A Woman's Guide to the Sailing Lifestyle

One spring day a friend from work named Tom invited me to go sailing. It was a sunny, warm Saturday when I drove from Keene in southwestern New Hampshire to a marina on Great Bay and the Piscataqua River in the eastern part of the state. I was in high spirits. I had never been sailing before and knew absolutely nothing about boats. But I was ready for an adventure. I found Tom working on what seemed to me to be a large sailboat. It was named Trull II, and he told me it was a 25-foot Cape Dory which I later discovered was a kind of a boat, much like a Ford is a kind of a car. I lent a hand with the cleaning until it was time for us to go out into the river. At that point I learned that we were going to take the boat down the Piscataqua River to Portsmouth Harbor and then into a small inlet named Pepperrell Cove where Tom had a permanent place for the boat. I cheerfully readied myself for the trip, grabbing my light jacket and a few other things from my car. Tom started an outboard engine that sat in a well at the back of the boat and cast off the ropes that bound Trull II to the docks. He steered by moving a tiller which looked like a stick located in the center of the cockpit. We went into the river where a strong current made the water churn and froth. (I later learned that the Piscataqua River is the third fastest navigable river in the world.) We struck out toward green and red cans that stood in the middle of a curve in the river in front of a large bridge. Tom explained that we had to go between the two cans because that was where the channel lay. The green can should be on our right side, the starboard side, and the red one should be on our left side, the port side. I silently tried to absorb as much information as I could, not wanting to seem the novice I was. Trull II chugged along valiantly through the turbulent waters. We passed between the cans toward the tall Memorial Bridge which soared above us when we went under it. I was having a wonderful time. The breeze was fresh; the water was a grey-blue; and the wooded shores revealed secluded homes every once in a while. Tom and I chatted about his boat and his personal sailing history. I learned that he had first sailed in New Orleans when he was in graduate school. He fell in love with the sport immediately, and since then he had experimented with increasingly large boats until he purchased Trull II. All of a sudden the engine sputtered and stopped. Tom turned to it quickly and tried to restart it, but he failed. The boat began to slide with the current toward the side of the river. I was so ignorant that I did not realize we were in a dangerous situation. Also, Tom disguised his concern quite well, so I just sat there saying nothing, not wanting to distract him from dealing with the crisis. Then the boat crashed against something hard, and I was thrown on the floor of the cockpit. I quickly clambered to my feet and regained my seat as Tom cursed and said we were on the rocks. It certainly sounded like we were bumping against something. I peered over the side of the boat but could see nothing. I asked in a concerned way if they would damage the boat. Tom did not answer as he grabbed his radio and called, “May-day.” At this I became somewhat alarmed because may-day calls in the movies usually signaled something like the Titanic going down. I began to look around for a life preserver because I couldn’t swim. Tom silently went down into the small cramped cabin and checked beneath the floor boards. He announced that we did not seem to be taking on any water and seemed to be relieved, so I relaxed somewhat. Off in the distance I saw what I thought was a cute, little, red tug boat coming toward us. Its powerful engine moved it along rapidly and before too long its captain pulled it along side of us. Tom and he exchanged information and then secured Trull II to the tug’s side after sandwiching rubber fenders between the two boats. However, the current was too strong, and it pushed the tug boat onto the rocks. Soon our two linked boats were bouncing up and down on the rocks with their captains both cursing in unison. The tug boat captain, who had his long blond hair pulled back in a pony tail, got on the radio and sent out another may-day. While we waited, Tom broke out a bottle of wine, filled plastic cups, and passed them around. The tug captain asked why I was so quiet and if I were afraid. In all truthfulness I answered that I was not. I was just trying to stay out of the way. A powerboat appeared. The tug and powerboat captains conferred. Then a complicated maneuver took place. I found it hard to follow, but it resulted in springing both the tug and the sailboat free. The tug boat proceeded to lead us back to the marina where Tom tied the boat back on the dock. Thus began a twenty-five year adventure that involved learning a lot of new things, taking risks, being uncomfortable and even afraid from time-to-time, and experiencing a whole new world I never knew even existed: the world of the New England Sailing Lifestyle.