Excerpt from Second Wind, by Nathaniel Philbrick. Published by arrangement with Penguin Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright (c) 2018 by Nathaniel Philbrick.

On Friday, April 23, Bruce Perry, a friend who was the administrator of the Conservation Commission on Nantucket, called to tell me the town was opening Sesachacha Pond that day. All winter he’d heard me talking about my dream of one day sailing “through the cut.” As it turned out, we were scheduled to have dinner with Bruce and his family that night, and since he planned to watch the cut’s completion that afternoon, he said he’d tell me about it in the evening.

Bruce and family lived in what’s called an upside-down house (bedrooms downstairs, living room and dining room upstairs) overlooking Long Pond in Madaket on the western end of the island. It was the perfect place to hear about a pond opening. Apparently, Sesachacha had been at a record high, so when the cut was finally completed, it had come roaring out in a way that dwarfed the relative trickle I had seen in October. Bruce recounted how fish and even eels were caught up in the rush of water that had quickly carved out an opening the size of a small river. If anything, it should be even bigger by the next afternoon when I planned to go sailing.

“But, Nat,” Bruce cautioned, “it’s nothing to fool around with. There’s an awful lot of power in that pond. And once you’re out there in the ocean, you’re gone.”

That evening, during the drive back into town, I promised Melissa that I was more curious than I was determined to sail through the cut. I just wanted to take a look. And, to be truthful, Bruce’s words had a sobering effect. I wasn’t going to go dashing out there like the Lone Ranger. I didn’t want to wreck my boat or drown myself. I really didn’t.

I spent Saturday morning in the Nantucket Atheneum, the town library. The building, particularly in the wing where the archives were stored, had a Miss Havisham feel to it, as though it were still suspended in a time that the world had long since passed by. Although a spectacular and much-needed renovation project has given the building a whole new ambiance, that morning in the spring of 1993, as I read my way through a stack of ancient letters, I felt as if I too were a kind of artifact blanketed with dust.

By the time I set out for Sesachacha around 1 in the afternoon, I was anxious to wash off the past and rejoin the present. Melissa, the kids and Molly were in the car with me. The plan was this: They’d help me with the boat on the southern end of the pond, then drive over to the other side, where they’d walk the quarter mile or so to the cut. The subject of my sailing through the cut was studiously avoided.

When we pulled up to the launch ramp, the pond seemed higher than ever. In the distance, we could see the backhoe over on the barrier beach, but from our perspective it looked as though the cut might have closed in overnight — at least that was the claim of an elderly gentleman who’d brought his two dogs for a walk along the pond’s edge. “I tell ya,” he said, “they should let the old-timers do this kind of thing. These scientific guys don’t know what the hell they’re doin’ when it comes to pond openings.”

I was reserving judgment. Appearances, particularly when you’re looking at a distant beach, can be deceiving.

The breeze was moderate out of the southwest with plenty of peppy puffs. Soon I was sailing on a beam reach toward where the cut, if there was one, should be. I passed a father and his son fishing in a motorboat. As I entered the midsection of the pond, I saw that Melissa, the kids and Molly had parked and were now walking along the pond’s edge toward the ocean. I waved, but they were too far away to notice.

It was then I realized that there was a cut. It was wider than I would ever have imagined — maybe 30 to 50 feet. A virtual torrent of water was rushing through the opening, a white-water river that must have been close to an eighth of a mile long as it curved out toward the sea and collided with the ocean’s surf in a distant intermingling of brown and blue waters. I now knew what Bruce had meant when he had spoken of the pond’s power, a power that showed no signs of waning more than 24 hours after it had first been tapped.

Someone was standing on the northern edge of the pond cut. After watching me for a while, he waved and called out to me. It was Bruce. The question was how to get close enough to speak to him without being immediately sucked out to sea.

I approached cautiously from the north, where a sandbar had been formed by the turbulence at the cut’s opening.

“Bruce!” I shouted. “What do you think?” “Don’t do it! The current is really ripping!”

I decided to sail past the pond opening just to give it a look. Although I could feel the current grab my boat, torquing it seaward with a trembling, atavistic lurch, the cut wasn’t the all-consuming portal to destruction that I had first assumed it would be. There was enough of a breeze to let me flirt along the opening’s edge without losing myself to the current.

