I was in the galley preparing lunch, thankful for the gentle heel to port. Six plates stacked with my famous quesadillas, and a large bowl of sliced apples and bananas, were staying put on the counter.
After more than 20 years of sailing my Kaufman 47, Quetzal, through just about every condition imaginable, I can sense her mood in my ankles. We were moving nicely but were not overpowered. It was breezy, so we had two reefs in the main, a tuck in the genoa, and the full staysail drawing smartly. Earlier, as we had trimmed for this sweet reach, I’d boasted to the crew how nice it was to sail fast and flat with small, balanced sails and minimal drama.
I was ready to pass the plates and fruit up to the cockpit when I heard an odd bang to starboard.
Then the shouting began.
I flew to the companionway and saw wide eyes in the cockpit. I pivoted and looked forward. It took a moment to comprehend what had happened.
Then the earth stopped spinning. The clamor went silent in my head.
The mast had buckled just below the lower spreaders. The broken section, still connected to the standing part of the mast, was dangling off the port side. My beautiful boat looked like an albatross with a shattered wing.
Staring at the crumpled spar and mangled sails, I was more dazed than distressed. I was also surprised that I had not sensed it coming. I noticed the starboard upper shroud and sheered chainplate flailing in the wind. Apparently, my first words were, “That’s not good.” In my subconscious, I blamed the bananas.
We had to act quickly but calmly. I spoke quietly, steeling my nerves.
“Is everybody OK?”
Everyone was, although we were in a state of disbelief.
“We are going to be fine,” I said—and I meant it. We were not in imminent danger. It was clear that the hull, at least at that moment, was intact. We were not taking on water.
“We have to work together to cut away the rigging and sails, and see if we can get the broken section over the side,” I said. “Then we can motor back. Be careful because the mast might break loose at any moment.”
I knew that I had a good crew. It had been a week’s passage from Tenerife in the Canary Islands to Sal, the easternmost of the Cape Verde Islands. Tim and Sarona, Russ, Peter and Tom had signed aboard for this 1,000-mile offshore training passage. They’d been hoping for strong winds and maybe an adventure.
Running before lively trade winds, they had learned the nuances of flying the whisker pole in big seas, along with techniques for reefing the main off the wind. On the final sail of the passage, what should have been a nice, 24-hour reach from Sal to the port of Mindelo on Sao Vicente, they’d found their adventure.
From the moment the mast broke, everyone reacted with resolve. No one panicked. I knew that we were lucky. We were just a few miles offshore. Our dear friends Nathan and Vivian, and crew aboard their 47-foot sloop, Ultima, were less than a mile away and standing by to help. We had sailed together from the Tenerife.
As with most emergencies, coping with a dismasting requires on-the-job training. We quickly learned that cutting away the rig on a 47-foot boat with a keel-stepped mast is nearly impossible without serious equipment. Wire cutters and hacksaws are essentially useless. Quetzal’s cap shrouds are 13 mm stainless wire, and the D-1 lowers are 14 mm. Trying to cut them at awkward angles on a pitching boat was futile.
Tom had a better idea: “Let’s loosen the turnbuckles and punch out the clevis pins.”
I agreed. “Keep looking up,” I said as Tom and Russ hurried forward. We needed to get as much of the rig overboard as possible to be able to jettison the broken section before we lost control of the situation or the weather turned ugly.
Salvaging furlers, sails and running rigging was not an option. If the broken mast began to slam into the hull, we’d have a serious problem.
Tim and Pete worked to secure the broken mast section alongside. We sacrificed cockpit cushions and fenders to protect the hull. Sarona lashed them into place.
The hours wore on. I completely underestimated the strength of our Seldén mast; the upper section was not going anywhere. Even after I managed to pound the final clevis pin out of the heavily loaded aft shroud (it exploded like a gunshot), the mast refused to part.
We needed help.
