A true story about fear, and overcoming it (sort of ).
Sailing has always been a bit of a romantic dream for me. Ever since I was a paperboy delivering the Washington Post and watching the constellations move through their seasons in the early morning darkness, I’ve thought about what a timeless experience it would be to sail and navigate by the stars. So perhaps it should have been no surprise to me when—twenty years later— I decided sailing around the world, or at least some large body of water, was something that interested me. I shared this idea recently with my wife and she agreed it sounded adventurous and exciting, as did our kids. The only trouble was I had only been sailing once (it was an intestinal disaster), my wife had never sailed ever and I don't think our kids even knew people still even sailed. Stumped. So I stowed this dream, tucked it away and every time I was out at night and could see the stars I would gently be reminded of this notion of sailing.
Perhaps a little back story could shed some light on the matter. I have two sailing influences in my life: one, my grandfather (who never actually sailed) and, two, my uncle who sailed with the merchant marines.
My uncle first. His name is Heikki Pietella. A good Finnish name. My mother is from Finland. As a child we would visit him and my grandmother in their two bedroom apartment north of Helsinki. When I was two years old Heikki was a merchant marine: one of those guys that drive massive cargo ships around the world carrying the imports and exports of various nations. So one day, while on one of these massive cargo ships, a large anchor was being pulled up by it's massive chain. As the chain pulled up the anchor the chain gathered around a large spool on the deck of the ship. To this day I still don’t know why or how (Heikki doesn’t speak English and I don’t speak Finnish), but his leg got caught in between the chain and the spool. Apparently the pain was so great that he went into shock and didn’t actually feel much of anything. But when he woke up from the surgery he had lost his leg above the knee.
So fast forward a few years. Heikki has a prosthetic leg and can walk with a cane. My older sister and I, being the loving neice and nephew that we are, would amuse ourselves during our summer visits by hiding his fake leg and making him look for it. We thought this was great fun. Heikki would return the favor by allowing us—once he found it—to watch him put on his leg. This usually involved him wiping down the end of his leg-stump with a wet wipe and then wriggling it in such a way as to totally gross us out and send us away squealing. That always gave him a good laugh.
So that’s one sailor in my life. The other, my grandfather, was actually more of a shipbuilder. He was actually a fine art painter who worked as a municipal fireman (also in Finland) to pay the bills and then had free time to paint. Once he retired from the city fire department, he had a modest pension on which he could live inexpensively in the dairy barn he’d purchased out in the country and converted into a painting studio. He had a kitchen on one end with a hand pump for water, his bedroom on the other end and the entire mid section was a painting studio complete with sky lights over head to let in more natural light. So where does the sailor part come in? That was out in the yard.
The big picture plan was to sail the boat to the southern coast of Spain, where he hoped to spend winters painting as he got older. And, of course, he always added that he would see what he could do to sail across the Atlantic so he could visit us in the U.S. We were flattered.
This ultimately never happened. I don’t pretend to know all the reasons why, although, maybe the whole land-locked thing had something to do with it. But what I do know is that my sisters and I spent hours and hours playing pirates on that rusting mutt of a ship having the time of our lives. And I also know that, although my grandfather never did sail there on his ship, he died in Spain where he was able to happily paint and paint well into the sunset years of his life.
Now fast forward twenty years. I’m married, Emily and I have five kids and we live a humble life on the northern end of Manhattan. All of a sudden dad—me—is saying, “Hey, kids, what do you think about sailing around the world?” Blank stares and silence. Okay. At this particular time I happen to be working at the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, which comes with great views of the Statue of Liberty, New York Harbor and the North Cove Marina. It’s all very posh: mega-yachts with mini-helicopters and jet skis loaded on the back, classic tall ships brought in from Annapolis and Cape Cod for corporate events and charters and stripped down World Cup racing boats rearing for another record setting trans-Atlantic crossing. Wedged in between all this poshness is the cool, but not quite as posh Manhattan Sailing School with two dozen or so twenty-four foot single hull boats and a floating house boat for a classroom and office.
