Sixty Years behind the Mast

By Edward Carus

Although the theme of Sixty Years behind the Mast is sailing, blue-water cruising in particular, it is much more than just about sailing. First, it is hoped the book will be added to the libraries of many blue-water sailors. For example, on the author's forty-foot yacht, AEOLUS, its library included three or four dozen sailing books including Joshua Slocum's Sailing Alone Around the World (1894) and Richard Henry Dana's Two Years Before the Mast (1840). Dana's book is an excellent description of the eighty-four-foot Boston brig, PILGRIM, trading with the ranchers in "Alta California" in the 1830s. A good library consisting of many other well-known sailing/adventure stories is essential on a cruising yacht.

Second, Sixty Years behind the Mast also should be included in the libraries of armchair adventurers who dream of making voyages to the distant islands in the South Pacific. The romantic South Pacific is famous for its out-of-the-box authors, artists, beachcombers, lone sailors, and scallywags, such as Robert Louis Stevenson (In the South Seas); James Michener (Tales of the South Pacific); impressionist painter, Paul Gauguin, who lived out his tragic life on Hiva Oa, an island of the Marquesas Archipelago; and American musician, Eddie Lund (and his Tahitians), sometimes referred to as "the Irving Berlin of island music." The Romance of the South Pacific was also well illustrated by famed film director John Ford's movie, The Hurricane (1937), staring Dorothy Lamour and Jon Hall.

Third, Sixty Years behind the Mast is a good reference manual for parents who have adolescent children. Several weeks, even just one week of blue-water sailing on a small boat, is an amazing way to help children successfully navigate the rite of passage from adolescence to adulthood. Cruising motivates a person to become self-reliant, builds self-confidence, enhances compassion, helps develop the skills required for effective teamwork and leadership, and makes one more sensitive to nature and sympathetic to the environment.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 3, 2021
• ISBN: 9781636926452

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Sixty Years behind the Mast

Edward Carus

Copyright © 2021 Edward Carus

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2021

ISBN 978-1-63692-644-5 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63692-645-2 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Chapter 1.1

Chapter 2.1 Preparing

Chapter 2.2 ASKOY

Chapter 2.3 United States Coast Guard

Chapter 2.4 AEOLUS

Chapter 2.5 Sailing Again

Chapter 3.1 Passage to the Marquesas Islands

Chapter 3.2 Nuku Hiva

Chapter 3.3 Motu Iti, Eiao, and Hatuta`a

Chapter 3.4 Fatu Hiva

Chapter 3.5 Hiva Oa

Chapter 3.6 Ua Pou/Nuku Hiva

Chapter 3.7 Tuamotu Islands and Tahiti

Chapter 3.8 Society Islands, Tahiti to Maupiti

Chapter 3.9 Homeward, Maupiti to Honolulu

Chapter 4.1 Two Short Expeditions

Chapter 4.2 Filmmaker

Chapter 5.1 Nuku Hiva Again

Chapter 5.2 Ua Huka

Chapter 5.3 Ua Pou Again

Chapter 5.4 Tahuata

Chapter 5.5 Homeward

Chapter 5.6 Line Islands

Sea Fever

By John Masefield (1902)

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and sky,

And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by;

And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,

And a grey mist on the sea’s face, and a grey dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide

Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;

And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,

And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,

To the gull’s way and the whale’s way where the wind’s like a whetted knife;

And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,

And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick’s over.

Foreword

Ed Carus has led a life of adventure and goodness, and this work will confirm this. I first met Ed while sitting in my office at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu in 1986. I was the Assistant Director for Research and Scholarly Studies and, concurrently, Chairman of the Botany Department. It was early evening, and I was the only one in the department. Suddenly, this man of infectious energy and enthusiasm appeared like an apparition; indeed, like a whirling dervish! He had flashing blue eyes and was talking a blue streak! When I finally began to make out what he was saying, I was captivated.

