Catharsis: The New Jester's Transatlantic Passage, 1992

Extract

Jester, in the course of her fourteenth transatlantic crossing, was abandoned on 15 July 1988 in position 39° 08′ N., 58° 43′ W., some 470 nautical miles southeast of Halifax, NS. The circumstances leading up to this melancholy event were described in an article I wrote for the Journal, which also gave, I believe, some indication of the distress the loss of the boat had caused me. Jester had been knocked down in a storm with the loss of one of her side hatches which left her open to the seas and led me to believe I would require assistance to sail on. I sent out a distress call, an act that culminated in the coastguard rescue services urging me, in view of the deteriorating weather situation, to abandon the voyage and take passage in the ship that had come to my assistance. I finally concurred but later, when the boat was lost under tow, reflected bitterly that in the circumstances the coastguard's advice could scarcely have been otherwise and that in any case the safest course is not always the right one to take. From then on, like Conrad's Lord Jim (not the most sympathetic of his characters), I was assailed by doubts.