Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died on May 19, 1994, taken by cancer. Always a lover and writer of verse, poems were read at her funeral. Caroline read, “Memory of Cape Cod,” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, which concludes with,CHAPTER 11 )
Often beneath the wave, wide from this ledge
The dice of drowned men’s bones he saw bequeath
An embassy. Their numbers as he watched,
Beat on the dusty shore and were obscured.
And wrecks passed without sound of bells,
The calyx of death’s bounty giving back
A scattered chapter, livid hieroglyph,
The portent wound in corridors of shells.
Then in the circuit calm of one vast coil,
Its lashings charmed and malice reconciled,
Frosted eyes there were that lifted altars;
And silent answers crept across the stars.
Compass, quadrant and sextant contrive
No farther tides . . . High in the azure steeps
Monody shall not wake the mariner.
This fabulous Shadow only the sea keeps.
~ Hart Crane, “At Melville’s Tomb”
(Melville’s Moby-Dick begins in Nantucket, from which Pequod set sail.)
Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis died on May 19, 1994, taken by cancer. Always a lover and writer of verse, poems were read at her funeral. Caroline read, “Memory of Cape Cod,” by Edna St. Vincent Millay, which concludes with,
We’ll find you another beach like the beach at Truro.
Let me listen to the wind in the ash.
It sounds like the surf on the shore.1
Jackie’s companion, Maurice Templeton, read a poem with a Homeric theme like “Ulysses,” one Jackie had requested for her funeral. It was “Ithaka,” by C. P. Cavafy and included these lines:
Hope the voyage is a long one.
May there be many a summer morning when,
with what pleasure, what joy,
you come into harbors seen for the first time;
...........................................................Keep Ithaka always in your mind.
Arriving there is what you are destined for.
But do not hurry the journey at all.
Better if it lasts for years,
so you are old by the time you reach the island.
wealthy with all you have gained on the way,
not expecting Ithaka to make you rich.
Ithaka gave you the marvelous journey.2
Five years later, as they so often did for occasions happy and sad, for weddings and funerals, holidays and lesser reasons in between, the Kennedy family began gathering at Hyannis Port for the wedding of Robert F. Kennedy’s youngest daughter, Rory. Ethel was pregnant with Rory when her husband Bob was killed. Now Rory’s wedding to Mark Bailey was set for Saturday, July 17, 1999. On the day before the event a great white tent was standing on the lawn of the Kennedy Compound.
An hour after nightfall that Friday, John F. Kennedy Jr. climbed into the pilot’s seat of a single-engine Piper Saratoga II and prepared for a ninety-minute flight from Fairfield, New Jersey, to Martha’s Vineyard. His wife, Carolyn Bessette Kennedy, and her sister Lauren, climbed into the plane. He planned to drop Lauren off at the Vineyard, then fly over the Sound to Hyannis Port to spend Friday night. John had earned his pilot’s license a little over a year earlier and was not yet fully trained to fly on instruments alone. He still needed to look out the window to orient to the horizon. The night was dark, and haze obscured the line between sea and sky. Absent visual points of reference, a banking plane plays tricks with perception of gravity. At times, up isn’t easily told from down. For pilots without instrument rating, “spatial disorientation” was a potentially dangerous consequence.
A flight instructor who had flown the same familiar route with John said later the president’s son, thirty-eight, “was methodical about his flight planning and that he was very cautious about his aviation decision-making.” But another of John’s instructors said he “would not have felt comfortable” with John flying at night in those weather conditions. An instructor offered to fly with him that night, but John said he wanted to do it alone.3
The time for John’s expected landing at Martha’s Vineyard came and went. At two in the morning a family friend called the coast guard office at Woods Hole, whose commander lives in a house at the base of Nobska Point Light, a lighthouse that has watched over the waters of Nantucket and Vineyard sounds since 1876. It stood vigil over all the years Kennedy children sailed those waters. John’s plane was reported missing.
With no sign of the plane the next day, police checked John’s Manhattan apartment and found it empty. Witnesses confirmed John and his passengers had left Fairfield in his plane. While the search went on, hope diminished, then fell away entirely. The wedding was postponed. A mass was said on Ethel’s porch overlooking Nantucket Sound. All that morning, no sign of plane or passengers.