We’ve lived in New York for almost ten years now, so it’s been a while since I’ve seen the stars with any regularity, but each afternoon when I head outside for a break and a bite to eat, I see this small fleet of twenty-four foot boats flailing, careening and occassionaly cruising back and forth in the Hudson River. It’s all so beautiful: full white sails, fresh blue skies and vibrant red hulls all combining to create some idyllic picture out of a Land's End catalogue. Working in the financial district, but not necessarily being one of the big-buck-earning financial guys, I’m a bit intimidated by the whole thing. But I’m still drawn to it. (I want to be in a Land’s End catalogue too!) So I get up enough courage and gumption to visit the website I see painted on the house boat floating in the marina that is – The Manhattan Sailing School. I check it out. Pretty interesting. Beginning lessons are either five evenings or a Friday night and all day Saturday and Sunday. Up to four people per boat. About $600 per person if you have a group of four. Not cheap, but you don’t have to be an investment banker to do it. Okay.
A couple more afternoons of boat-envy and I now have the nerve to go out onto said house-boat and ask the crucial question for the next step in my journey toward seamanship: “Do you have a brochure I could look at?”
“Sure. Here.”
“Thanks.”
“See you later.”
I’d done it! I’d set foot on the house boat, spoken to somebody wearing the official red polo shirt and white shorts and now had in my hand an official sailing school brochure. After careful examiniation I concluded that it contained the exact same information as the website. I felt very validated. My due diligence was paying off. My confidence was growing.
I discussed it with my wife and we decided that—if we were really going to sail around the world as a family—that it was probably most important for me and her to know how to sail. The kids would have to wait. (All ships have a pecking order.) So with that decision made, the next challenge became scheduling. I worked 4pm to midnight and my weekends were already booked with other obligations, so the currently scheduled classes were not going to work. Great! I was going to have to stick my neck out even further to make my timeless, universal sailing dream happen. A quick email to the school confirmed my worst fear. The response read, “If you can get a group of four together, we can schedule a special session for you. Best, Dockmaster.”
“Dockmaster”? Wow. That sounded official. Plus all the obstacles I thought would prevent me from realizing my ludicrous dream of sailing around the world were falling like flies. Poshness, cost, scheduling...all surmountable? Great! I might actually have to go through with this. I was learning that it can actually be hard to get what you want.
To complicate matters further, a few months earlier I’d just been hired by a previous employer to do some contract work at their mid-town office, so my days were now busy in midtown and evenings I was busy downtown. (I did have a wife and five kids to house, clothe and feed, so I did it.) That said, it would help pay for the sailing class tuition. However, the only time now available for a sailing class was Friday from 12pm-3pm. (I'd left myself some breathing room on Mondays and Fridays.) How was I supposed to find two more people that would want to sail from 12-3pm on Fridays? Whomever we found wold not just have to be available (I have plenty of out-of-work actor friends I could call) but they also had to be able to pay the tution. The more people the lower the tuition, so I was motivated. I asked my co-workers. No dice. I asked friends (working friends). Nope. I didn’t have the guts to recruit strangers from Craig’s list. (If I was going to get sea sick and make a fool of myself, it was going to be in front of people who would never let me forget it, so strangers were out.) Who else?.. Then it occurred to me. Our kids. It would cost more since I would be paying tuition for all of us, but we’d still get the group discount and we’d be much closer to having a trained crew for our transorbital voyage. Were they game? Yes, they were. How did I know? Because they said so.
So that’s one sailor in my life. The other, my grandfather, was actually more of a shipbuilder. He was actually a fine art painter who worked as a municipal fireman (also in Finland) to pay the bills and then had free time to paint. Once he retired from the city fire department, he had a modest pension on which he could live inexpensively in the dairy barn he’d purchased out in the country and converted into a painting studio. He had a kitchen on one end with a hand pump for water, his bedroom on the other end and the entire mid section was a painting studio complete with sky lights over head to let in more natural light. So where does the sailor part come in? That was out in the yard.
