Peter Bourke - Sea Trials: A Lone Sailors Race Toward Home

This is a brilliant book.

JOHN KRETSCHMER
Author Sailing a Serious Ocean and At the Mercy of the Sea

Sailing, like all sport in its purest form, is meant to be a metaphor for life. Through Sea Trials Peter Bourke takes us on an adventure, not only singlehanded across the North Atlantic, but more importantly on a journey through one mans life. The elegantly crafted and artfully worded story offers us a view into the triumphs, difficulties, and foibles Bourke has faced, and through those anecdotes we see shadows of ourselves and some of the issues weve faced in our own experiences. Sailing is the vehicle upon which the larger cargo of life is conveyed. Page by page, Sea Trials is truly a treasure.

BILL BIEWENGA

Copyright 2014 by International Marine/McGraw-Hill Education. All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the United States Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced or distributed in any form or by any means, or stored in a data base or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher. The name International Marine and all associated logos are trademarks of McGraw-Hill Education. The publisher takes no responsibility for the use of any of the materials or methods described in this book, nor for the products thereof.

ISBN: 978-0-07-182196-4

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For Amy and Steven

B ill, with whom Ive just crossed the Atlantic, secures his seabag and turns to me. Remember, he says, all you need to finish the race are a hull and a sail. He knows that equipment problems will play a role in the event, as they always do in ocean races, and hes using his last minutes before heading to the airport to remind me that some perseverance may well be required. Mike, our third crewmember on the just-completed passage, is already ashore exploring Plymouth before catching a train to London.

The race in question is the 2009 OSTAR (Original Singlehanded Trans-Atlantic Race), which goes back to 1960. Its a romp across the North Atlantic, with the start in Plymouth Sound on the southwest coast of England and the finish in Narragansett Bay, just outside Newport Harbor on the coast of Rhode Island. The starting gun is scheduled to fire in seven days.

It is exciting to be here, but I cant help feeling that Im an imposter in a major-league lineup whos about to be found out. Unfortunately, there is a factual basis for this view as Ive been sailing for only about ten years, and many of those had little sailing in them. Two years after losing Gail, my wife of seventeen years, I enrolled in a learn-to-sail course. Six months later I bought my first boat, a lightly used and lovely sloop with the wonderful name Steadfast. A few years later I said goodbye to Steadfast and bought Rubicon, a strong, fast, and beautiful sea boat.

I have a sense now of what I was searching for when I took up sailing, but at the time I simply knew that I needed a boat, only dimly aware that I was on a voyage of exploration, a quest for an open passage to the other side of loss. But it was OK because I justified the purchase as the perfect vacation home to enjoy with my young children. The boat was indeed that, before it became the portal to an earlier dream of ocean passagemaking. I embraced the evolution, believing that such sailing would clear my mind, rejuvenate my spirit, and allow me to be a better parent. That was my story then, and Ive always stuck to it.

Those events are now a decade ago and an ocean away. Rubicon, my Outbound 44, lies sparkling in the bright light of morning, looking refreshed from her transatlantic passage. She is secured to the dock in front of the Royal Western Yacht Club in Plymouth, England, a five-minute walk from the old stone steps trod by the pilgrims as they embarked on a new life in a new world. Beyond the many boats clustered in the marina rests the broad expanse of Plymouth Harbor, said to be the finest harbor in western Europe. It is the harbor where Drakes fleet sailed with the tide for its rendezvous with the Spanish Armada, and the harbor where American and British troopships weighed anchor and pointed their bows toward Normandy. Arriving at first light, I felt the sense of history that is a part of the atmosphere in places where world events have turned. Its just a sailboat race, but I am conscious of being the only American on this years roster. Thirty-one sailors are scheduled to make the start, in boats ranging from a fast 50-foot trimaran to strong cruising boats such as