resolute their deference to our own preferences and requirements, they had a job to do; and that job required a comprehensive, cinematographic documentary of our leave-taking. This meant that the camera would be on board the first time we pulled out and ashore the second time, shooting us from a distance of about fifty feet. Tony, in his journal, described the technique: “…a wheelchair from the hotel and David perched crosswise in the chair with the camera on his knees. Mark pushed him down the dock like a proud father with his first son. That was the ‘dolly shot.’” The camera sees the boat pull out of the slip, make a left turn into the channel (and into the wind), head for the midship section of a huge passenger ship lying to along the main wharf, raise the mainsail and then turn right, heading out to sea.
The
third
time, Mark and David—and Christopher Little—were aboard what in the trade they call a “chase boat,” by which is meant a vessel hired to pursue the photographed object, permitting this to be done from different angles and from varying distances. We had the genoa hoisted by the time we were headed to the mouth of the harbor, and then quickly the mizzen sail; and we jibed to head west. We had in any event an hour’s westerly sail before we could round St. Thomas and head up toward Bermuda, on a course of ooo° (due north). That was the hour of photographers needed, and to oblige them we did a little exhibitionistic ballet, raising and lowering the sails, coming about, jibing, raising the spinnaker. Curiously, we managed to do all this without feeling in the least foolish. This was in part because for the first time the home team was actually working this particular boat. Danny, the spryest young sailor afloat, tore forword and aft, helping to run the large genoa through the narrow section between the head-stay and the forestay, secured on deck for contingent use. There was the usual confusion—the crossed lines, the bad leads, the missing winch handles—but there was plenty of gusto, and at no moment were we ever made to feel, by Captain Jouning and his thoroughly professional first mate David, who knew the vessel as one knows one’s old sports car, by word or deed that we were in any way maladroit. In due course the chase boat signaled that it had had enough, and I hove the
Sealestial
to (i.e., brought it into a state as motionless as possible, given a wind that is blowing and sails that are hoisted) while the photographers shakily boarded, with all their fancy equipment—an extensive operation, but satisfying because of the unquenchable enthusiasm of Christopher, Mark, and David, all of whom averred that
never in the history of photography!
had more beautiful pictures been taken of a more beautiful boat, more beautifully maneuvered, in more beautiful circumstances, human and natural. I thought their epithalamium on plighting their troth to
Sealestial
an auspicious moment to decree the beginning of the cocktail hour, the more so since I especially needed cheer, Captain Jouning having told me that he had not succeeded in making our brand-new Brookes and Gatehouse digital speedometer work, though he had been slaving over it for almost two hours now.
Some people like a functioning speedometer on a sailboat, some like one but are philosophical without it. I am a mad dog without one. Just as some people need tobacco, or sex, or alcohol, or
National Review
, I need a speedometer—so much so that at personal expense I ordered a fancy one to replace the plaything
Sealestial
had been getting along with. I ordered a beautiful machine that would record not only your exact speed to one one hundredth of a knot, but would also keep track of distance traveled, eliminating the necessity of the cumbersome taffrail log, that antique (but durable) device that measures distance traveled by trailing, at about 75 feet behind the stern, a propeller-like device that transmits its shimmy onto a mechanical register
The
third
time, Mark and David—and Christopher Little—were aboard what in the trade they call a “chase boat,” by which is meant a vessel hired to pursue the photographed object, permitting this to be done from different angles and from varying distances. We had the genoa hoisted by the time we were headed to the mouth of the harbor, and then quickly the mizzen sail; and we jibed to head west. We had in any event an hour’s westerly sail before we could round St. Thomas and head up toward Bermuda, on a course of ooo° (due north). That was the hour of photographers needed, and to oblige them we did a little exhibitionistic ballet, raising and lowering the sails, coming about, jibing, raising the spinnaker. Curiously, we managed to do all this without feeling in the least foolish. This was in part because for the first time the home team was actually working this particular boat. Danny, the spryest young sailor afloat, tore forword and aft, helping to run the large genoa through the narrow section between the head-stay and the forestay, secured on deck for contingent use. There was the usual confusion—the crossed lines, the bad leads, the missing winch handles—but there was plenty of gusto, and at no moment were we ever made to feel, by Captain Jouning and his thoroughly professional first mate David, who knew the vessel as one knows one’s old sports car, by word or deed that we were in any way maladroit. In due course the chase boat signaled that it had had enough, and I hove the
Sealestial
to (i.e., brought it into a state as motionless as possible, given a wind that is blowing and sails that are hoisted) while the photographers shakily boarded, with all their fancy equipment—an extensive operation, but satisfying because of the unquenchable enthusiasm of Christopher, Mark, and David, all of whom averred that
never in the history of photography!
had more beautiful pictures been taken of a more beautiful boat, more beautifully maneuvered, in more beautiful circumstances, human and natural. I thought their epithalamium on plighting their troth to
Sealestial
an auspicious moment to decree the beginning of the cocktail hour, the more so since I especially needed cheer, Captain Jouning having told me that he had not succeeded in making our brand-new Brookes and Gatehouse digital speedometer work, though he had been slaving over it for almost two hours now.
Some people like a functioning speedometer on a sailboat, some like one but are philosophical without it. I am a mad dog without one. Just as some people need tobacco, or sex, or alcohol, or
National Review
, I need a speedometer—so much so that at personal expense I ordered a fancy one to replace the plaything
Sealestial
had been getting along with. I ordered a beautiful machine that would record not only your exact speed to one one hundredth of a knot, but would also keep track of distance traveled, eliminating the necessity of the cumbersome taffrail log, that antique (but durable) device that measures distance traveled by trailing, at about 75 feet behind the stern, a propeller-like device that transmits its shimmy onto a mechanical register
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