Girl on the Brink: Surviving Desperate Times with Desperate Measures

ANN’S NOTE: The Host Our Coast winner went to a “budding” writer. So form triumphs over substance. What gives? Not even an interview. You never know the ins of job candidates. No worries on my part. Ann is going to make a big splash this summer. You wait! And, I’m not making that up. Today’s entry was my submission to the contest I didn’t win. I still think it’s a winner.

Oh, to be rich for a day. And why not? Andrea, my photographer friend, and I were in Antigua for the 42^nd annual Stanford Sailing Week regatta last April when a fleet of super yachts graced the harbors on the southeast side of the island.

The goal: Get on one. With a little advice from the event’s media representative, we learned that we needed to “walk the docks” and ask for the skipper of the boat we wanted to get on. The rep supplied the list, and we were off. After two tries, the tactic proved a bit more complicated. Half the time the skipper had “just left.” It was always “come back” at another time.

By 5:30 pm that day, I had made contact with Mark Fitzgerald, skipper of Sojana, a 115-foot super yacht owned by British millionaire and America’s Cup backer Peter Harrison. Of course, I had no idea at the time. It was just a really big boat and looked luxurious.

“Can we race with you?” I said. After showing our media credentials, the answer was yes. “We’re pushing off at 8,” Fitzgerald said. That was PM because the race course was from Guadeloupe to Antigua, and we needed to get to the start point the night before, which would take close to five hours.

We walked back to our current accommodations—a stripped down racing boat known as a Farr 65—to get ready for an overnight stay on Sojana. I had never been on a Farr before when I arranged for us to stay there (for free). Never did it cross my mind that I’d be sleeping in a bunk that was no more than 2-feet wide with a mattress as thick as a seat cushion. We also didn’t have any running water, and the cabin smelled of petrol. Forget electricity: There wasn’t any. Painted fiberglass lined the walls; wood would be too heavy for a racing boat.

We slung our sleeping bags over our shoulder, packed a few overnight necessities and headed back to Sojana, thinking we’d sleep on deck. Once on board, the head steward treated us to down-filled comforters on twin beds. We brushed our teeth in Villeroy & Boch sinks and groveled over the other detailing: air conditioning, cabinets filled with custom china and mahogany paneling with exotic ring patterns of inlaid burl wood.

The race began under cloud cover and light rain until we distanced ourselves from the shore and set out on one sailing tac for the race back to Antigua. The race felt more like a luxury cruise because it was a straight run and lacked the fast-action maneuvering of racing around markers in a figure-eight course. Standing on deck, with only the shoosh of waves hitting the sides of the boat, I wished we were on an around-the-world course.

In four hours, 35 minutes, Sojana crossed the finish line, placing second, and I got an awesome new set of tan lines before returning to “real” life.