When we would visit in the summers, one of my favorite pass times was to play pirates on the ship my grandfather was building in the field next to his barn. It had a steel hull about forty feet long and stood about eighteen feet tall with a large cabin on top. The back part of the cabin was made from a cut down bread truck and was welded to the front part which was a Volkswagen bus. The whole project, of course, was set-up in a field with the nearest ocean over 100 kilometers away.
The big picture plan was to sail the boat to the southern coast of Spain, where he hoped to spend winters painting as he got older. And, of course, he always added that he would see what he could do to sail across the Atlantic so he could visit us in the U.S. We were flattered.
This ultimately never happened. I don’t pretend to know all the reasons why, although, maybe the whole land-locked thing had something to do with it. But what I do know is that my sisters and I spent hours and hours playing pirates on that rusting mutt of a ship having the time of our lives. And I also know that, although my grandfather never did sail there on his ship, he died in Spain where he was able to happily paint and paint well into the sunset years of his life.
So that is the background on my sailing influences: my one legged merchant marine uncle and my “if you build it they will come” ship building grandfather. (It has just occurred to me that, if we’d given Heikki a peg leg, an eye patch and a parrot on his shoulder and stood on the bow of his dad’s boat in the middle of the field, we’d have a pretty rockin’ pirate ship photo op. And I’m sure Heikki would have been totally game.) But enough of that for now. I think you get the idea that, despite coming from a very checkered lineage of nautical prowess, I consider myself to be a pretty run of the mill guy who, despite having some Scandinavian heritage, has no claim to any substantial maritime privilege.
Now fast forward twenty years. I’m married, Emily and I have five kids and we live a humble life on the northern end of Manhattan. All of a sudden dad—me—is saying, “Hey, kids, what do you think about sailing around the world?” Blank stares and silence. Okay. At this particular time I happen to be working at the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan, which comes with great views of the Statue of Liberty, New York Harbor and the North Cove Marina. It’s all very posh: mega-yachts with mini-helicopters and jet skis loaded on the back, classic tall ships brought in from Annapolis and Cape Cod for corporate events and charters and stripped down World Cup racing boats rearing for another record setting trans-Atlantic crossing. Wedged in between all this poshness is the cool, but not quite as posh Manhattan Sailing School with two dozen or so twenty-four foot single hull boats and a floating house boat for a classroom and office.
We’ve lived in New York for almost ten years now, so it’s been a while since I’ve seen the stars with any regularity, but each afternoon when I head outside for a break and a bite to eat, I see this small fleet of twenty-four foot boats flailing, careening and occassionaly cruising back and forth in the Hudson River. It’s all so beautiful: full white sails, fresh blue skies and vibrant red hulls all combining to create some idyllic picture out of a Land's End catalogue. Working in the financial district, but not necessarily being one of the big-buck-earning financial guys, I’m a bit intimidated by the whole thing. But I’m still drawn to it. (I want to be in a Land’s End catalogue too!) So I get up enough courage and gumption to visit the website I see painted on the house boat floating in the marina that is – The Manhattan Sailing School. I check it out. Pretty interesting. Beginning lessons are either five evenings or a Friday night and all day Saturday and Sunday. Up to four people per boat. About $600 per person if you have a group of four. Not cheap, but you don’t have to be an investment banker to do it. Okay.
A couple more afternoons of boat-envy and I now have the nerve to go out onto said house-boat and ask the crucial question for the next step in my journey toward seamanship: “Do you have a brochure I could look at?”
“Sure. Here.”
“Thanks.”
“See you later.”
I’d done it! I’d set foot on the house boat, spoken to somebody wearing the official red polo shirt and white shorts and now had in my hand an official sailing school brochure. After careful examiniation I concluded that it contained the exact same information as the website. I felt very validated. My due diligence was paying off. My confidence was growing.