Ed retired to Hawai`i from California several years earlier and sailed his yacht, the AEOLUS, across the Pacific and into the Ala Wai Yacht Harbor and claimed his berth there. What I finally understood him to be saying was basically, Have boat, will travel! He wanted to put himself and his boat into the service of the museum. I think he had made this offer to others and had gotten nowhere. Most folks, it seems, had neither the patience nor the vision to understand the great gift he was offering.

I had wanted to get some staff members to the Marquesas Islands for field work, and the only way to do that was to have the use of a boat as there was no way to do that without such a resource. He was offering to provide his boat and himself as skipper, without charge to the museum, for just such an endeavor! Thus, the Marquesas Expedition (that became known as the Fatu Hiva Expedition) was born!

As Hermes was just then opening a new store in Waikiki, I went to them as well as to some individuals to get support. We were lucky enough to get the support we needed for the expedition to become a reality. Ed had to prepare the boat, and he made a few shakedown sails to Lanai and Maui in order to see if it would work and for the two scientists/crew members to become more familiar with sailing and working from a small vessel.

And so, June 6, 1988, the AEOLUS with five people on board left the Waikiki Yacht Club to begin this voyage. There was another expedition in 1997, and they returned in triumph both times with new scientific discoveries and collections. Sadly, Ed’s son died during the first voyage, but after a short trip to Hawai`i by plane from Tahiti, Ed returned to complete this historic voyage. I finally succeeded in getting Ed to start putting his recollections into this book, and I am very proud to have been a part of this and to count Ed as one of the best friends I have ever had.

S. H. Sohmer, January 2021,

Old Town Alexandria, Virginia

Part 1

Introduction

Chapter 1.1

In 1840, Richard Henry Dana Jr. authored the book Two Years Before the Mast, a best-selling classic about iron men and wooden ships. It is the author’s description of life aboard the eighty-six-foot brig, PILGRIM, which sailed from Boston around Cape Horn to Alta California in the 1830s. The title has special meaning for sailors. Before the Mast explicitly refers to the most forward part of a sailing ship—in front of the masts. Although Dana was a Harvard student and came from a Boston blue-blood family, he made the voyage as a common seaman and lived with his fellow shipmates in the forecastle, or fo’c’sle, of the PILGRIM. In those days, fo’c’sles were always very cramped, stuffy, damp, and the most uncomfortable place in ships.

Sixty Years Behind the Mast was written from a different perspective. The captain and officers’ living quarters have always been in back of or behind the masts. There is a practical reason for this. For the safety of the ship and crew, the captain needs to be in the after part of a ship so he can see the whole picture and supervise the crew as they set, trim, reef or furl sails. Additionally, the captain or skipper is on call 24-7 whenever a ship or small boat is underway. The midsection of nineteenth-century sailing ships was for cargo.

During most of my sixty years of sailing, I have been the captain or an officer, and my quarters have always been behind the masts. This book is the story of how small boat cruising provided the opportunity for a number of friends, relatives, and me to become better leaders, willing and loyal followers, more understanding, spiritual, sincerely concerned about the welfare of his shipmates and the environment.

In the context of this book, a good leader is a person who is able to recruit, organize, and lead a group of followers who have a mutual interest in accomplishing a specific goal. A goal which will add something of positive value to the common weal. It is my intention not to include charismatic orators or demagogues, some of whom do not have principles, substance, and conscience. Their sole interest is saying what they think their listeners want to hear. A few politicians fit into this category. In the United States, some are only interested in only one thing: getting reelected by any means whatsoever. This will enable them to continue living the good life serving the public (on the public dole with fantastic retirement benefits). This kind of leadership is not the kind I refer to in this book.

I feel I have an obligation to share some of the experiences during my years as a sailor aboard small boats, a 295-foot square-rigged ship and a 311-foot Coast Guard cutter—experiences which positively affected my life and the lives of others. The purpose of this book is to fulfill that obligation. From short pleasant afternoon sails to racing dinghies and small boats, to making three-week and longer ocean passages, it has helped me live through the vicissitudes of life.