“I CAN Help YOU”
I hailed Ultima, and Nathan skillfully maneuvered downwind of us. We floated a 300-plus-foot polypropylene line with a fender. Vivian and crew plucked it out of the water and secured it.
We then began a very slow ride back to safe harbor. Nathan needed a lot of power to drag Quetzal; our underwater rig was the mother of all sea anchors.
Finally, just before midnight, Vivian released the tow line. We hauled it aboard and anchored just outside the small harbor of Palmeira. We were safe, if not sound, and collapsed into our bunks.
I was in an odd mental state. I was not devastated; I am too old to be devastated. A dismasting is a detour, not a disaster.
In the morning, I went overboard and released the pins on the head and backstays, freeing the standing rigging. We saved what we could and motored into the anchorage with the broken section still alongside.
In the chaos of the dismasting and tow, I had not allowed myself to contemplate the future. Clearly, the big one—our epic Atlantic voyage that would take Quetzal from the Arctic to the Antarctic by way of Cape Horn—seemed doomed. But I was trapped in the moment. I needed to figure out how to cut away the broken mast section. I would think about my next steps after that.
Cruising sailors always help cruising sailors. Soon, a dinghy zoomed our way. “I can help you,” the man said. “I have the tools you need, but first I need a rest. I will come by in the afternoon.”
With that, Bernard, a French sailor who lived aboard with his family, returned to his catamaran anchored nearby. A few minutes later, a local mariner came by in an overloaded skiff. I thought he was trying to sell us vegetables, and I was not in the mood to buy anything. It took me a few minutes to realize that he was trying to help. He ferried me to the small commercial port office. The port manager suggested we come alongside that afternoon, and arranged to have a crane ready.
We limped alongside the wall, and Bernard and I went aloft in a wire basket. He was not a young man, but he wielded his grinder like one. I used all my strength to steady the basket in strong winds.
The two of us flailed away at the mast for nearly two hours, but the thick alloy along the mainsail track had twisted in a way that made it difficult to cut. After upping our game to an industrial 8-inch grinder, Bernard finally managed to cut the mast free, and we lowered it to the wharf.
Quetzal returned to the anchorage. Our crews graciously adjusted their travel plans, and Bernard sailed away before I could properly thank him. Russ stayed for a few days to help work on the boat, and Nathan and Vivian took good care of me.
I was in an odd mental state. I was not devastated; I am too old to be devastated. A dismasting is a detour, not a disaster. Still, I knew that my story had changed. Seeing your life in story form, as part of an evolving narrative, keeps dramatic events in perspective. I had been reading Homer’s Odyssey—really reading it for a change, all 549 pages of Robert Fagle’s excellent translation. Staring at my battered but still beautiful boat, I wondered what Odysseus would do.
The answer, of course, is that he would press on, and so would I. A crumpled mast couldn’t compete with a creepy cyclops, swirling whirlpools and vengeful gods.
I persuaded Nathan and Vivian to sail to Mindelo. They had a transatlantic crossing to prepare for, and I didn’t. Recruiting Nathan and Vivian to be part of our sailing business was one of the best ideas from my wife, Tadji. They’re not only terrific sailors, but they also have become dear friends.
Now, from Paris, Tadji was already working on finding a solution for Quetzal. She was in contact with Mindelo-based Boat CV, which had assured her that its team could handle installing a new rig.
I checked the makeshift stays that Nathan, Russ and I had rigged to keep the 20-foot mast stump from pumping. I topped the diesel tanks, hauled aboard the dinghy, and weighed anchor. Passing the breakwater, Quetzal rolled wickedly in beam-on seas. So this is life without a mast, I mused.
A few dolphins came by to pay their respects, darting off the bow as we steamed west. I gave them a salute of gratitude. Then a few more arrived, then more, and soon the sea was alive with hundreds of dolphins gamboling alongside. Hour after hour, they paced Quetzal. I was trying hard not to see their presence in a self-absorbed anthropomorphic light, but I just couldn’t blot out the notion that they were keeping an eye on me.
