CONNIE RETURNED ON TIME, dried-eyed, but quiet. I thought she had probably gone back to her place to pack for the passage to Plymouth, but she came aboard empty handed.
“Where’s your gear?” I asked.
“Gear?” She looked surprised.
“Won’t you need some things for the trip to England?”
“I’m not going to England.”
Now it was my turn to look surprised. “But … ”
“You never said anything to me about going to England with you.”
“Well … I just assumed …”
“Never assume,” she said, then looked about her. “All right, how do you want to do this?”
“Wait a minute, Connie,” I protested, “This is one hell of a big boat, you know.” I spread my arms to indicate her size.
“You built her for singlehanding, didn’t you?”
“Well, yeah, but …”
“Then singlehand her.” She tossed me Toscana’ bow line. “Hold her bows in while I reverse the engine. That’ll point her stern into the channel.” She hopped aboard the smaller yacht, taking the stern line with her, then started the engine and put it into reverse. Toscana began to back into the channel. “I’ll wait while you untie,” she shouted back. “Then you lead the way.”
I came to life, started the engine, and began bringing the big yacht’s lines aboard. Soon she was in the channel, and I put her in forward and started into the main harbor. Toscana tagged at our heels all the way up. There was still plenty of light, and I could see Connie, expressionless, standing at the helm, steering. We passed a couple of yachts from the Royal Cork, and people came on deck to look at the big boat and wave. Now the news was out, but before anybody could do anything about it, we’d be gone, she and I.
We reached the mouth of the creek just before ten, with the last of the light. I waved Connie ahead and yelled for her to go alongside the quay. Finbar and Harry were waiting and took her lines. I circled in the mouth of the creek while they loosened Toscana’s backstay, slipped straps under her, and plucked her from the water with the yard’s ancient crane. Finbar set her expertly on a waiting cradle. She looked a bit forlorn out of the water, with her dirty bottom. I had had some of my best sailing aboard her, and I wouldn’t see her again. I would miss her.
The smaller yacht out of the way, I came slowly alongside, unused to docking such a large boat and feeling my way to be sure there was enough water under her keel. Finbar and Harry had to have a look below before proceeding.
“Jesus, Will, she’s in good nick; you’ve done a fine bit of work on her,” Finbar said.
I warmed to the praise. “Thank Connie for the varnishing,” I said. “And God only knows if everything will work.” I already knew the log was working; I had tried that out on the trip up.
The four of us fell to, unlashing the mast from the decks and attaching the upper ends of the rigging, prefabricated in Cowes, to the mast. That done, Finbar manned the crane, hooking up to a bridle we fashioned near the upper spreaders. He slowly lifted the top of the mast from the decks while Harry and I kept the lower end from doing damage. After considerable maneuvering we got the lower end properly positioned above the opening in the big yacht’s decks and Finbar ever so gently lowered the mast, while Harry and I worked below, settling the mast into its step on the keel and relaying hand signals to Finbar through Connie. In half an hour we had the mast in place. Finbar and Harry attached the stays and shrouds, while I made the electrical connections for the mast lights and wind indicator at the masthead. When I had screwed the last junction box shut, I walked to the chart table, took a deep breath, and turned on the Brookes & Gatehouse wind instruments. The needle quickly showed five to six knots of wind. I exhaled in a rush.
I switched everything on, just to see the dials register. Everything registered. At least I had found the right wires. I turned to the main switchboard and flipped on the masthead light, then peeped fearfully up the hatch. On. Triumph.
On deck, the rigging was in place. We tightened everything, then bent on the mainsail. “Finbar,” I said, “I’ve got to leave for England tonight. Do you think you and Harry could come down into the harbor with me and do some tuning?” Translated, this meant, I’m not at all sure I can sail this bloody thing. Help me learn how.
“Wouldn’t miss the chance,” Finbar grinned. “I don’t suppose we’ll get another.”
With the yard’s workboat in tow we motored down into the main harbor and cut the engine. A full moon was rising and helped us find blocks and winch handles and sheets. Somehow, my newly organized mind had forgotten to get the running rigging, the ropes that controlled the sails, in place. After half an hour of scrambling we got the main up, then the genoa staysail and the yankee. The boat was cutter rigged, and each of the headsails was set on an aluminum stay that could be turned with a reel and a winch, furling the sails like window blinds from the cockpit, an ideal singlehanded rig. The yacht began to sail for the first time.
In ten knots of wind she swept across the smooth waters of the harbor, Connie at the helm, while Finbar, Harry, and I scrambled about the decks, tensioning the rigging to its ideal state and making adjustments. We tacked back and forth, went upwind and downwind, checking everything we could think of. Finally, we all went back to the cockpit. I put in a couple of tacks, singlehanded, to get the drill right, then we all settled back and I latched in the self-steering. The silence and the moon and the breeze and the flat water were glorious. So was the boat.
Finbar glanced at the big windvane, steering us steadily toward Crosshaven, something about which he had had his doubts.
“Bloody thing works, don’t it?” We all laughed with him, then his face took on an expression I had never seen on it before. He looked up and down the mast, at the sails and over the side at the yacht’s clean way through the water. “We did it right, didn’t we?”
At the mouth of the Owenboy River, just down from Cross-haven, we hove to, and Finbar, Harry and last, Connie climbed into the workboat. I held her hand as she stepped down, and when she was in the boat I didn’t let go. I mustered every ounce of feeling I had in me and said, “Come with me.”
She gripped my hand tightly and looked up at me. “I can’t,” she said. There were tears streaming down her face.
Finbar started the boat’s engine. “Can’t or won’t?” I shouted over its rumble.
She pulled her hand free, sat down in the boat, and looked up at me, saying nothing. The boat began to move away from me toward Crosshaven and the Royal Cork, Finbar and Harry waving and shouting luck.
I watched, frozen in place, until its stern light mingled with the village lights of Crosshaven, then I wore the big yacht around onto the starboard tack and, catching the freshening southwesterly, sailed for Roche’s Point, the Atlantic Ocean, and England.