plotting that we were NOT near shallow water I concluded that there must be a lot of wind coming through the pass at Vineyard Haven.  So, recalling the old adage that "if you are even thinking about reefing you probably should have done it ten minutes ago, I went to the mast to ease the main halyard and put in a reef.  In the next two minutes the wind went from 15 knots to about 40 knots, with a peak gust recorded on shore at 52 knots!  It was a so-called micro-burst".  Needless to say we were quickly overpowered, and while I was wrestling with the mainsail to go directly to a second reef, Nancy started the engine to enable her to power-sail a wee bit higher to clear a buoy near a shoal well ahead.  As I was setting the second reef, it started pouring and we both were thoroughly soaked.  Once you are already wet from head to toe, it is a little late for foul weather gear.

Shortly after we cleared the buoy Nancy yelled through the screaming wind and rain I don’t feel the engine running.  Oh no.  Now the engine had stopped.  I quickly went below to check for obvious sources of engine failure.  We had plenty of fuel, the batteries were nearly new and fully charged, and the battery connections were clean and tight.  What could be wrong?  Much as I have great faith in her capabilities, I needed to get back to the cockpit in case we needed to tack, or if Nancy, who was only wearing jeans and a polo shirt and was now soaking wet, was getting cold and needed relief on the helm.  When I emerged through the companionway I must have had a rather worried look on my face, because through all the wind and rain, Nancy yelled "Don’t worry, we’re sailors".  I fell in love with her at that very moment! We screamed around the corner buoy, hardened sails, and headed directly for the large bight at Chappaquiddick.

I told her that I would furl the jib and then go forward to get the anchor ready, that she should then head Clair de Lune straight towards the beach, and when the depth indicator read 15-16 feet, head the bow directly into the SW wind, luff the mainsail, and then raise her arm when the knot meter read essentially zero, and I would then deploy the anchor.  She did, and she did, and I did, and fortunately the hook held.  We quickly made sure we were not dragging, and then dropped, flaked and covered the mainsail on the boom.  We finally went below, got out of the wind and driving rain, and then both uttered a sigh of relief.  Dripping wet, I then opened the side engine compartment to look more closely at the engine.  Figure 3 shows the Universal Westerbeke Diesel engine on Clair de Lune.

Figure 3:  The Diesel Engine on Clair de Lune

My long departed father, who passed away in 1975 used to say: "know what you know, know what you don’t know, and don’t get the two confused", which is extremely sound advice.  I am not a Diesel mechanic.  What I do not know about Diesel engines fills many books, so I was not sure exactly what I expected to find. 

However, on getting on my knees on the cabin sole, and peering through the side engine compartment opening, there, less than 9 inches in front of a water drop on the very end of my nose was a male electrical connector about two inches away from a female electrical connector.  Making the not altogether unreasonable assumption that perhaps these two previously had a closer relationship, I connected them together, and told Nancy to give it a try.  Her look of skepticism was evidently overcome by a sense that "he’s the Captain, so I will humor him".  She held in the glow plug switch for 10 seconds and hit the starter button.  VROOOM, the Diesel engine started!  She came below with a look of utter amazement.  Over a nice glass of Merlot, now that we were safely at anchor with a functioning engine, I confessed that the connection (for the electrical fuel pump!), must have jiggled loose when we were heeled, and that it hardly took a genius to assume that they should be re-connected.  We slept wondrous well through the rain that night.  Figure 4 shows Clair de Lune’s salon with a portion of her V berth forward.

Figure 4: Clair de Lune’s salon

Over the next four years Nancy continued to be a terrific mom who was very attentive to her two boys, worked at AMS, maintained her house, and often helped spruce up the gardens at my house, while I continued as vice president of R&D at Laser Fare (later LFI), and did all the maintenance on Clair de Lune myself.  During the late spring, throughout the summer, and well into the fall we would sail as often as possible, typically taking two substantial sailing cruises each summer.  We sailed to Block Island, Cuttyhunk, Tarpaulin Cove and Kettle Cove on Naushon Island, Martha’s Vineyard, Nantucket, Marion, Mattapoisett, and Padanaram on Buzzard’s Bay, Montauk Point, Gardiners Bay, Coecles Harbor on Shelter Island, Sag Harbor, Peconic Bay on Long Island (not too far from West Islip where I lived when