Today's early morning mail includes an article from John Potter in Annapois that references Shelley's death by drowning 186 years ago. It could be titled caught in a storm with a badly designed boat. We can still get caught in a storm, even with all the navigation aids developed over the recent past but having a life vest on, or near at hand, is a prerequisite whenever you leave the dock. It is also is required by the Laser class amongst others. Enjoy the article.

July 8, 1822: Shelley dies by drowning (from "The Guardian"):

From the earliest references to his childhood love of paper boats (often made of large denomination banknotes), to his last Faustian letters from the unearthly beauty of the bay of Lerici, these intimations of death seem to extend everywhere. "My boat is swift and beautiful, and appears quite a vessel ... We drive along this delightful bay in the evening wind, under the summer moon, until earth appears another world ... If the past and the future could be obliterated, the present would content me so well that I could say with Faust to the passing moment, 'Remain thou, thou art so beautiful'."

Biography is caught and frozen, so to speak, in the glamorous headlights of Shelley's death. But if we set that death aside, if we switch off its hypnotic dazzle for a moment, maybe quite different patterns and trajectories can emerge from Shelley's life.

First of all, the circumstances of his drowning can be shown to involve prosaic bad luck, and bad judgment, as much as ill-starred destiny. Despite what Trelawny implied, Shelley had considerable previous experience with sailing boats, from schoolboy expeditions up the Thames, to sailing single-handed (or with his ex-Royal Navy friend, Edward Williams) down the Arno, the Serchio, and beyond Livorno harbour out to sea.

He had successfully survived perilous incidents on the Rhine (with Mary) in 1814, on Lake Geneva (with Byron) in 1816, and on the Pisan Canal (with Williams) in 1821. Mary always recognised his "passion" for boating, encouraged it as exercise, and observed that "much of his life was spent on the water". His courage and coolness afloat was also remarked on by Byron.

It was true, however, that Shelley was a river sailor. The Don Juan was his first ocean-going boat, although it was not the "skiff" or "fragile craft" of legend. It was a heavy 24-foot wooden sailing boat, based, according to Williams, on a scaled-down model of an American schooner (12 metres reduced to eight). It had a lot of canvas: twin masts carrying main and mizzen sails, and a bowsprit flying three jibs. It was sleek, fast, with little sheer and, most significantly, no decking. Yet because of its unusual weight of sail, it had to be heavily ballasted with "two tonnes" of pig iron. It cost Shelley £80, or about one-tenth of his annual income. The local Italians were impressed with it, and even the Lerici harbourmaster, Signor Maglian, sailed with them in the open sea as far as Massa, in rough weather conditions.

The Don Juan had been delivered to Lerici on May 16 1822, "a perfect plaything for the summer". After trials mostly spent racing Italian feluccas ("she passes the small ones as a comet might pass the dullest planets of the Heavens"), the boat was refitted by its designer Captain Roberts, helped by Williams, in the last days of June. The aim was clearly speed. Adaptations included two new topmast sails (gaff topsails), an extended prow and bowsprit, and a false-stern. In some accounts Williams also included shelves for Shelley's books inside the gunwales, a sporting concession.

But unknown to Shelley, the Don Juan had a fundamental design-fault. A twin-masted schooner could not simply be scaled-down to a small, undecked, open boat. The sail to hull ratio was far too high; it was ballasted with too much pig iron, and it floated with too little freeboard. It was "very crank", and dangerously unseaworthy. The refit, which they all thought so handsome, appears to have exaggerated all these defects: more sail, more ballast, less clearance.

As it was undecked and carried no buoyancy aids, the Don Juan was now in danger, not simply of capsizing, but of foundering. In heavy seas it might fill with water from the stern or leeward side, and go straight down. It had become a nautical death trap.

Shelley set sail for Livorno (approximately 45 miles south) on July 1 1822. Mary, who was ill and depressed, did not wish him to go. But the trip was neither solitary, nor suicidal in intent. On the contrary, it was full of hope and high spirits. It was made to greet his old friend Leigh Hunt, who had just arrived in Italy to found a new literary journal. Four of them (including Captain Roberts) made the outward leg, very fast, in perfect weather conditions.

On the return trip, there were only three aboard: Shelley, Williams and Charles Vivian, an English boatboy aged 18. It was intended as a single fast seven-hour reach to Lerici, under their full glorious spread of canvas, to race them home by dusk. Mary and Jane Williams were waiting impatiently at the Casa Magni for their men.

But now their luck ran out. After three hours a violent squall came up from the west. They had started too late to outdistance it. Trelawny had intended to accompany them in Byron's full-size schooner, the Bolivar, but at the last moment was prevented by Italian port authorities. Had he been alongside, he would undoubtedly have saved them.

The Don Juan's final moments are still disputed. Later rumours of a pirate ramming, fostered by Roberts and Trelawny (both carrying an uneasy sense of blame) evaporate on examination. But there are persistent reports of a failure to take down the new gaff topsails (which required Vivian to climb the masts), or to reef the mainsails in time. They were clearly undermanned, but still attempting to run for home.

The unseaworthy Don Juan was engulfed in enormous waves, had its false stern and rudder ripped off, lost both masts, and foundered in 10 fathoms of water about 15 miles off Viareggio. These details became clear when the wreck was salvaged by Italian fishermen two months later. It did not capsize, and was not looted, as books, papers, wine bottles, a telescope (broken), a cash bag, some tea spoons, and a sea trunk, were all found lying within the open hull when it was pulled from the sea-bed. They were half entombed in blue mud.

The boat went down so quickly that Williams did not have time to kick off his boots, and Shelley thrust a new copy of Keats's poems into his jacket pocket, so hard that it doubled-back and the spine split. This much was clear (but not much else) from the three bodies cast up along the coast 10 days later: they could be identified by their clothes, but not by their faces.

There might have been one last chance. Williams had constructed an eight-foot coracle or dinghy, made of reeds and canvas, which was used as the Don Juan's "pram" or tender, and towed behind the boat. Shelley had frequently used this cockleshell for exploring Lerici bay, and had so often capsized it in the surf that it is difficult to believe he hadn't at least learned to doggy paddle. This dinghy was the one thing that remained afloat after the shipwreck, and was soon washed up on Viareggio beach. So the troubling question arises: did Williams (or Vivian) cut it loose? Did they (the good swimmers) attempt to push Shelley on to its upturned hull? Or did Shelley (the bad swimmer) gallantly resign it to them?

These are haunting images of a different kind.

So with better luck, or less gallantry, Shelley could well have survived. But did he also have reason to survive? He sometimes claimed to have abandoned writing, overwhelmed by Byron's aristocratic self-confidence and continuing literary success. "I do not write - I have lived too long near Lord Byron & the sun has extinguished the glow-worm."

In a boat named the Don Juan, after visiting Lord Byron? Give me a break. Are their librettos? Surely we might try our hand, as Buglys.