Free Atlantic High by William F. Buckley Jr. Page A

silver. Captain Jouning wears a red walrus mustache, is balding, and his humor comes in brief, nonabrasive flashes. In the four passages I have had with him, I have heard him complain only once—about the defective workmanship of Detroit sailmakers who failed to secure with strong enough material the genoa clew, resulting in one of those noisily (and dangerous) chaotic sequences at night in uproarious seas when suddenly the sail lets go, the entire vessel vibrates with the whipping canvas, and one man starts letting down the fugitive sail halyard while two other men try, without being knocked out by the flying steel clew, to get hold of the sail and drag it down. “That’s bad work,” Allen said, examining the sail with a flashlight at the post-mortem. Such words, from that mouth, have the sound of fire and brimstone.
    It was on our second outing on the
Sealestial
that we learned that in the summer of the following year, 1980, the owner desired to have the boat in the Mediterranean, for his own use and to pick up Mediterranean charters. I looked up suddenly at Dick—we were seated in the cockpit, during the cocktail hour. Allen was standing, leaning against the doghouse. I moved my head up, down, in a slow-motion gesture. Dick understood instantly. I put my index finger to my lips (meaning don’t say anything to the ladies; my wife is always certain that any ocean trip by me will be my last, and is mildly resentful when her apocalyptic predictions don’t eventuate). That night, taking a nightcap at the beach bar on Bitter End in the Virgins, Dick and I plotted…. The doc wants the boat in the Mediterranean—so, somebody has to get it there, right? … A nice route, one that would accommodate to prevailing winds, would be to head …north from St. Thomas (that is where the
Sealestial
would end its chartering season, Allen had said) to Bermuda; then across to the Azores, and then—Gibraltar-Marbella. We could arrange to fly in the wives for a joyous week’s cruise in the Azores, breaking up the passage.
    The day after returning to New York I called Dr. Papo.
    The negotiations lasted over a period of several months. And then:
    November 7, 1979:
    Memo To:
Dick Clurman, Van Galbraith, Tony Leggett, Chris Little, Danny Merritt, Reggie Stoops
    From:
WFB
    The purpose of this note is primarily to say that I will be writing at much greater length in the very near future. Our splendid venture is definitely, unmistakably on—departure date is May 30 (by coincidence five years to the day after the beginning of the BO 1 ). We will definitely get a book out of it, with Christopher Little’s photography and probably a documentary. This last depends on a number of factors including financing, the answers to which I should have the next time I address you. In due course we’ll organize a couple of those areas of responsibility that worked so well on the BO—e.g., an assignment to individuals of primary responsibility for our safety schedules, provisioning, that kind of thing. Reggie may have in his files some of the work we did in connection with the BO. Whether Reggie can find that which is in his files is of course another question, concerning which I shall be diplomatic…. I shall, after discussing a number of matters with the captain in December and looking at the weather charts, make estimates as accurately as possible of when we can expect landfalls along the way so as to make it possible to coordinate our other arrangements—e.g., the Azores leg. So, as I say the primary purpose of this memorandum is to advise you that the captain is alive, well, exacting, and solicitous.
    The arrangements with Dr. Papo were, on the larger matters, entirely amicable. We approached a little snag or two over minor questions which we both had the good sense eventually to circumnavigate. On the matter of who would be in charge of the vessel, I devised a formula satisfactory to Dr. Papo which in due course we reduced to writing. I would be in