We’ve got this, old man, they seemed to say. Follow us. You’ll be OK.
As the marina came into view, the swaying masts seemed like a mirage in an otherwise tawny, wind-scarred landscape. The reality seemed daunting of needing to round up a new mast, standing and running rigging, sails, and loads of other gear in this faraway land. I also wondered how I would reschedule a year’s worth of training passages that would take us all the way to Cape Horn.
It seemed overwhelming. My resolve was foundering.
MINDELO’S Magic
Cape Verde has always been one of my favorite landfalls. Cabo Verdeans call their peaceful vibe morabeza. The mix of soulful music; delicious, blended flavors from African and Portuguese cuisines; and helpful, self-reliant people make it an ideal spot to linger for a week or two before an Atlantic crossing.
But was it the place to try to rerig Quetzal? My mind buzzed with alternatives.
I could load the boat with fuel and motor 1,000 miles dead to windward back to the Canary Islands, where there were plenty of boatyards. I could seriously stay my stumpy mast, rig a makeshift square sail, and drift with the trade winds 2,000 miles across the Atlantic.
As it turned out, I just needed patience. I would soon learn that Mindelo was an ideal place to put Quetzal back together.
Quetzal moored alongside Ultima, and soon Gilson Maocha from Boat CV was aboard examining the damage. The starboard upper chainplate had failed catastrophically, and the reason was obvious: An unnecessary weld just belowdecks that secured a support plate to the chainplate channel had failed, fracturing the chainplate above it. The break was so clean that the deck was not even cracked.
“We can build new chainplates,” Gilson assured me. “It’s just a matter of getting the material. And the mast, well, we can do that too. We are waiting on a couple of new rigs right now.”
He added with a laugh: “We are kind of mast specialists. We did four last year. It’s windy here.”
His smile was reassuring.
Boat CV was founded by Kai Brossman, a German national who sailed to Cabo Verde 30 years ago and never left. Kai built the marina in Mindelo in 2007 that helped make Cabo Verde a waypoint for sailors crossing the Atlantic.
“Our problem is shipping,” Kai told me. “We can do the work, but getting the mast here, and the stainless for new chainplates, that’s the part we can’t control. It will take some time for Seldén to build the mast, and then getting it here is, well,” his voice trailed off,
“…harder to predict.”
Fortunately, I had met Jonas Gamborn a few months earlier when we’d stopped at Gothenburg, Sweden, after our northern voyage in autumn 2022. Jonas has worked for Seldén there for many years and is a vastly experienced sailor. Calm and capable, with the shade of blue eyes reserved for Swedes, he exudes quiet confidence. He’s a good man to have as a friend. Tadji suggested I call him.
“Hmm,” he said softly, “that’s a bit tough. We are currently eight to 10 weeks out on new mast builds. Seldén Holland might be the best bet. Let me see what I can do.”
Jonas called back the next day. He told me that he would personally build my mast in Gothenburg, and would start immediately if the company would permit it. He suggested that I reach out to Seldén CEO Peter Rönnbäck.
I emailed Peter, who graciously responded that he would make sure Seldén did all it could do to help. Eight days later, the two-part mast and three large crates filled with bits and pieces were loaded onto a truck bound for the port of Rotterdam. Incredible service from an incredible company.
Back in Mindelo, the crew from Nathan and Vivian’s upcoming Atlantic training passage were aboard Quetzal removing all the old chainplates. It was tedious work because all the teak trim had to be carefully cut away. At the same time, Elden and Calvin from Boat CV removed the cockpit railing that had been mangled, hauled it to the shop, repaired it, and reinstalled it the same day. It looked like new.
I was beginning to realize that the Boat CV crew was talented and incredibly hardworking.