On a beach on Martha’s Vineyard, about two miles from the place John’s mother, Jackie, lived until her death, items washed shore. A prescription pill bottle with Carolyn’s name on it. A briefcase with her sister’s business card affixed.
The bodies were recovered in 116 feet of water, seven miles offshore from Gay Head, near his mother’s beach, the place where John as a boy was said to have looked for pirate shipwrecks.4 Ted and his sons boarded the coast guard ship that pulled their remains from the sea.5 A few days later a coast guard cutter carried the family from Woods Hole back to the same spot the plane had fallen. The ashes of John, Carolyn, and Lauren were gently committed there to the sea, waters near those Victura crossed on its ventures from home across Vineyard Sound.
~ Within a day or two of the loss of John’s plane, the John F. Kennedy Hyannis Museum put up an easel to display lines from the president’s 1962 speech at the America’s Cup race: “We are tied to the ocean. When we go back to the sea, whether it is to sail or to watch it, we are going back from whence we came.”6 It was the speech where Jack said, “it is an interesting biological fact that all of us have, in our veins the exact same percentage of salt in our blood that exists in the ocean, and, therefore, we have salt in our blood, in our sweat, in our tears.”
The mystery of that biological—one might say spiritual—connection between the human species and the sea has been a Kennedy preoccupation at least since the president’s speech. Talking to family members, the theme reemerges in interviews conducted independent of one another.
“I think there have been so many wonderful experiences sailing with mothers, fathers, friends, and cousins,” said Mark Shriver, “that it’s just like a part of your blood; it’s part of your essence.”7
Without being asked, Jack’s nephew Patrick called attention to “this notion that we are tied to something bigger than ourselves, that there is a mystery about the world, that we cannot know for certain, and we’re all on a voyage, to find our place in the world. And this notion that we have the same salt in our blood as in the ocean, and that we’re intimately tied to the ocean ... ‘from whence we came’... is just powerful.” Patrick maintains that understanding humanity’s common evolutionary origins helped open President Kennedy’s eyes to civil rights and his declaration that “if, in short, [an American whose skin is dark] cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?”8
“All of this stuff is a philosophy and it’s a notion of us all being in it together. And what the sea, which is arbitrary, and a constant is, it is evolving, and yet it is also predictive, the tides come in and out. What a great metaphor for life.”9
The ocean, says Kerry Kennedy, gives people “a reverence for life and an understanding of the cycles of life. You live and die and come back again—a sense of renewal. So I think those are all part of our growing up on the ocean. You can’t grow up with that experience and not have it influence your worldview.”10
Max, asked what sailing does for the soul, said, “I have no idea. I really don’t know. I think it is different being on salt water than on fresh water.” He chuckled and said, “It probably has something to do with having so much liquid inside of us. And I guess we were born in it too, right?” referring to amniotic fluid.11
~ Bound as the Kennedys were to the sea, the twenty-first century opened under circumstances that threatened the seascape they knew and loved. The shallows of Horseshoe Shoal that stood between Hyannis Port and the islands, among the places where so often Victura and the others struggled to keep from running aground, also happened to be an ideal location for one of the nation’s first offshore wind farms. In 2001 developers proposed “Cape Wind,” 130 wind turbines, each towering 440 feet from crest of waves to tip of blade. They would spread across twenty-four square miles. Those steady, strong southwest winds to which you could set a clock were ideal for more than sailing. Clean sustainable power generation, a popular notion in a liberal state like Massachusetts, won a warm public reception. Labor unions approved the jobs it would bring.
The Kennedys did not approve. Nor did a number of other affluent residents whose fondness for yachting and ocean views made the thought of a South Cape Cod industrial use appalling. Opponents allying with the Kennedys against the Cape Wind project were of varying political stripes, but they all had affluence and expensive hobbies as a common trait. Walter Cronkite opposed the project. Millionaire Bill Koch poured money into the formation of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound and other efforts to campaign and lobby against Cape Wind. The Kennedys had always been the defenders of the undefended, and now their position seemed too influenced by moneyed personal interest. They were uncomfortably on the opposite side of environmentalists and unions.