During long ocean passages, I experienced beautiful sunny weather, favorable winds, calm seas when everything seemed to be going right. I’ve seen brilliant sunsets, sometimes with green flashes and spectacular sunrises. I’ve watched the moon as it passes through all of its phases, waxing, waning, and waxing again. Awestruck, I’ve watched huge schools of dolphins surround us almost as far as the eye could see. I’ve seen amazingly clear nights when I could read a book by the light of the moon, witnessed satellites as they glide through the heavens, and watched shooting stars streak across the sky, sometimes brilliantly lighting up the night as they came to a fiery end and exploded.

I have also experienced days when everything went wrong: the engine didn’t work, a sudden squall arose out of nowhere and ripped a sail before we could bring it in. The winds and waves delayed our forward progress toward the destination. I’ve stood watches at the helm when it was cold and wet. But then, a couple of days later, everything turned around, and the skies were blue again. Being only a few feet above the surface of the vast ocean with no land in sight, in good and bad times, I’ve developed a close relationship with nature. Making long passages on a small boat is the perfect metaphor for the ups and downs through the layered rites of passage, no matter what age. For example, follow the development of Huckleberry Fin and his true friend, Jim, as they drifted down the Mississippi River.

Men and women who love sailing small boats as an avocation in general can be divided into three categories: (1) Those individuals who live to compete in sailboat races and thrive on the adrenaline rush that comes with trying to outmaneuver competing boats by trimming the sails just perfectly to achieve a tenth of a knot greater speed. After the race is over, sails furled, and the racing yachts tied up in their berths, skippers and crew members alike gather around the Clubhouse bar and enjoy a cool beer or two while they share stories about a slight wind shift here or a zephyr there (see Gary Jobson’s book, An American Sailing Story).

An example of a person like this is Ted Turner whose yacht-racing career speaks for itself. From 1970 through 1979, he won one gold and four silver medals, skippering international 5.5-metre boats. In 1977, as skipper of the twelve-meter yacht, COURAGEOUS, he successfully defended the America’s Cup against the Australian challenger by four races to zero. And finally, on corrected time, the TENACIOUS, owned and skippered by Turner, won the tragically infamous Fastnet Race of 1979 when fifteen people lost their lives due to a severe storm in the Celtic Sea. This highly competitive drive helped Turner become an international media mogul, a successful entrepreneur, the largest landowner in the United States, and a dedicated environmentalist.

(2) Then there are those who prefer day sailing and enjoy getting away, for a short time, from the stress of a normal day’s work. These folks just want to get out on the water for a peaceful sail where there are no telephones, no stop-and-go traffic; they can enjoy the fresh air and partake in pleasant conversations and heartwarming camaraderie. A relaxing sail for a short time in the afternoon can also be very satisfying. The experience is similar but more stimulating than sitting on a couch in front of a flickering fire as the coals glow and flames lick the back of the hearth.

And finally, (3) there are those who spend weeks, months, or even years cruising the world, i.e., blue-water sailors. These sailors are a radically different type of person compared to the highly competitive individuals. There are two perfect and well-known representatives of this who are easygoing, patient, go with the flow, and love the sea: in the 1890s, Joshua Slocum and his thirty-six-foot yawl/sloop, SPRAY, was the first person to sail solo around the world; and in the 1930s, 40s, and 50s, Irving and Electra Johnson and their two YANKEEs. They were pioneers of small craft blue water sailing around the world, weathering violent storms, and sometimes facing dangerous situations in faraway pirate-infested seas.

I was extremely fortunate and able to experience all three types of sailing. As a cadet (class of 1955) at the United States Coast Guard Academy (USCGA) in New London, Connecticut, and captain of the sailing team, my first-class (senior) year, I raced dinghies and had my share of wins, losses, temper tantrums, and adrenaline rushes. I’ve also taken good friends and new acquaintances out for a relaxing afternoon sail on Lake Michigan and the ocean. Bracing one’s self at the bow of a pitching sailboat with a brisk breeze and cool spray stinging one’s face or watching the stem cut through the waves while dolphins zigzagged back and forth only a few feet below, it is both therapeutic and conducive to developing a close and intimate relationship with nature and one’s self. And finally, I’ve experienced the personal satisfaction of making landfalls at low coral atolls such as Rangiroa, only a few feet above sea level, or high rugged volcanic islands such as Tahiti. After days or weeks of cruising the wide-open sea, sighting land far off on the horizon is an unforgettable thrill.