Carnival, a wild celebration that rivals the festivities anywhere in the West Indies, helped boost my spirits as I watched Ultima sail away, bound for the Caribbean. Unfortunately, the ship carrying the new mast detoured to Lisbon before turning up in early May. Once it arrived, Gilson and his team carefully assembled the two sections.
They ran halyards, lifts, runners, antenna wires, and all the parts that make up a modern mast. The ship also carried stainless steel from Germany. Back in the shop, Elden—a wizard with a welding machine—shaped beautiful new chainplates, sans the unnecessary belowdecks plate. We stepped the mast in the commercial port with gusty 30-knot winds, then gingerly motored back to the marina to finish the job.
Bob Pingel, my best friend, flew to Mindelo and assembled two new Furlex roller furling units. He also tuned the rig. Bob has been involved with Quetzal from the beginning; he’s essentially my project manager, and our bond is unshakable.
Peter Grimm and Bob Meagher at North Sails somehow got new sails delivered to Mindelo. Not a simple task.
Less than four months from what we now call The Great Mast Disaster, Quetzal was ready to sail again.
OFF To BRAZIL
I am grateful to the various crew who adjusted their schedules time and again, and who worked with me as I rerigged Quetzal and created a new itinerary on the fly. The people who find their way aboard Quetzal for passages come from all over the world and are invariably the best of shipmates. They might start as clients, but they end as friends. The sea does that to people.
The circuitous route that I planned would test the new rig, make up for canceled passages and, finally, find us back in Cape Verde. From there, we’d head across the Atlantic to Brazil, and then keep going south. Cape Horn was back in my sights.
Alessandro, Charlie, Jorge and Greg—all Quetzal veterans—tossed their sea bags aboard, and we shoved off. Charlie, a lawyer and an artist from Louisiana, had come a few days early and helped me provision. He was surprised by how seriously I dismissed the idea of bringing bananas aboard.
We share stories, jokes and sometimes a confession. The ocean washes away any hint of hubris. bullshit just doesn’t float.
Maybe I hadn’t slain all my demons, but I deny that I slapped them out of his hand.
September, the heart of the Atlantic hurricane season, is not an ideal month to sail from Cape Verde to Brazil. We had no option; the window for rounding Cape Horn coincides with the austral summer. We had to get moving.
The gloom of the doldrums seemed endless as we angled south-southwest toward the equator, looking for the trade winds. Our log was filled with hope and despair.
Could this be the trades?
This miserable rain will never stop.
While we dutifully noted our course and position in the logbook, Charlie’s daily renderings were a better record of the crossing. Every day, he treated us to a new painting from his journal. The paintings were a treat, from the more than 50 shades of gray that defined the oppressive dome of clouds in which we seemed trapped to the incandescent blue of a mahimahi as Jorge yanked it aboard.
Eight days into the passage, we crossed the equator and sailed into the sunshine.
Captain’s hour is a much-loved ritual aboard Quetzal. Before dinner, we gather in the cockpit. We have a glass of wine, or not, and share stories, jokes, and sometimes a confession. The ocean washes away any hint of hubris. Bullshit just doesn’t float.
Alessandro, a dear friend and accomplished solo sailor who can sense a wind change from the pilot berth, became the maestro of captain’s hour. His penetrating hypothetical questions and emotional honesty often triggered a hilarious joke from Charlie, a quirky story from Greg, and boisterous laughter from Jorge. They also helped us appreciate the splendid isolation that an ocean passage affords. Time unfolds naturally, and distractions are caused by building cloud formations, not incessant cellphones.
Fernando de Noronha laughs at gravity. The jaunty peaks of this emerald isle 200 miles off the coast of Brazil thrust skyward as if drawn by a child. We hadn’t planned to stop, but I was glad we did. I was able to talk to my daughter Annika the day she delivered her baby girl, Adeline, our first grandchild.
When we carried on for Rio de Janeiro, we were rewarded with great sailing. Blasting before amped-up northeast trade winds, we often punched out double-digit speeds while surfing down 13-foot waves.
