A SEA STORY.........

It was a beautiful day in Newport harbor when a crew member and I backed my 82' schooner out of her dock and started hoisting the 5 working sails. Not a breath of wind was blowing and I knew that the 8 port lights, only about two feet above the water line were open. We were going to drift down wind towards the harbor entrance and let some newspaper reporters take some pictures and write a story about charter boats in our area. As we neared what I call the turning basin at the end of Lido island I noted that a little breeze was starting to come up and decided to tack back up the bay. Shearwater was starting to heel over a bit on the port tack we were on so I told my deckhand to go below and close the port lights. We held a port tack to John Wayne's house and then came about onto a starboard tack. The wind had increased and we were really starting to heel. I told my mate to drop the top'sail and as he was going forward to man the peak halyard I yelled at him, "you did close the port lights on both sides of the boat didn't you?" From him there was a loud "oh shit" and he scurried below deck. A couple of minutes later he was back on deck telling me that the main saloon carpets were floating and that two of the state rooms were soaked. Totally unbelievable I thought, you can't depend on anyone. Luckily the bilge water was just below the starter on the big Detroit diesel so I was able to start the engine, and get the electric bilge pump and the engine driven emergency pump going and started pumping Shearwater out. Had I not questioned my deckhand about closing the port lights, there's a good chance that if we had taken a couple of more tacks we could have sunken my lovely schooner in Newport bay. The reporters were great about the incident and left our near sinking out of their article about charter boats in Newport harbor. Shearwater is alive and well in New York harbor doing day charters out of a marina in the financial district. Several years ago Donald Trump chartered her as a prize for one of the winning teams on his show. Five of my friends called me and told me Shearwater was on TV. I just happened to be watching the program and totally enjoyed seeing Shearwater looking the lovely lady that she is.....