LESSONS IN SCHOONERING
Every new experience brings anxieties that lighten the stomach and clutter the brain. My first adventure aboard the schooner Charlotte in 2015 provoked more than a fair share of these.
A course of anti-malaria pills and a pre-dawn departure from JFK that ended in the trash-choked, shoulder-to-shoulder bustling streets of Port au Prince was just the start. By the time my travel companion and I left our security escort and shook off the salt spray from a six-mile skiff ride to Isle a Vache, I could have kissed Charlotte’s wide, hourglass transom in relief.
Nat Benjamin, the co-proprietor of Gannon and Benjamin Marine Railway on Martha’s Vineyard and Charlotte’s designer and builder, invited me on his humanitarian mission to this little-known, impoverished but stunning gem of the West Indies. He had buttered me up, excited to sail with me for the first time. I am a champion racing sailor and have sailed more than 15,000 miles offshore with two Transatlantic races to my credit. He had been asking me to sail with him for years and this was the golden opportunity.
Hired to be the backup was Ian Ridgeway. The then-30-year-old is a former captain of the schooner , and a student of the legendary Captain Bob Douglas, sailing master of the , another grand training and tour schooner on Martha’s Vineyard. Ridgeway is one of the best in the business despite his youth and has spent his adult life teaching all walks of life the ways of the schooner. He even brought his childhood friend, Bo Petersen, who was a mate aboard , to share the adventure.
