Latitude 38 October 2006

LETTERS

causing water to be scooped up into the cockpit. But mainly she handled it well under the vane.

I hadn’t slept prior to my arrival in the Channel, and when I though I was about 15 miles out from my intended landfall at the Kilauea Light, I was desperate for even just a five minute nap. I wanted to set the kitchen timer to wake me, but remembered that all the books had repeatedly warned of the necessity of staying vigilant when close to land.

Before lying down for five minutes, I forced myself to climb up the companionway hatch — which I had locked against the seas — to take a look around. Before I turned my head more than 90 degrees, a big white light swept across me. It was the Kilauea Light! It was about 20 degrees off my port bow. I'd been on course, but was closer than I thought, and was heading right for the rocks!

I quickly had to decide whether to turn around or try to sail higher into the wind and heavy seas to try to clear the point. I chose the latter. Yankee Tar, carrying a double storm jib and a triple-reefed main, came up to weather, took the seas into her teeth, and made it around Kilauea Point at 2:30 a.m.

By this time the race committee had closed down operations, so when I finally saw what looked like the lights of Hanalei Bay, just west of that high plateau, I tacked back and forth across the entrance in powerful seas for several hours until Peggy Slater got on Channel 16 at 6 a.m. and said she was coming out on Hanalei Flyer to guide me in. That’s such a long story that I won’t get into it, but suffice it to say that Slater and Don Keenan, Hanalei Flyer's owner, couldn't find me for nearly an hour in the steep seas. In fact, they mistook a crewed Santa Cruz 50 that had tried to head to Nawiliwili for fuel but had to turn back, for me. They chased that boat while Slater forbad me to enter Hanalei Bay — even though I could see the red buoy. Our conversation on Channel 16, recorded by a fellow contestant at anchor in Hanalei, was funny — if you weren’t on a boat outside the bay.

I finally did get into Hanalei nine hours too late to be an official finisher. I was also wet and 20 pounds lighter than when I left San Francisco.

Three months later I took off for the South Seas with a couple of friends, stopping at Tahiti and the other lovely Society Islands, Samoa, Tonga, New Zealand, Great Astrolabe Reef, and finally home three years later by way of Hawaii. I went over there one more time, but in the last 10 years

"Do good and you will be lonesome," says Mark Twain — or is it Hal Holbrook?

I haven’t done enough sailing to call myself a sailor.I’ve been busy touring on dry land to every crotch, armpit and breast bone of America, working in theatres. I’m 81 years old now, but you never know what’s going to happen next.

My regards to everyone who is still around. Hal Holbrook

Probably On Stage Somewhere

Page 40 • Latitude 38 • October, 2006

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