The cut was wide. There was plenty of space for me to sail through it, even with my sail all the way out. It also looked fairly deep. I did notice, however, quite a bit of wave action at the end of the cut. In fact, it looked like a sandbar had formed out there. Even if I did make it through the cut alive, how in God’s name was I ever going to sail back to the pond? But still, the opening beckoned.

Suddenly I was filled with a desire to just close my eyes and ­surrender myself to the flow. Meanwhile, Melissa and company were gradually making their way along the beach. Should I wait for them? If I did, I might lose my nerve.

I tacked and began to bear away toward the cut.

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DekkerA

Okay, maybe I should have learned my lesson with the last one. “All Is Lost,” despite rave reviews from film critics (who turn out to know nothing about sailing), did not turn out to be a movie that sailors “could truly love.” Instead, it turned out to be a movie that required serial and epic suspension of (sailing knowledge-generated) disbelief. Whether it was the apparently motorized shipping container, the apparently motorized lifeboat, the inexplicable lack of an EPIRB, the preference for shaving over storm preparation (go here for an excellent and devastating list), All Is Lost turned out to be a movie sailors could truly hate. Hell, it didn’t even get Robert Redford his expected Academy Award nomination (I didn’t realize there might be an Oscar for grunting, grimacing, staring into space, and making stupid decisions).

So after that spectacular #FAIL, as my kids like to say (frequently), I should probably get out of the sailing film prognostication business. But I am always so hopeful, scanning the horizon in search of a sailing film that might really be good. So sue me (I mean that figuratively, of course) because the next great filmic prospect to catch my attention is drawing nigh. It’s called MAIDENTRIP, and it’s a documentary that chronicles the sublime and spirited circumnavigation of young Laura Dekker (which I wrote about here).

If you are not familiar with Dekker’s story of youthful ambition and escape, you can review it here. It’s a great story, which of course is the first requirement of a good film. Director Jillian Schlesinger talks here about how she came to make the film, and how she went about it. It wasn’t easy, Schlesinger notes:

“Most of the creative and logistical challenges were really exciting, like the challenge making a film about something unfolding as it’s being documented and happening largely outside of your presence and outside of your control. It required a lot of trust—trust in Laura, in other collaborators, in the universe.”

In fact, while Schlesinger and her film crew could turn up whenever Dekker touched terra firma, the most critical moments–when the sea is vast and the emotions run high–were filmed when Dekker was alone. So in a very real sense, Dekker made this film. She chose when to turn the camera on, when to turn it off. What to say, what not to say. What to share, what to keep tight within herself. And to the extent that the film is a reflection of Dekker’s personality, it will be a film that draws the viewer into the world of a preternaturally mature teenager who somehow realized the importance of seeking meaning and adventure in life while still young, instead of burning out on the material world and then going in search of distant horizons on creaky knees and diminished physical capacity.

Dekker set off with such determination, with such a profound belief in what she was meant to doing on this planet, and a total lack of ego (cough, cough, Abby Sunderland), that it’s hard not to find her story both charming and inspirational. If the film manages to convey any her ideals and her refreshing counter-conventional take on what matters in life, it’ll be worth seeing (and I’ll certainly plan to take my kids; screening schedule here).

This time I have confidence that the sailing elements of the film will both be correct and familiar. After all, Dekker got around the world’s oceans with aplomb and style (though apparently she’s not totally happy with the film). We all yearn (some more often than others) to cast off our mooring lines and set out into the unknown, immersing ourselves in the physical forces of nature, and leaving the stresses and demands of the artificial human world behind. Make a film about someone doing that in a sailboat, especially a charismatic teen who is wise way beyond her years, and that’s a film I will love. I think. I hope.

If not, I guess I’ll have to go out and make my own damn sailing movie.

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Sail On

Have you ever thought about how your mindset on the racecourse can translate into your everyday life? How a leadership role on the water can also have a place in your office? Or how the relationships with your skipper or crew can mirror relationships on shore?

These deeper questions are explored in a recently published book of aphorisms by Melissa Deveney, called Sail On: Insights About Life and Leadership From Wind and Water. Deveney, who was an All-American crew and two-time national champion at St. Mary’s, takes the age-old Chinese wisdom of philosopher Lao Tzu and puts it through the lens of competitive sailing. What results is 81 short chapters that are applicable on the racecourse and in the “real world.”

