By David Roper
For Points East

Part I: I introduce eight Gulf of Maine sailors who will go below decks in a 31-foot sailboat on a minus-7 degree day with a giant jug of rum and spin their yarns.

It's 10 o'clock at night, January 5, 2004 and -7 degrees F outside as I hurriedly flip open a corner of the canvas tent covering the Elsa Marie's cockpit. There is very little spring to her as I step aboard and I know she's mostly frozen in. Scrunching under the canvas covering the cockpit, my back hits the tarp and causes a mini avalanche, pouring snow down under my coat and shirt, which slides down my bare back. It all causes me to move too quickly, and I slip on the dusting of snow that's blown in onto the varnished teak grate on the cockpit sole. I land in a lump in my cockpit well.

	Photo courtesy Dave Roper
	The author peers out from under the canvas of Elsa Marie.

On the outer edge of my mind, I'm already thinking I'll freeze to death if I don't get below. At the forefront of my mind, though, is the dreaded Sesame lock, a temperamental sentry that secures the hatch boards and blocks my entrance into the cabin. I know from experience that it may or may not be frozen solid. Through thick rag-sock mittens, I fumble with the tumblers, carefully moving the last one up just one notch, which I know should be the right combination. No good. I'm really shivering now. A line from "To Build a Fire" - Jack London's classic Yukon story where the central character slowly freezes to death - pops into my mind: "It certainly is cold, the man thought."

I pull the little Mag Lite out of my coat and shine its weak beam on the tumbler numbers of the lock. They're correct. I blow hot breath on them. I pull again. Frozen. In desperation, I grab a winch handle and bash the lock. It opens. I enter the 11-plus degree "warmth" of the cabin. It's even darker down below as both hatches and all six bronze ports are blocked with wind-packed snow. I grab the Mag Lite again and point its weakening glow toward the hook, where I know I'll find the butane lighter to light the cabin heater.

As I fumble with the heater valve with one mittened hand, I pull the trigger on the lighter with the other, and suddenly the most wonderful orange glow springs to life. I bow over the heater as if it's a shrine, palms out, just above the burner. After a few minutes I look around. I shine the light in the bilge. Ice. I explore further. All 24 bottles of spring water are now cylindrical ice blocks, useful only as mini barbells. I try to light the lamps. The paraffin in all five gimbaled lamps has solidified, rendering them useless. I check the thru-hulls. Frozen solid. I light two candles and return to worship the heater.

I listen to the frozen world. My 25-year-old sloop is groaning with each gust of icy, 45-knot northwest wind. Ice is rubbing up and down the windward side of the hull, making an eerie half lapping, half scraping sound, like some hungry ice monster trying to climb up the starboard side. I actually scare myself with that thought. So I decide on some music for distraction, but the plastic lid on the CD player breaks when I lift it. Suddenly, I feel really stupid.

"You're an idiot," I say aloud. "You're safe and sound in Pickering Wharf, Salem, Massachusetts, one of the best-protected marinas on the East Coast, with overlapping wharves, buildings surrounding you, some giant white shrink-wrapped 50-foot Pacemaker protecting your windward side like a shiny vinyl iceberg, and a warm restaurant just 60 feet away."

A shot of rum warms me further, and I begin to relax. I turn on the VHF weather station and listen to the buoy reports in the Gulf of Maine. Isle of Shoals: northwest winds gusting to 50, 12-foot breaking seas, air temperature minus 11 degree F, water temperature 37 degrees. I try to image what it would be like out there in a 31-foot sloop like Elsa Marie. What would happen if I tried to sail to Maine right now? What spot, situation, moment, slippage, breakage, physical or mental meltdown would be my undoing? If I wrote fiction, I'd make it happen. Surely it would make a great sea story.

Another shot of rum warms my stomach and prompts initial thoughts on story line: Sam, a love-struck young man who lives a romantic existence on a boat in a marina in Salem, Massachusetts, is jilted by his true love, a woman who lives in Portland, Maine. Some comment she made that cold January night by cell phone ("You're spineless, SamÉwe're doneÉyou just don't have what it takesÉ") hurts him to the core. He pours his fourth shot of rum. He must see her. But he has no car.

But he does have a boat. And, goddammit, he does have Ôwhat it takes,' so he'll just sail to Portland in this storm, this very night, and show her what he's made of. And so begins a string of seeming small actions that, cumulatively, lead to catastrophe." What a sea story!

Anyway, all this gets me to thinking about the dwindling flow of new sea stories. Mostly, they used to come about because sailors got lost, or because sailors got caught out at sea in a storm they didn't know was coming, or because the stresses on their wooden hulls caused life-threatening leaks, or because they had no means to call for help. Now, with a $99 GPS, we know where we are within 50 feet. For more money and a device such as a Blackberry, we can get, via the Internet, the current weather conditions surrounding us and real-time weather changes as well as highly accurate forecasts.