The majesty of Guanabara Bay was obscured by an early-morning rain, but the satisfaction of crossing the Atlantic never dims.
Tadji met me in Rio, and we made an overland excursion to Lima, Peru, and took a short Amazon River cruise. Lima is intoxicating with great food, but the placid Amazon didn’t stir either of us, maybe because I was itching to point Quetzal’s bow toward the bottom of the world.
Back in Rio, I kissed Tadji goodbye. We were scheduled to meet again in Mar del Plata, Argentina, our next stop, but not before she continued her own expedition traveling all over South America. Rachel and Danny, and Sam and Ed, all from the United Kingdom, joined me for what promised to be serious sailing.
CAPE HORN, At Last
Waves are the wind’s messengers, and a slumbering swell rolling in from the south greeted us as we made our way offshore. We knew that strong winds were coming. We needed sea room.
The decision to shove off, knowing that we’d have two tough days, was not as haughty as it sounds. A deep low-pressure system 500 miles south of us was moving slowly offshore. A big high was poised to fill in afterward and give us favorable northeast winds. But if we waited for fair weather to depart, we’d never catch the wind and would languish in calms.
Lessons learned in those unforgiving waters endure. The realities of life at sea make those miles so damn rewarding.
Our first two days were a slog. We managed to claw our way 200 miles south, tacking and fore-reaching into the worst of it. Then the fun began, and Quetzal took flight.
Ed was at the helm, hooting with a mix of joy and terror as we streaked down a wave. The GPS flashed 17.5 knots.
Tadji and I tarried in Argentina for weeks. We visited my friend Santiago and his lovely family in Buenos Aires, and flew up to Iguazu Falls. Our daughter Nari and her husband, Steven, came down for a visit.
Santiago was indispensable in helping me prepare Quetzal for her most challenging passage. There’s something about Cape Horn that helps focus your preparations.
It had been 40 years since I had first set off for Cape Horn. I was a college dropout, a kid from the suburbs masquerading as an old salt. I desperately wanted to be a sailor, to have grand adventures and write about them. It all seemed so romantic.
I had put together an audacious plan: to retrace the route of the famous clipper ships of the 1800s in a Contessa 32 sloop, Gigi. In the process, my partner and Gigi’s owner, Ty, and I would become the first American yachtsmen to double infamous Cape Horn. Gigi would be the smallest yacht ever to make the passage.
Yes, I had been in way over my head, and my dream nearly shattered time and again. We just kept pushing south when common sense and proper seamanship suggested that we should give up. We were too inexperienced to realize how miserable we were.
When we finally rounded the Horn in January 1984, we didn’t whoop and yell. We felt small, humble and fortunate. We may have been the first this or the smallest that, but it didn’t matter.
Today, I realize that hard lessons learned in those unforgiving waters endure. One that has sustained me through these past 40 years of ocean voyaging and more than 400,000 miles is that the hard realities of life at sea make those miles so damn rewarding.
I had an ideal crew for the Cape Horn leg. Chris, at age 77, is still fit and capable. He turned up with his usual smile and sharp eye.
“Quetzal looks ready,” he said as he hopped aboard. An Aussie who has lived in the States for many years, he has sailed with me often. His judgment is always sound.
Kate, also a previous shipmate, is a terrific sailor with a high misery index. She slept in the forepeak the entire passage.
Miles and Tige met aboard Quetzal on a previous passage, and we became fast friends. Tige is razor-smart, strong, and up for any task. Miles, who has a 53-foot cutter that he’s raced to Bermuda several times, has that rare ability to see through the fog of the moment and make sound decisions.
Another lesson that I have learned for successful offshore sailing—and this one took awhile to understand—is to surround yourself with talented people, listen to what they have to say, and trust them.