Further complicating the conflicted position of the Kennedys was the fact that the leading Kennedy voice against the project was Robert F. Kennedy Jr., by then well into a career as an international and respected voice for environmental causes. He had led legal battles for clean water through an organization called Riverkeepers, most notably on Hudson River issues. He fought the coal power industry, arguing it should be replaced by alternate energy sources such as wind turbines. Nonetheless, Robert appeared on a National Public Radio program with the leader of the Cape Wind development and argued with shrillness against Cape Wind. He came off as disrespectful, loose with his facts, and hypocritical.
For his part, Ted told people he opposed it but kept his profile low. A retired utility executive approached Ted at an outdoor concert in Hyannis and asked, “Can you tell me why you’re opposed to this wind farm?” Ted started by saying the developer wasn’t paying enough for the use of Horseshoe Shoal, but he was vague about how much money was necessary. Pressed for another reason, Ted said, “The sight of them bothers me.” Told the turbines would be visible only in the clearest weather, Ted said, “But don’t you realize, that’s where I sail.”12
It was one thing to sail against the wind, but here the Kennedys were perceived as driven by not-in-my-back-yard self-interest. Massachusetts is so proudly defined by the Kennedys of Hyannis Port that voters would give them a pass on this issue. But for the rest of the decade that followed, twisted legal and political fights went on. In 2012 the Kennedy fight against the wind farm was itself growing unsustainable, and Joseph Kennedy III, running for Congress, grandson of Robert F. Kennedy and son of Joseph P. Kennedy II, broke with the family and endorsed the Cape Wind project.
~ In the summer of 2003 Ted sailed Mya to second place in the Figawi race, and Max sailed Glide to third place.13 The name “Figawi” derives from a story of lost Cape Cod sailors looking around and asking with their familiar accent, “Wheh the Figk ah we?” It was a good summer’s end and boats were brought out of the water for winter storage. The original Victura, displayed outdoors in warm weather, was every year shipped back from the museum in Boston to south Cape Cod and placed into storage along with the many other actively sailed Wianno Seniors. They all found dry dock in the big storage sheds at the Crosby Yacht Yard in Osterville, a kind of annual homecoming. There old Victura could be inspected for weather damage, modest as it would be since it never sailed. It might get a coat of varnish as needed. It rested out the winters, undercover, an unsailed sailboat, steps from Nantucket Sound, at the boatyard where craftsmen first assembled it seventy-one years before.
On December 10, 2003, a fire started in one of the Crosby sheds. It spread and broke through the roof, making small explosions heard nearby. Soon the glow could be seen for miles. More than 110 firefighters came from surrounding towns—Centerville, Osterville, Marstons Mills. One of the firefighters had his own boat nearby, so he used it to tow boats to safety. Scores of boats were lost, though no lives. Twenty-one of the boats lost were Wianno Seniors.
Old Victura was spared. It was in an untouched nearby building, and the fire’s spread was contained. But the loss was spectacular otherwise:
Lost was Ethel’s Resolute, #132, built 1964.
Lost: Eunice’s Headstart, #139, built 1967.
Lost: Jack Fallon’s Marna, #120, built 1950.
Also lost: Shenanigans, #109, 1947; Sea Lion, #118, 1948; Cochenoe, #125, 1962; Cirrus, #136, 1965; Circe, #133, 1965; Pertelote, #143, 1968; Yankee Dime, #145, 1969, Intuition, #147, 1969; Never Miss, #156, 1973; Chanzia, #157, 1973; Molly, #158, 1973; Quest, #159, 1973; Owl, #164, 1974; Eowyn, #169, 1975; Lady Luck, #171, 1976; Betsy Ross, #178, 1988; Althaea, #185, 1990; and Shadowfax, #192, 2003.14
It was one of the few times Ethel was seen with tears in her eyes.