A part-time sailor most of my life and especially as a mature adult, blue-water cruising suited my personality best. Furthermore, with each passage, I have added something valuable to our culture and my soul. While at the USCGA, the most enjoyable part of the year (for me anyway) was the summer cadet cruises to Europe and back aboard the 295-foot barque (three masts, two of them square rigged), the United States Coast Guard cutter (USCGC) EAGLE. Being the cadet officer of the deck and in charge of ship operations was especially satisfying.

After making a number of long ocean passages on two small sailboats as well as a tall ship, I have often observed positive changes in the character and personality of shipmates and even myself. For younger folks in their teens and even mature adults in the fifties, the change may not be immediately apparent until weeks, months, or even years later. Additionally, especially on small boats, individuals develop a more personal, intimate, and realistic relationship with nature.

I must give thanks to my indulgent parents, Dorothy and Edward Carus. They were responsible for making it possible to live my dream. When I was twelve years old, they purchased the necessary accessories to convert an Old Town heavy canoe into a sailing canoe. When I expressed a strong desire to have a real sailboat, they helped me acquire a 15.7-foot sailboat with the condition that I took full responsibility for its maintenance and care. Later, when I just turned nineteen, my parents reluctantly let me take a leave of absence after two years at the University of Chicago, and I hitchhiked (no interstate highways in 1948) to New York City in search of myself and a real job as a deckhand on a yacht going someplace, no matter where.

I would be remiss not to mention a few of the people who voluntarily became crew members at various times during my sailing years right from the beginning. When I was twelve years old and my family bought a sailing canoe, I was too small to carry the heavy eighteen-foot canvas-covered wooden Old Town canoe from the bottom of the bluff across the wide sandy beach to the water’s edge of Lake Michigan by myself. In order to launch the canoe, I recruited my cousin, Steven Carus, who was only a few months younger than me. He volunteered to help carry the canoe across the beach and be my crew with the tacit understanding that I would listen to his imaginative adventure stories of monsters and men of lore. Steven was my regular crew for the next few summers.

When I was fifteen, I was the proud owner of the FAIRMAID, a 15.7-foot full-keel sailboat designed by Nat Herreshoff. In the spring of 1945, while I was caulking and painting the hull of my newly acquired Bullseye, along came a curious boy only a few months older than me. After a short conversation, Jon Repke began helping me sand and paint the wooden hull of the FAIRMAID for the summer sailing season on Lake Michigan. In return for helping, I promised to take him sailing in all kinds of weather and wind conditions. For the next three years, he was my primary crew member. His older sister, Ivis, often sailed with us.

At the United States Coast Guard Academy (USCGA) in the 1950s, fellow cadet Fred Herzberg was my crew member when I was racing dinghies on the Thames River, New London, Connecticut. He crewed for three years while I was a skipper on the USCGA sailing team. I also will never forget Captain Carl Bowman, CO of the 295-foot CG square rigged training ship, EAGLE. For some reason, he had great confidence in my ability to handle the duties as a deck officer aboard the EAGLE during the summer cadet cruises to Europe and back. More on that later.

Additionally, I have to mention sailor/friend Charlie Dogget (later lost at sea sailing solo en route Guam to O`ahu), nephew Win Carus (PhD), daughter and son, Marissa and Charles Carus, cousin John Noer (PhD), medical miracle Mark Guerin, Professor Cal Zippen (University of California), son-in-law Geoffrey Green—all of whom were important crew members on a number of blue-water trans Pacific passages aboard the AEOLUS between 1980 and 2002. In the summer of 1981, entomologist Bob Love and marine biologist Jennifer Stoll from the Oakland California Museum of Natural History were participants of AEOLUS’s first scientific expedition to California’s Northern Channel Islands. I must also mention entomologist Steve Montgomery, botanist/sailor/surfer Steve Perlman and cinematographer/sailor Sean Travis, both of whom were key crew members aboard the AEOLUS during a number of scientific expeditions (from 1982 through 1997) around the Hawai`i Islands, the Marquesas Archipelago, and French Polynesia in the South Pacific.