In the introduction, which sets the stage for the book and explains her motivation, Deveney writes, “I enjoy randomly flipping through the pages of this book until one stops under my thumb. More often than not, I find the chapter I randomly selected is very applicable to a current situation I am dancing with at work or on the bay.”

And while the book can be a fast read at 100 pages, the slower I went and the more time I took to read each word, the more fully I could consider each thought. Here’s one that stood out to me (from page 58):

Celebrate small victories
And you will find contentment.
Curse your mistakes
And you will find much displeasure.

There is freedom in this choice.
Sailing is a process
Not a product.

Now, take a minute to soak it in. Do you need to remember this on the racecourse? Is this already part of your on-the-water attitude? How about off the water?

Each time you pick up this book, you’ll find something new to learn and explore.

Sail On ($14.20) is available on amazon.com.

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All is Lost

“All is Lost,” opens in select theaters on October 18. The movie follows Robert Redford’s abandonment of his 39-foot sailboat at sea. Here‘s where you can see it:

CALIFORNIA
Los Angeles – AMC Century City
Los Angeles – Arclight Hollywood
Los Angeles – The Landmark

NEW YORK
New York – AMC Lincoln Square
New York – Angelika Film Center
New York – Cinemas 1, 2, 3

The movie will open nationwide on Oct. 25.

From the production notes:

With their one-man cast in place, the producers sat down with the list of necessities for shooting the film. At the very top: a handful of sailboats, and a place to sink them. As it turned out, shooting the story of one man and his boat actually required three boats—specifically, three 39-foot Cal yachts. While all of them serve as Our Man’s sailboat, the Virginia Jean, each of the three boats was used for a separate purpose: One was for open sea sailing and exterior scenes, another was for the tight interior shots, and the third was for special effects.

Finding three similar boats proved to be a challenge, however, says production designer John Goldsmith, whose previous credits include No Country for Old Men and The Last Samurai. “We scouted them at different times and purchased them in different ports. They all had to be imported, which was a logistical exercise in itself. I think we were two weeks into prep before all three were side by side, ready for us to work on.”

Once they had them, the filmmakers put the boats through their paces—and then some. “We did pretty much everything that you can do to a boat on film,” Chandor says. “We sunk it, brought it back to life, sailed it, then put it through a massive storm, flipped it over, and sunk it again. I think it’s paramount to have a pretty deep understanding of the way these boats work, the way they sail and sink, as well as all of the different kinds of sailing elements we use to help move the story along.”

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All is Lost

**** Are Robert Redford and filmmaker J.C. Chandor about to upend history and deliver a sailing movie, called “All Is Lost“, that sailors can truly love?

**
**

If so, it would be a nice surprise. The reality is that Hollywood has never made it a mission to gratify and thrill the small subsegment of the American population known as sailors. Deal with it.

Yes, we’ve had “Wind.” It was fun, and nice to see our sport featured. But it was full of totally predictable (and not very flattering) caricatures, and sailing scenes which definitely required a full suspension of disbelief. Yawn.

And we’ve seen “Master And Commander“, which was pretty decent, and sorta authentic, but not quite great (I’m not sure why, sorry).

I can come up with at least one great sailing movie, “Deep Water“, featuring the fascinating and tragic final voyage of Donald Crowhurst. But it was a documentary, not Major Hollywood, and naturally didn’t quite bring the glitz, recognition, hipness, and cultural acceptance that all sailors crave deep down.

In fact, for my money, the best sailing movie wasn’t even about sailing. It was about a scary, crazy dude, and bumbling Sam Neill being heroic and determined, and a young Nicole Kidman being, well, a young Nicole Kidman. It was called “Dead Calm“, and it had a really sweet yacht as a co-star.

So here we are, a century into the magic of moving pictures, and we have yet to experience a movie that really nails the reality of humanity’s experience of venturing across wide oceans on small craft. But I am hoping “All Is Lost”, which will premiere next month, might change that.

First off, it’s got Robert Redford, who is crossing from craggy into creaky, but is still a mega-marquee Hollywood star. The movie features Redford as a solo sailor who hits a container and then must battle for his life. And Redford, who apparently acts the hell out of the role without saying hardly anything at all, is getting rave reviews.

Just as important, man and small boat against the sea (and large sneaker containers) is a timeless, resonant theme. It is at the heart of every voyage, It is the core appeal of every voyage. And that seems to be the only story that Redford and Chandor want to tell. No side stories, no frippery, no distractions. Just a simple, yet primal, struggle between sailor and death.

