By Jack Roland Costello
My godfather and father met in college at Webb Institute, a small school perched above Long Island Sound that teaches exactly one thing: Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering. Every student there learns how to build ships and, inevitably, to sail them. Sailing wasn’t so much a hobby at Webb as it was a continuation of the coursework.
Both men love the water but in very different ways. My father often says he loves practicing law but hates lawyers, loves golfing but hates golfers, and above all loves sailing but hates sailors. What he means is that he loves the experience but not the culture that often surrounds it. His idea of a perfect day on the water is calm and unhurried, a steady wind at his back and the slow approach of a quiet harbor. My godfather, by contrast, treats sailing like a test of nerve and precision. He races lean boats where every inch of sail and twitch of the tiller means the difference between victory and defeat.
One summer we went to visit him in New Jersey for a party and stayed the night. The next morning, we learned that he had planned to race that day, but the weather had other plans. Winds were steady at 20 knots, and the race was canceled. It was, according to the organizers, too dangerous for the new four-person boat. But not, apparently, too dangerous to take three people out in an old one-to-two-person Sunfish that had been sitting on the beach since the Reagan administration.
An Angry Sea
My brother Riley and I were nervous, but we trusted him. We helped push the little boat into the surf, and once we climbed aboard there was no turning back. The sea was angry that day, my friends. From the shore the waves had looked playful, but out there they were sharp and close together, slapping the bow and throwing spray in our faces. A 14-foot dinghy with one sail is not meant for 20-knot winds, yet we were soon tearing across the water faster than seemed reasonable. I am half certain we got the boat up on a plane at one point. Each time we hit a wave head on, the bow disappeared under the surface, and we came up soaked, sputtering, and grinning despite ourselves.
My godfather called commands over the wind, adjusting the sheet, leaning his weight to counterbalance the gusts. The boat felt alive beneath us, flexing and humming. At times the tiller kicked in his hand and the whole world tilted, horizon sliding off to one side as if we were about to roll over. My heart pounded, half from fear and half from awe. I remember looking at Riley, his hair plastered across his face, his mouth open in something between a laugh and a yell. There was nothing to do but hang on and hope the boat held together.
There’s a sound that small boats make when they’re pushed too hard, a mix of wind and strain that settles deep into your memory. It’s a reminder that you’re borrowing more power than you can control. I remember the way the hull slapped the water, the sail snapping like a flag, the hiss of spray catching the sunlight. For all the chaos, there was a strange rhythm to it, a balance between surrender and command. We weren’t conquering anything. We were simply surviving well.
Somehow, we never capsized. When we finally slid back onto the sand, salt-streaked and trembling, we stood there for a long moment without speaking. Then my godfather laughed, a full, sharp laugh that broke the spell, and the three of us pulled the boat up the beach in silence. The wind still howled across the bay, but it felt different now, less like a threat and more like a reminder that we’d been allowed to borrow something powerful for a little while.
Postscript: A Final Lesson in Hydrodynamics
I have done plenty of sailing since then, and I have come to believe that the best part of it is capsizing. Not the aftermath, but the instant before, when the boat leans past the point of recovery and gravity forgets you. It’s a perfect pause between control and chaos. On that New Jersey morning, though, I wasn’t ready for such lessons. I prayed we would stay upright.
Sailing, I’ve since realized, is an act of faith disguised as skill. You can study the wind, chart your course, trim your sails just so, and still find yourself at the mercy of forces you cannot see. The ocean does not negotiate. It teaches you to yield without quitting, to balance mastery with humility. My father finds that peace in calm waters, my godfather in the storm. Between them lies the truth of it, the rhythm that keeps sailors returning even after the sea humbles them.
Somewhere between their approaches I learned to love the water, not for its calm or its danger, but for its honesty. It reminds you that control is an illusion and that sometimes the only way forward is to let go.