Last but not least, I have to thank my patient and understanding wife, Sui-Ping Carus. I proposed to her as we were hiking around Starved Rock State Park, Utica, Illinois. We stopped in the middle of a short rustic bridge crossing a small creek flowing into the Illinois River. It was a beautiful day in the fall of 1960. The leaves of the maple tree were starting to turn brilliant red. When I proposed, I told her that someday we were going to buy a sailboat large enough to cruise the Pacific Ocean. Without hesitation, she accepted, and we were married November 20, 1960, in the Grace Cathedral atop Nob Hill, San Francisco.

Finally, I must give credit to Sy Sohmer, PhD, botany (former Director of Research, Bishop Museum in Hawai`i, and former director of the Botanical Research Institute of Texas) who urged me to write this book about the relationship between sailing and character development. Without the constant prodding from Sy, I would never have finished this project.

Part 2

Blue Water Sailor

Chapter 2.1

Preparing

The Beginning

Although I was born and raised in a Midwestern agricultural, mining, and manufacturing community, sailing the Pacific Ocean had been one of my recurring dreams as an adolescent and a burning passion as a young adult. I can’t explain why, but ever since I was ten years old, I was fascinated by boats, especially sailboats, and the stories about adventurers visiting romantic and remote islands in the south seas or sailing around the world. I had visions of beautiful young naked Polynesian ladies with firm voluptuous figures, long black hair, smooth bronze skin, and shining dark eyes swimming out to my boat anchored in a remote lagoon and climbing aboard. Strangely, no one else in my immediate family had the slightest inclination for sailing or long-distance cruising.

As a ten-year-old (and youngest of five siblings), my mother constantly encouraged her children to read books of any kind, and if that meant reading adventure stories about life at sea, so be it. One of the first books I tackled on this subject was written by Captain Joshua Slocum who single-handedly circumnavigated the globe in a thirty-six-foot gaff-rigged sloop/yawl, the SPRAY, no engine, from 1895 to 1898. Nowadays, more than a hundred years after that record-breaking voyage, hundreds of yachts are making blue-water passages in all the oceans. And I’m sure that every one of the sailors on board those yachts have read or heard of Captain Slocum’s adventure story, Sailing Alone Around the World. I would put Richard Henry Dana’s Two Years Before the Mast in the same category. These two books are still classics, two of the best books written about long-distance voyages on sailing ships.

Back story. After a very successful career founding (1858) and managing the Mathieson & Hegeler Zinc Company (M & H) in La Salle, Illinois, my great-grandfather, Edward C. Hegeler, and his son-in-law, Paul Carus, author of over fifty books on philosophy, religion, science, and related subjects, built their summer home in 1906 on a bluff overlooking Lake Michigan. The cottage was located in Higman Park, an exclusive residential subdivision of Benton Harbor, Michigan. Adjacent to Benton Harbor was Berrien Springs County Seat, St. Joseph, which straddled the mouth of the St. Joseph River. Benton Harbor and St. Joseph are often called Twin Cities.

At various times in the transportation history of North America and the United States, this area in Michigan played an important role. Long before it was settled by whites, The mouth of the St. Joseph River was a key point in the history of Amerindian travel and commerce strategically situated on the water route between the Great Lakes and the Mississippi River.

From the late seventeenth century to early nineteenth century, several rivers were an important link for the Voyageurs who traveled by canoe from the Great Lakes to the Mississippi River and New Orleans. From Lake Michigan, they would paddle upstream on the St. Joseph River to a point where they could carry their canoes a short distance over land (the continental divide between rivers flowing into the Atlantic Ocean and those flowing to the Gulf of Mexico) near the town of Portage (Indiana) to the Kankakee River. From there, the traders would go downstream to the mouth of the Kankakee River where it joins the Des Plaines River. The junction of the two small rivers form the Illinois River, which flows into the Mississippi River, a short distance above St. Louis, and they paddle their canoes all the way down to New Orleans.