Filmed in the massive water tank built for “Titanic”, if “All Is Lost” can pull the sailing audience into that struggle without any jarring, lubberly mistakes (okay, Redford apparently has no working EPIRB, but hey, it could happen!), then they might just win the title of greatest sailing movie ever. Or at least so far. And the early reaction from critics is off the charts.

Even so, the always-hopeful sailing community has repeatedly been burned by Hollywood’s penchant for backwinded jibs, yachts sailing across windless seas, and clunky, nautical dialogue, so skepticism is in order. As an antidote, however, I offer the “All Is Lost” trailer. If it does not touch the sailor in you, then all is truly lost.

>>Read production notes from the making of “All is Lost”

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Of the cameras we tested—GE’s DV1, GoPro’s Hero, Drift’s 170 Stealth, Contour’s HD, and SailPro’s Onboard Camera—each weighs next to nothing and delivers crisp footage, stored on an SD or mini SD memory card. The cameras are either waterproof (GE, SailPro) or come with a waterproof case (GoPro, Contour, Drift).

The differences are in the lenses, the user interfaces, and the mounting options. Cameras with a wide-angle lens (GoPro, Drift, Contour, SailPro) can provide a broad view of what’s happening on and around your boat. Those with detailed LCD screens (GE, Drift) are the most intuitive to operate, since you can scroll through menus with multi-directional keypads, switch between still and video mode, and review your footage. On models without built-in LCD screens (GoPro, Contour, SailPro), testers found it hard to tell whether the camera was recording.

When choosing a camera, consider the type of boat(s) you’ll be sailing, and where you’ll mount the device. In our experience, the most practical location for mounting a camera on a keelboat is the stern pulpit, where it can capture all the action. No stern rail? SailPro makes customized stern mounts. The GoPro, Drift, Contour, and SailPro cameras came with several mounting accessories. The GoPro mounts attach to the camera housing with a system of thumb screws and clips, which worked fine until we lost a screw overboard. Over time, we came to appreciate cameras with a tripod tripod socket (GE, Drift, and on Contour’s waterproof case), which allows more flexibility with mounting accessories.

Of all the cameras in our test, the GE DV1 is the easiest to use. Don’t bother reading the manual; just turn on this Blackberry-shaped gadget and use your intuition—and the multidirectional keypad—to select your desired resolution, toggle between video and 5-megapixel camera mode, and review your footage. A flip-out USB connector lets you charge the device and download videos directly to your computer, or you can power up via the supplied AC adapter and access images from the SD card itself. One convenient feature of this shockproof, waterproof camcorder is the standard, 1/4-inch tripod socket, which gives you unlimited mounting options. The DV1’s main drawback is its narrow field of view.

The GoPro Hero is the most compact camera we found, and it’s no wonder this model is so popular with racers: the image quality is excellent, the wide-angle lens captures all the action on deck, and its waterproof housing can handle even the roughest, wettest conditions. But the absence of a detailed LCD screen means you need to study the manual, otherwise you’ll have a hard time knowing whether you’re in photo or video mode, or whether you’re even recording at all.

As its name implies, the Sail Pro Onboard Camera is built for sailing, combining a lightweight, waterproof, bullet-shaped camera body with stern mounts designed specifically for the Laser, Optimist, Finn, 420, and 470. The carbon-fiber wand provides a coach-boat perspective and stays free of spray—and the mainsheet. The 170-degree, fisheye lens allows you to see the entire boat, distortion-free, and you can see yourself, too, even when fully hiked. One drawback is the difficulty of determining whether the camera is recording. Press the button once, and a green light appears. Hold it down again, and there’s a subtle sound signal and a red light starts flashing. Problem is, the green and red lights are hard to see in bright sunlight.

The Drift HD170 Stealth has all the features we want in an onboard camera: the LCD screen and multi-directional buttons make it simple and worry-free to operate, the 170-degree lens provides a wide-angle view and delivers high-quality footage, and the rotating lens and universal mount let you attach the device to your boat in creative ways. The remote control comes in handy, eliminating trips to the camera in order to start recording. A minor flaw is that it’s not easy to slip the camera inside the waterproof case. The company recently launched a smaller version, the Drift HD.

We put the Contour HD through a workout, strapping it to the booms of a Laser and Sunfish. With its waterproof case, it’s practically indestructible.