“Tears came easily that night,” a boatyard neighbor said. “They say the pain is what you feel after a barn fire. But horses don’t live as long as these boats lived.”15
Interviewed just afterward, Bob’s son Chris said of Resolute: “We learned from our parents, we taught our kids, we bonded with our friends and we raced on it. It was a family boat more than anything else.”16
To save the memory, Chris wrote a letter to his children in 2004. “My grandpa [Joe] bought a Senior for his kids. It was No. 94, which meant that it was the 94th Senior made. My dad learned to sail on it from his older brother Jack. Jack also taught Uncle Teddy how to sail. Teddy taught my brother Joe, and Joe taught me, and I taught you guys. Hopefully, when you are older, you can teach your kids.”17
~ In May of 2008 Ted was diagnosed with a malignant brain tumor. In the year that followed, as he battled it, his sister Eunice’s health worsened too. Strokes, car accidents, and more were finally catching up with Eunice, and she was nearing the end.
In June 2009 Ted and Vicki took a golf cart the short distance from the main house to the Shriver house. Eunice’s son Bobby was there, along with his six-month-old daughter, Rosemary. Illness weighed on Eunice, and she needed cheering up.
They gossiped awhile about family, what guests were expected that week and, of course, who won the sailboat races. That was when Ted had an idea. Here was something to take Eunice’s mind off her failing health. Eunice loved to rank people, give them passing or failing grades. She particularly loved to judge them as sailors. So Ted started with their older brother Joe and asked her if he was a good sailor or not.
“Yes,” said Eunice, and they pondered that a moment.
“Bobby?”
“Not serious,” she said. Ted thought she was being harsh.
On down the list Ted went, all nine brothers and sisters. Jack? Jean? Each one earned a pass or fail until Ted came to Kick. She was dismissed as wholly uninterested in the sport. With all nine cases so adjudicated, one question remained—the most important of all. Ted asked Eunice to pick the best sailor of the nine.
“I was.”
Ted’s laugh came from deep down. The firmer Eunice held to that position, the more Ted laughed.
That was in June of another of their warm, windswept summers on the Cape. Nantucket Sound and their boats were in view out their windows. Eunice died a few weeks later, on August 11, 2009. Ted died two weeks after Eunice.18
~ The story of Victura is a story of the power of shared experience. Families and friendships are not made strong by genetics or chance but by time spent together in common purpose. The Kennedys enjoyed one of the few sports where members of a family could compete as a team—gender, age, and physical strength notwithstanding. They raced together, or set a compass for distant Nantucket together, and they made it there together, strategizing, suffering the cold or enjoying the sun, talking about other topics, each with something to contribute. A family can get much the same experience if they farm together or build a house together or hike the Appalachian Trail. It’s the shared experience, intentionally arranged by the parents, that brings families closer. Kennedys did not just sail together but also dined together with purposeful intent to have intelligent and enjoyable conversation. They made a simple poem about an ancient mariner a part of their shared heritage. Many families make little intentional effort to create shared experience, and they are weaker for it.
At Ted’s funeral two sons, one nephew, and one lifelong friend eulogized him by telling stories of the Victura. Every big family has funerals to attend, but they have been particularly numerous for the Kennedys in recent years. Services are typically at Cape Cod before noon, leaving the family an afternoon to be together. Niece Kerry said that in recent years, without a conscious effort, another family tradition has emerged. After the funeral, they usually go sailing, typically on the bigger boats so they can all be together.
Ted’s daughter, Kara, for whose cancer Ted so aggressively sought a cure, whose wedding cake had a little Victura on top, succumbed to a recurrence of cancer two years after Ted’s death. At Kara’s funeral brother Patrick read from Eugene O’Neill, a passage Ted also quoted in the opening pages of his memoir:
I lay on the bowsprit, facing astern, with the water foaming into spume under me, the masts with every sail white in the moonlight, towering high above me. I became drunk with the beauty and the singing rhythm of it, and for a moment I lost myself—actually lost my life. I was set free! I dissolved in the sea, became white sails and flying spray, became beauty and rhythm, became moonlight and the ship and the high dimstarred sky! I belonged, without past or future, within place and unity and wild joy, within something greater than my own life, or the life of Man, to Life itself. To God, if they want to put it that way.19