Sam Cox

Sam Cox
(inducted 2008)

As a lifelong sailor, I have been to sea many, many times, and each time, the sea has shown me something new.

I remember my first time at sea, we were delivering my fathers 48 foot Swan, Scaramouche of Warwick, from our home in Greenwich to Maine for a cruise. We made stops up the shore, and I would sleep in the foot of the mainsail as we went. At that time, sailing to me was a constant, and comfortable endeavor. When we came across our first storm I, in my infinite six year old wisdom, came down out of the sail, and went down below. As the boat pitched with the waves, I found the large container of purple cool aid, otherwise known as bug juice. With all the able hands on deck to deal with the storm, I drank the entire pitcher of Kool Aid myself, about a liter of the stuff.

It didn't take long for me to get sick, as any mariner will tell you, the worst place to be in a storm is down below. As my stomach turned in knots, I ran for the cabin ladder to get topside. The bug juice was on its way out, and fast. My throat and mouth filled as my head came through the hatch, but I emerged into the spray at just the right time to feel the boat get knocked sideways by a wave, throwing me down as I vomited. The violence of the waves, and the force of my vomit had caught me off guard, and I had a moment that Kipling would have been proud of. I threw up straight into the gale, and as I fell, I watched the arc of my chunder go into the wind, and hook back at me lying prone on the deck. The last droplets missing my face by inches, my father, the English captain Brian, and the Swedish mate Helena, couldn't help but laugh.

Always vomit downwind; they admonished me.

Years and miles later, I sailed my first Bermuda race. No longer six, no longer a rookie, I was fortunate enough to join a team called Bella Mente. We were a big boat, but not huge, measuring 66' at the waterline. We had practiced hard, mostly in breeze, and were crewed by a group of very able racers, 4 AmericaR17;s Cup winners among us. I was lucky to be on board, and looking forward to a fantastic, and hopefully breezy race. The first night was cold and light as we made our way down the meander. The current was racing below us, giving us 5 more knots over the bottom. We were by no means the favorite, and we hadn't had the first radio check in, but we were alone, totally separated from our competition. All of a sudden, in the middle of the ocean, we stopped cold. In all that ocean, we had run over a crab pot, and run it over good. The metal tall boy was scraping our side, and our keel was wrapped in the anchor rhode. After snapping two sail-ties trying to pull the tall boy forward and unwrap ourselves, our captain Rob Miles stripped down to his skivvies, put an oxygen tank in his mouth, and popped over the side. Two minutes later, we were free, a shivering Rob was on deck, and we were on our way through the night, and into what turned out to be the lightest air Bermuda race ever. It took us 4 days to finish, and our most used sail was the wind seeker. We drank purple bug juice, Kool Aid flavoring the otherwise off tasting de-sal. We ate dehydrated food, slept in stifiling quarters, but somehow, through all the monotony of sailing upwind in light air to Bermuda, we were ahead. As we came within sight of the island, whales started jumping abeam of us, and there was not another mast in sight. We were handed champagne and beer by the flotilla that came to watch, and dark and stormy's once we arrived at shore. All of us thirsty, sweaty and smelly, we had survived, and won.

Hard as it was to keep one's focus through the long, light air watches on the way to Bermuda, it pales in comparison to the Halifax race. The problem with Halifax is that the wind is light, and the weather cold. This years race was as cold as I can remember at sea, and we were running aggressive watches. The weather had set us up for a blow, and then turned the corner at the last minute. Light air again. We were only allowed storage of 8”x5”x6” for three days of racing. We wore everything we owned and still had numb buttocks from sitting on the carbon deck. Thankfully, there was no bug juice.