We shoved off in early December and sped south with fair winds. Bound for the infamous latitudes of the 40s and 50s, we were bracing for westerly gales and infamous line squalls called pamperos. These southwest winds are associated with cold fronts that form south of the Andes. They gather steam over the low-slung Pampas of Patagonia before streaking out to sea. Joshua Slocum, who sailed the same route 127 years before us on the first solo circumnavigation, encountered a wicked pampero and survived by climbing the mast as a wall of water washed over his intrepid yawl, Spray. We had survived a 50-knot pampero aboard Gigi. Aboard Quetzal, we had sunshine and starry nights.
We chose the inshore route, staying about 100 miles offshore to take advantage of a favorable current. We stopped in Puerto Deseado, Argentina. Everybody had been there before: Magellan, Drake, Cavendish, Fitzroy and Darwin. We found it a bit bleak and were happy to shove off a few days later, bound for the Le Maire Strait, 400 miles to the south.
The winds arrived with a vengeance as we pushed past the eastern approach to the Strait of Magellan. We were well offshore, and I couldn’t help but imagine what life must have been like aboard Magellan’s Victoria. He had recently survived a mutiny attempt and hung the surviving accomplices to show who was in charge.
Life aboard Quetzal, with our hard dodger, full enclosure, cockpit-controlled sails, brand-new rig and abundantly stocked galley, was quite different. Still, the crew seemed more attentive after I related this story.
It was cold and clear as we neared Le Maire Strait, an infamous passage that sluices between the eastern tip of Tierra del Fuego and Islas de los Estados. Silvery, snowcapped mountains stood sentinel from both sides. It was almost a relief to shorten down to the third reef and staysail as freezing-cold westerlies reminded us that we were getting close to the Horn.
We studied the Navionics tide chart and slowed down to time our arrival for early morning at the northern end of the straits on December 14, an hour before high tide.
Forty years earlier, Ty and I had encountered fierce headwinds, fog, and vicious cross seas trying to con Gigi through Le Maire Strait. We needed three tries and considered running off to the Falkland Islands before we finally found sea room in the Southern Ocean.
This time, the winds couldn’t have been more accommodating. Quetzal’s passage was perfectly timed. We rode a fair current and crisp north winds, touching 11 knots. The Horn was less than 100 miles ahead.
Maybe I had learned a thing or two in 40 years. Or, more likely, I was on a lucky streak.
Kate was reading my book Cape Horn to Starboard throughout the passage. “It was really different back then,” she said, shaking her head. “Before GPS and GRIB files, you were always desperately trying to get a sight and had no idea what to expect from the weather. You were just a little lost all the time.”
Maybe Magellan and I were more alike than the crew realized.
Tige spotted Cape Horn off the starboard bow at daybreak on December 15. The moderate northeast breeze was dreamlike, and he and Miles persuaded me to pop the spinnaker.
I recognized the Horn as if it were yesterday, a month shy of 40 years since I had last been in the neighborhood. The brooding sphinx of an island that divides the great oceans had not changed. The chiseled headland continues to bear witness to brave sailors who pass by.
Blasting west with our pink-and-white spinnaker that Tadji had designed, we passed close aboard and marveled at Cape Horn. Like the first time, I felt small and humble, but this time I was also filled with a profound sense of gratitude. Somehow, some way, I have managed to live the sailing life I dreamed of as a kid, and, yes, write books and articles too. Better still, I have been able to share this abundance with the best of shipmates. I am the lucky one.
While Gigi had gone on to “double the Horn” before carrying on to San Francisco, Quetzal looped the Horn, and we made our way up into the spectacular Beagle Channel. Now that we had reached snowy and stunning Tierra del Fuego, we planned to make the most of it.
After spending the holidays in Ushuaia, our next sail would take us even farther south, across the Drake Passage to the South Shetland Islands of Antarctica, then up the Chilean channels of Patagonia.
Like my friend Odysseus, even after my long-awaited homecoming, I was already restless. It would soon be time to press on again.
