FBYC History....

Jere Dennison

Conservative author and columnist William F. Buckley Jr., passed away February 27, 2008 at age 82 at his home in Stamford Connecticut while fittingly composing at his word processor. Aside from his many accomplishments on the national scene which will not be reiterated here, he was also a passionate life-long sailor. A racer in his early years, by 1972 he had gravitated solely to cruising to which he devoted much of his precious leisure time in later life. This passion for sailing during his lifetime was reflected in his ownership of five sailboats, four transoceanic trips, and multiple races from Newport, Rhode Island, to Bermuda. A prolific writer of political tomes, it is a little astonishing that he also managed to author a trilogy of sailing bestsellers: Airborne: A Sentimental Journey (Macmillan, 1976), Atlantic High: A Celebration (Doubleday, 1982), and Racing through Paradise: A Pacific Passage (Random House, 1987).

As a consummate capitalist, we are fortunate that Buckley’s philosophy compelled him to produce entertaining books about his sea ventures that were unashamedly intended to finance the expense of his voyages. These books did not offer the usually fare of suffering and deprivation afloat, but were instead homages to the joy of sailing in comfort with family and friends interspersed with fascinating social and political anecdotes about his rich life experiences. Much of his nautical prose was pounded out on a typewriter in his cabin when not on watch to avoid the loss of even one single productive moment of time. To quote him directly on his obsessive work habits, “I get satisfaction of three kinds. One is creating something, one is being paid for it, and one is the feeling that I haven't just been sitting on my ass all afternoon.”

Buckley was no Spartan sailor. He raised eyebrows back then because his boats were equipped with the latest video equipment to view movies on trans-Atlantic voyages when this technology was not ubiquitous as it is today. He provisioned the finest wines and a store of gourmet foods to nourish his crews. Although it has been years since I read Airborne, perhaps the best of the three books and destined to be a classic, I can still recall a memorable dissertation on why wall-to-wall carpet was an appropriate amenity on a blue water vessel. A Renaissance man and accomplished musician as well, he provided Cyrano, his 60-foot ketch, a piano which he played for his personal enjoyment and, presumably, for that of his crew during his 4,400 mile voyage to Spain as recounted in Airborne.

"...the evening was so pleasant," Buckley wrote, "the late afternoon sail so exquisite, the sun sight so perfect, the wind so regular (temperature just right), I played the piano a bit before dinner. Not easy," Buckley continues, "because when the boat rocks I need to exert great pressure through my knees on the underside of the keyboard to keep from falling over backward, and the additional challenge to coordination is enough to make the sounds that result a travesty on the Bach partita I am, as usual, struggling with. I left the piano and put on the cassette player, a late Beethoven sonata, as we sat down for a dinner of turkey and stuffing, wine, cheese, fruit and coffee. I thought I would try -- just a flyer -- to say something about the difference between the late and the early Beethoven...."

Buckley devoted one remarkable chapter in Airborne to the demystification of sextant navigation for the reader. His treatise propounded that traditional instruction was often so complex and arcane that many became convinced that they did not have the patience or intelligence to master the skill. Buckley’s approach was different in that he broke the process down into a logical sequence of simple tasks that would produce an accurate running fix using sun sights without first understanding esoteric theories of celestial mechanics.

And it worked for me. Armed with an inexpensive plastic sextant, H.O.249 sight reduction tables, and a form supplied in the book, I was enabled to navigate by the sun, if not the stars. Buckley’s explanation preceded the availability of celestial navigation electronic calculators to do all those messy, laborious calculations, so this was a real feat. (Not as great a feat, certainly, as Sir Francis Chichester who sailed on one of his voyages mistakenly leaving his sight reduction tables ashore. His site reductions were done from scratch on blank paper using only his knowledge of spherical geometry, a feat that must be considered of near Einsteinian proportions.)

In the July 2004 issue of The Atlantic Monthly, Buckley reflected on his heart wrenching decision to sell his last boat: “So, deciding that the time has come to sell the Patito, and forfeit all that, is not lightly done, and it brings to mind the step yet ahead, which is giving up life itself”.

Several years ago when addressing his and his wife’s advancing age and their prospects of mortality, Buckley composed a sailing essay entitled “Thoughts on a Final Passage.” To honor him after his death, the following passage was oft quoted from this essay:

"You have shortened sail just a little, because you want more steadiness than you are going to get at this speed, the wind up to twenty-two, twenty-four knots, and it is late at night, and there are only two of you in the cockpit. You are moving at racing speed, parting the buttery sea as with a scalpel, and waters roar by, themselves exuberantly subdued by your powers to command your way through them. Triumphalism ... and the stars also seem to be singing together for joy."

Happily the Dan Austin Memorial Library on the second floor of the FBYC clubhouse has the complete trilogy of Bill Buckley'’s delightful sailing books for those who have not yet had the opportunity to immerse themselves in them.

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