I discussed it with my wife and we decided that—if we were really going to sail around the world as a family—that it was probably most important for me and her to know how to sail. The kids would have to wait. (All ships have a pecking order.) So with that decision made, the next challenge became scheduling. I worked 4pm to midnight and my weekends were already booked with other obligations, so the currently scheduled classes were not going to work. Great! I was going to have to stick my neck out even further to make my timeless, universal sailing dream happen. A quick email to the school confirmed my worst fear. The response read, “If you can get a group of four together, we can schedule a special session for you. Best, Dockmaster.”
“Dockmaster”? Wow. That sounded official. Plus all the obstacles I thought would prevent me from realizing my ludicrous dream of sailing around the world were falling like flies. Poshness, cost, scheduling...all surmountable? Great! I might actually have to go through with this. I was learning that it can actually be hard to get what you want.
To complicate matters further, a few months earlier I’d just been hired by a previous employer to do some contract work at their mid-town office, so my days were now busy in midtown and evenings I was busy downtown. (I did have a wife and five kids to house, clothe and feed, so I did it.) That said, it would help pay for the sailing class tuition. However, the only time now available for a sailing class was Friday from 12pm-3pm. (I'd left myself some breathing room on Mondays and Fridays.) How was I supposed to find two more people that would want to sail from 12-3pm on Fridays? Whomever we found wold not just have to be available (I have plenty of out-of-work actor friends I could call) but they also had to be able to pay the tution. The more people the lower the tuition, so I was motivated. I asked my co-workers. No dice. I asked friends (working friends). Nope. I didn’t have the guts to recruit strangers from Craig’s list. (If I was going to get sea sick and make a fool of myself, it was going to be in front of people who would never let me forget it, so strangers were out.) Who else?.. Then it occurred to me. Our kids. It would cost more since I would be paying tuition for all of us, but we’d still get the group discount and we’d be much closer to having a trained crew for our transorbital voyage. Were they game? Yes, they were. How did I know? Because they said so.
"Kids, do you want to take sailing lessons?"
"Yes."
Dang it! Everything was falling into place.
We were all lined up: time, place, people. All I had to do was type in my credit card number and hit “submit” on the Sailing School’s website, and we’d be all set. Why was this step so hard? Was it because it was well over two grand for sailing lessons? Yep. On top of that we’d have to pay for babysitting for our younger three kids. That wasn’t going to make it any cheaper. But how was I ever going to sail like the Egyptians, the Vikings and the European explorers if I didn’t take this step? How was I ever going to learn to harness the wind, traverse the watery world’s expanse and cause the celestial stars to lead me home if I didn’t cross this threshold? I’d come so far: the internet, the house boat, the brochure, the emails, the scheduling, the recruiting. Now here I was, on the fulcrum of choice. I could cower and fall away, never knowing what it would mean to be a man of the sea, or I could “submit” and take the next step. I clicked the button. The deed was done. My ship had launched.
To be continued...
We were all lined up: time, place, people. All I had to do was type in my credit card number and hit “submit” on the Sailing School’s website, and we’d be all set. Why was this step so hard? Was it because it was well over two grand for sailing lessons? Yep. On top of that we’d have to pay for babysitting for our younger three kids. That wasn’t going to make it any cheaper. But how was I ever going to sail like the Egyptians, the Vikings and the European explorers if I didn’t take this step? How was I ever going to learn to harness the wind, traverse the watery world’s expanse and cause the celestial stars to lead me home if I didn’t cross this threshold? I’d come so far: the internet, the house boat, the brochure, the emails, the scheduling, the recruiting. Now here I was, on the fulcrum of choice. I could cower and fall away, never knowing what it would mean to be a man of the sea, or I could “submit” and take the next step. I clicked the button. The deed was done. My ship had launched.
To be continued...
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