Using the supplied software, you can connect to the camera’s preferences and tinker with the resolution (there are four available; a switch on the back of the camera allows you to toggle between any two while filming), adjust the microphone sensitivity, and change the exposure.

The microphone is all but useless when the camera is inside the waterproof case. The lights indicating the state of the camera (on, recording, error, etc.) are tough to see in sunlight, especially, for example,when mounted to the end of your boom. The camera does beep when it changes status, but the alerts can be inaudible when it’s windy and the camera is in its case.

The video quality is crisp, and the shape of the camera makes it easy to mount and unlikely to interfere with your sailing. Since we began our test, Contour has discontinued the HD and launched the upgraded ROAM, which is waterproof to 3 feet without the case.

Looking for more information? Check out Michael Lovett’s tips for mounting options and video file storage.

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Video Camera Extra

1. A reality of shooting video is managing the volume of data you’ll soon accumulate. Recording a day of racing, you’ll easily fill a 32-gigabyte SD memory card, and at that rate, it won’t take long to fill your computer’s hard drive. We found that, for archiving purposes, it makes sense to move video files to an external hard drive. Should you gather the courage to share your videos on YouTube—or in SW’s member video gallery ()—take mercy on your audience and trim your footage using editing software like iMovie.

2. Be extra careful with your GoPro mounts. Although the company offers excellent accessories for mounting the Hero on head, helmet, chest, suction-cup, tripod, or handlebars/railings, all of these options attach to the waterproof housing with a GoPro-specific, multi-part, thumb-screw system, which poses a problem when you drop a critical screw into the drink the first day out…

3. The most versatile mount we found is Clamper Jr. ($40, www.promaster.com), a miniature tripod that transforms into a dependable clamp with rubberized, locking jaws. You could also splurge for a self-leveling hydraulic mount by Horizon True ($450, www.horizontrue.com).

4. Before you hit the water, make sure your camera’s battery is charged and its memory card empty. (Duh.)

5. Unless you’re planning to sell your footage to Hollywood, skip the 1080p resolution and shoot in 960p mode, which saves memory and, on some cameras (Drift, GoPro), enables the full use of wide-angle lenses. Even if you shoot in 1080p, you’ll probably end up scaling back the resolution when uploading the YouTube, etc.

6. Depending on your setup, you may want to start recording before leaving the dock, but you’ll conserve battery life and memory space by waiting until the starting sequence begins. Once the camera’s rolling, leave it alone and focus on your race. After a few hours, the battery will die, or the memory will hit capacity, and you’ll have a permanent document of your race. Whether you share it with the masses, or wipe it from memory, is up to you.

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GUAntiPirate368

If you spend all your time on the water trying to win sailboat races, you’re missing out on much of the fun to be had. That’s what I took from David Seidman and Jeff Hemmel’s new book, “The Anti-Pirate Potato Cannon: And 101 Other Things for Young Mariners to Build, Try & Do on the Water.” The 250-page guide serves as both a waterman’s bucket list and a refresher course in basic seamanship. On every page, you’ll find a fun idea try on a boat or at the beach, a nautical-themed factoid (Did you know Dr. Alexander Graham Bell designed the first boat to hit 70 mph?), or a kernel of know-how you lost along the way.

Targeting the book at children and their parents, Seidman and Hemmel give the quick and dirty on all sorts of water-based pastimes—not just sailing, but fishing, canoeing, kayaking, rowing, waterskiing, wakeboarding, crabbing, clamming, etc. They explain how to host a proper beach clambake (don’t forget the layer of seaweed), how to clean and filet a fish, how to waterski barefoot. As someone who’s muddled along for too long with only the most basic seamanship skills, I appreciated the passages on how to eye splice a line and how to mend a sail with the herringbone stitch.

If you have kids, a boat, or a beach house, “The Anti-Pirate Potato Cannon” is an invaluable resource for staving off boredom towards the end of vacation week. Even if you don’t have any of those things, this book has something for you. The passage on skipping stones will make you a champion on your next camping trip. The tutorial on how to fend off a shark might save your bacon someday. Shooting off the titular potato cannon—PVC + hair spray = heavy artillery!—could land you in jail in some states, but the spectacle is probably worth the consequences. Just tell the judge you were doing it for the kids.

$24.95, www.mcgraw-hill.com

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