The Covid Chronicles
REPORTS FROM CRUISERS WEATHERING THE PANDEMIC
The novel coronavirus sent the entire planet, including the sailing world, into a complete tailspin, and at least temporarily altered or even erased the very freedom we enjoy while cruising under sail. The following five COVID-19 dispatches from both near and far-flung waters are a testimony to the resiliency and fortitude of sailors everywhere, serving as snapshots of our time.
This past spring, the global pandemic resulting from the novel coronavirus upended the world— including the cruising world—as sailors around the planet scrambled to seek safe harbors and dash together new plans even as borders and waterways slammed closed and the notion of “quarantine,” always a feature of the conclusion of a long passage, took on a whole new meaning.
There was nowhere, literally, that was not affected in some way, shape or form. Working from home here in Newport, Rhode Island, the stories began trickling in. Some of those filtering back were troubling; others were inspirational, bordering on outright heroic.
Take the case of Argentine sailor Juan Manuel Ballestero who, as reported in The New York Times, was stranded on a small island off the coast of Portugal in mid-march aboard his Ohlson 29, Skua, when the pandemic struck. Desperate to see his father, who was soon to turn 90, Ballestero decided to sail home. He was denied entry to Cape Verde to reprovision and pressed on anyway, ultimately spending 85 days at sea before reuniting with his dad in Mar del Plata, where he did receive a hero’s welcome.
Or what about the great yacht designer Rod Johnstone, one of the principals of the family-run J/boat company. According to an account in The Royal Gazette, a Bermuda newspaper, Johnstone’s friend Jean de Fontenay was visiting the United States, with his 67-foot boat, Baraka, docked on the island nation in St. George’s, when everything closed down, including all international flights. Hurricane season was approaching. What to do? Well, Johnstone, de Fontenay and two crew hopped aboard a new 33-foot J/99 and sailed from Connecticut to Bermuda. They were never allowed ashore, but a Bermudan friend left groceries in their dinghy, and the four sailors split up and doublehanded the two boats back to the States. They were not to be denied.
What follows are five more dispatches from around the globe, of sailors facing and reacting to unprecedented circumstances in this dreadful season of COVID-19. They speak for themselves. And they make us proud to be members of the community of cruising sailors.