Much later, toward the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth, St. Joseph and the village across the river, Benton Harbor, continued to prosper. Fresh fruit, lumber, and other agricultural products were shipped from the twin cities to rapidly developing Chicago sixty miles southwest across Lake Michigan. In the early twentieth century, Edward C. Hegeler and his son-in-law, Paul Carus, kept a small motorboat in a little cove of the Paw Paw River where it flowed into the St. Joseph River not far from their Higman Park home. They enjoyed taking notable visitors from all over the world on afternoon cruises and picnics on Lake Michigan and the St. Joseph River. As a child, I saw a few photos of the motorboat. The large cottage on the shore of Lake Michigan is still owned by members of the Carus family.

When I was twelve years old, I began reading books on seamanship. With the help of The Boatman’s Manual, just published by W. W. Norton in 1942, I taught myself how to tie the basic nautical knots and hitches, such as the bowline, square and thief’s knots, a rolling hitch, clove hitch, Turk’s head, etc. I studied about the care/setting/trimming of sails and small boat handling in general. I also enjoyed visiting the local Coast Guard Station at the mouth of the St. Joseph River. I enjoyed gazing at the small white Coast Guard boats designed to handle rough seas and rescue sailors from foundering fishing boats and yachts.

Sailing Canoe

During WWII, my parents bought an eighteen-foot heavy canvas covered wooden Old Town canoe based on the design of the Amerindian birch bark canoes. The canoe was also fitted with a pair of dagger boards, one on each side, a rudder at the stern, and a single lateen sail, like those of Arab dhows or Mediterranean feluccas. It was not the ideal boat for learning how to sail; in the wrong hands, a canoe swamps and capsizes easily, but in the right hands, it is safe, practical and fast. In fact, these characteristics made it an excellent boat for a careful and dedicated beginning sailor.

During the next three summers, I never once had an accident. The bushes at the bottom of a seventy-five-foot high bluff in front of the family’s cottage were ideal for keeping a canoe where it was readily available to the lake and also well hidden from people walking along the beach. My cousin, Steven Carus, helped carry the heavy boat from the foot of the bluff fifty feet to the water’s edge. Not only was he my sailing companion, but he also provided the ballast as necessary to prevent the canoe from capsizing. Whenever the weather was favorable, Steven and I enjoyed a day’s sail.

After mastering the basics, one of the important things I learned was how to prepare for a day on the lake in a sailing canoe. After determining the direction of the wind, I figured it would be best to start out sailing upwind or against the wind first so it would be easy to return when it was time to come home. In terms of character development, I learned how to look ahead, reduce, or avoid the risks of trouble in the future. Later, I discovered much to my surprise that many anthropologists found it difficult to believe that the Polynesians of the South Pacific (the Society Islands, etc.) initially came from Malaysia, the Philippines, or Taiwan and populated the islands to the east of their original home. Between the fourth and tenth centuries, they sailed as far east as Easter Island, 2,182 miles west of central Chile, South America. Many anthropologists questioned the capability of those stone age people using double canoes could sail against the wind for such long distances. If a twelve-year old boy could figure which direction to start out for cruise, certainly, the Polynesians also could have figured that out.

At thirteen, in preparation for the day, I would make a long-distance cruise in my own boat. I taught myself the International Morse Code and studied basic radio and vacuum tube theory—no silicon chips in those days—and telecommunications technology. Even though it was still wartime, I was determined to take the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) examination to acquire an Amateur Radio Operator and Station Licenses. Much to my pleasant surprise, I passed the tests, and the first call letters assigned to me were W9PJQ.

