Yacht Rock and a Hard Place

Baking at the helm, watching a newly arrived bird eyeing me suspiciously—as if this was his ship, and I was the one who’d just flown in—I knew I was unraveling. For two days now we’d been becalmed, sails flogging on the open Atlantic, and in a snap moment I saw—all too clearly—how easily this could end with a flare gun to the face. As with so many of our triumphs and terrifying moments afloat, this one seemed to come with a theme song. Stranger still, in that same moment it was as if the bird understood and, in response, had cocked his head and started singing: “There’s something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear…”

Five days earlier, Phillip and I had been sane, joyous even, at the prospect of making our longest passage yet, just the two of us on our 1985 Niagara 35, , along the “I-65 route” from Eleuthera, Bahamas, to the BVI. The plan was to sail east eight to 10 days, then