Peter
Abelman
(inducted 2011)
Dear King Neptune - Here is my story:
"Anne Kristine"
A love affair
with an older woman
I had been sailing most of my life. I taught myself to sail on a Sunfish, then raced Lasers and I owned a twenty-seven foot sloop with a good friend for 27 years.
In the spring of 1986, I received a phone call that changed my life.
Howard Baker, a colleague of mine, asked if I would help his brother Norman “bend on the sails” of his new sail boat. Norman Baker had just returned to New York with his new sailboat, the Anne Kristine, from Tortola. Norman is a world class sailor, having sailed with Thor Heyerdahl on the two RA expeditions and the Tigris expedition as navigator and sailing master.
I arrived at the South Street Sea Port with no idea of what kind of new boat Norman had. To my surprise and delight, Anne Kristine was a 95-foot, two-masted schooner built in Norway in 1868. Norman found her in Tortola and after four years of rebuilding, returned to New York.
As I stepped over the rail, I fell in love. After a day of “Bending on the Sails” we left New York for New Bedford MA, my first on the Anne Kristine. I was on every voyage the Anne Kristine made.
Norman started Sail Training with the Anne Kristine that summer in Nova Scotia. He brought students from various Canadian schools onto the Anne Kristne and used sailing to teach self reliance. During the Winter, the Anne Kristene was moored in Sheepshead Bay, Brooklyn, so I would make the five to seven day voyage to Nova Scotia for the delivery return trip back.
In the winter of 1991, Cornell University chartered the ship in Porto Rico for an oceanographic study. We were to sail to Bermuda then on to Porto Rico. We left New York at the end of October for the first leg of the voyage. In theory, this was two weeks after the hurricane season and before the start of the North Atlantic Gales. Three days out we had the first re-port of a tropical depression south of Bermuda. The next day the tropical depression turned into Hurricane Grace and a North Atlantic Gale developed. Plotting the location and direction of the hurricane and the gale put the Anne Kristine dead center of both storm tracks. This was the “Perfect Storm.”
We spent the next three days sailing in 60 foot seas and winds of 100 miles an hour. The Anne Kristine started taking on water. We were about 350 miles due East of Cape Hatteras. We were in contact with the US Coast Guard. The Coast Guard attempted to drop emergency pumps from a C 130 at night, without any success. Later that night we were informed that a helicopter had been dispatched to attempt a rescue. About two AM the helicopter arrived on site. On command from the chopper, one at a time, each member of the crew stepped over the rail into the sea, and then drop a basket from about 100 feet up and 50 yards from the ship. Each crew member would swim to the basket, in water that was more froth and foam than water, then climb in and be raised up to the chopper. The procedure was repeated nine times until all of the crew was in the helicopter.
Unknown to the crew, when the helicopter left its base in North Carolina the pilot realized he did not have enough fuel with the extreme weather conditions to complete the mission. The pilot received permission to land on an aircraft carrier that had been sent out to deep water and refuel. To make the return trip, the chopper landed on the aircraft carrier, refueled, and then continued on to North Carolina.
We landed at the Coast Guard Base in Elizabeth City North Carolina. A group of Coast Guard personnel were waiting for the helicopter crew, as the pilot left the chopper he raised his arm and shouted “we got them all”. It was the first time that I allowed myself to think that I might have been in danger.
The Anne Kristine was lost, but the entire crew was rescued.