AQUILA

Starting in the late summer of 1943, my brother Blouke, who was two years older than me, and I purchased detailed plans describing how to build a seventeen-foot motorboat. We found a suitable place in a heated family automobile garage where we could put the necessary power tools, store the lumber and other supplies, and work during the cold months of winter. We were eager to get started on the project as soon as possible. I remember that right away we learned that we probably got into a project that was way over our heads. We were just two young teenaged boys with big dreams. I was fourteen, and my brother was sixteen. We had no experience in boat building and very little in carpentry. When we laid out the first two planks of white oak, a very hard wood, we tried to screw them together to form the keel (the backbone of all boats and ships). No matter how hard we tried to screw them together with brass screws, we couldn’t even penetrate the surface of the oak, let alone drive the screws into both planks. What a horrible surprise! We learned that with very hard wood like white oak, it was necessary to first drill the proper sized hole and then screw the two planks together. This was going to be more difficult than we originally thought. Anyway, we persevered and continued working on the boat after school and during the weekends. We didn’t have a band saw, only a bench saw. Nevertheless, we struggled and finally finished the hull, installed a six-cylinder Continental motor, and attached all the necessary accessories. We named the little motor boat the AQUILA, which means eagle in English

By June of the next year, we were ready to launch the AQUILA into the Illinois River. In those days there were no nice cement launching pads, and we had to make do with a muddy bank of the river. Our aunt Libby broke a bottle of champagne on the oak stem, and slowly we lowered the boat down the slope into the river. The AQUILA didn’t sink, and we were able to drive it around like any other powerboat. What a thrill!

In the summer of 1943, after some mechanical difficulties, we drove the boat up the Illinois River through five sets of locks and two canals into Lake Michigan at Gary Indiana. Luckily there was no storm, and we finally drove our prize following the southeast shore of the lake to St. Joseph, Michigan. Finally, we had to sell the AQUILA early fall of that year. For the next year during the summer, I continued sailing the canoe on Lake Michigan with my cousin Steven.

FAIRMAID

When I was fifteen, as WWII was winding down, my parents bought a half share in the FAIRMAID, a real sailboat. The Nat Herrschoff designed Bullseye is a 15.7-foot sloop (mains’l and jib) with a 5.8-foot beam, 750-pound lead ballast, and an open cockpit. Despite the short length, it was a bona fide keel boat with room for about five or six people in the large cockpit. It had to be hauled out in the fall, usually before the end of October, for outdoor storage over the winter when the St. Joseph river and the lake freeze over. Six months later, in April or May, the FAIRMAID needed to be prepared for the summer sailing season. Winters are not easy on wooden boats. Before the FAIRMAID could be launched into the water, the hull usually needed to be caulked, sanded, and painted. The running and standing rigging also had to be checked and replaced where necessary.

The next spring, while I was working on the boat, a boy about my age came by and offered to help with the sanding and painting—with the tacit understanding, of course, that I would take him out sailing. No problem. I was delighted to have Jon Repke as my new sailing crew and companion. We have kept in contact ever since for some seventy years. His older sister, Ivis, often sailed with us.

By the middle of May, we launched the FAIRMAID and kept it at the St. Joseph Yacht Club buoy anchored in the harbor. Back in those days, there were no floating docks like there are now.

After the end of World War II, I read about Jacques Cousteau and how he and his friends developed an underwater breathing apparatus or aqualung, as it was called then. As soon as similar diving equipment became commercially available in the United States, I purchased the basic Self-Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus (SCUBA) items: high pressure air tank, backpack to hold the tank, pressure regulator, mask, and snorkel. At that time, there were no diving schools, no safety rules, no buoyancy compensators, no compressed air-filling stations, and no one in Michigan heard or knew anything about SCUBA diving. The only place where one could fill a tank with 1,500 pounds/square inch compressed air was at hospitals.

Many years later, I still remember that first dive in the shallow water about a hundred yards off the beach near the family cottage on Lake Michigan. I donned the SCUBA gear and was actually able to stay and swim underwater for thirty minutes or more. What a thrill! It was a new sensation; no gravity, one could go up and down with the greatest of ease and swim like a fish, or fly like a bird. Even though the only thing I could see was the desert-like sandy bottom of the lake, I was smitten. Being able to dive and stay underwater for an extended period of time was one more safety factor which would come in handy when I would have my own cruising sailboat.

Around 1947/48, for the next two summers, Jon and I often took our friends and relatives out into