And, unless one has real thru-hull issues, today's predominantly fiberglass boats don't threaten to sink. And even if they do, a quick cell-phone call and a credit card can get you a Towboat US or even a helicopter if you've really screwed up. In fact, it seems that the only sea stories we've had in the last five years have come from those globe-girdling, extreme racers who intentionally are out there and intentionally are pushing all limits.

A particularly strong gust belts Elsa Marie hard, flickering the candles on the saloon table. I look around at my now cozy cabin. The candles give a nice glow to the all-teak interior, the brass lamps, and even the old photo of our family's former Atkin cutter Phyllis, built in 1938. I look hard at the framed photo of Phyllis. "Now, you'd have some stories to tell from that era," I say aloud. And that's when the idea comes to me. That's when the Middle Aged Men Tell Sea Stories Annual Luncheon is born.

***

It was time to round up the usual suspects, so I sent this invitation to the seven middle aged men whom I knew still had some real sea stories left in them:



You are Hereby Invited to the First Annual Middle-Aged Men Tell Sea Stories in the Cabin of a Frozen Sailboat in the Middle of the Winter Annual Luncheon

Location: Elsa Marie's cabin, Pickering Wharf, Salem, Massachusetts

Date: January 17, noon to tbd

Provisions: Heat (limited), Cheap rum*, and even cheaper sandwiches (provided by host)

* Note: please bring your own extra libation to help resupply when we inevitably run out, to help fortify you against the cold and to provide you with the courage to render grossly exaggerated Gulf of Maine sea stories when it's your turn.

And remember what Tristan Jones probably would have said:

Never let the truth get in the way of a good sea story.

No Regrets Accepted

No known form of bad weather will cause cancellation or even delay of this historic event.

***

The rogues' gallery that responded and their vessels:



Dave - The host (yours truly): former Mississippi River pilot, boat delivery skipper, yacht captain, English teacher, funeral home assistant embalmer, and freelance writer. Gulf of Maine sailing experience: since 1964. Former vessel: Chang Ho (25-foot Cape Dory; numerous overnight offshore adventures from Marblehead to Maine, as far east as Cutler). Current vessel and host ship: the Elsa Marie, an Independence 31 sloop.



Bryan - Former Pennsylvania farm boy and web designer who discovered the Gulf of Maine 20 years ago as if he'd found the Holy Grail; obsessed with cruising Maine ever since. Former vessel: Short Cotton, an ancient 22-foot Sailmaster sloop with some serious flotation issues and no business ever being as far out in the Gulf of Maine from her home port of Salem as she got. Current vessel: Opus 2, a lovely, double-ended, highly seaworthy 26-foot Morris Frances cutter.

Charlie - Successful executive used to doing things right. This self-described "skilled, cautious, and capable skipper" and Gulf of Maine cruiser from Hingham, Massachusetts couldn't control the weather gods and almost lost it all one night in Biddeford Pool aboard his brand new, fully equipped Sabre 40.

Grampy - Father of host: retired forever, sharp as a tack, deaf as a stone, and well beyond middle-aged (will turn 89 in May) but invited based on sheer volume of internalized Gulf of Maine sea stories. Has cruised the Gulf of Maine for 60 years, mostly on Phyllis. Current (and last) boat: 20-foot Shamrock named Coda (musical term meaning "final passage"); continues to cruise on his sons' boats. Current stories: numerous pre-GPS lost-in-the-fog adventures with which today's 21st-century yuppies will no doubt be unable to relate.

Chris - Middle son of Grampy and older brother of your host: former school teacher (survived 30-plus years of 8th graders with only loss of hearing, not mind), Gulf of Maine cruiser for more than 30 years. Current vessel: Luders 33 named Scarabee (named after the Japanese dung beetle). Story highlight: under way, weathering a 45-knot northeast gale off midcoast Maine with only Grampy (see above) aboard, who could hear neither the wind nor Chris' pleas for help.

Spencer - CEO and shrink: veteran sailor and Maine cruiser. Current vessel: Catalina 36; prior vessels included: Tartan 34 and a 28-foot Eldridge McGinnis Samurai, in which he was dismasted at sea, which required his full CEO and mental powers to figure out how to hitch a ride home.

Quin - Boatbuilder/woodworker. Lifelong Maine cruiser who spent 10 years building his 28-foot wooden, engineless Rozinante yawl, then set sail from his home port of Marblehead bound for midcoast Maine with only his two children, ages 3 and 6, as crew.

Skip - Footwear salesman; older brother of both your host and Chris (see above). Owns the world's only remaining power vessel without a GPS. But his boat is equipped with a compass that vibrates around in a circle while under way, giving 360 different course readings to choose from per rotation, and turning many of Skip's "routine" boating events into great adventures. Skip's fog navigational stories: priceless.



As a 17-year-old, Dave Roper cruised alone for 38 days on a 23-foot sloop, and, lost most of the time, he accrued his first sea stories. He lives in Marblehead, Mass., with his wife and two teenagers and cruises the Maine coast on Elsa Marie, his 31-foot Independence sloop. Stay tuned for Part Two - "The Party" - and the first sea story in the March issue of Points East.