On Long Island Sound a signal cannon saluted the sunset, as Bengal crossed
the finish line last—but winning the day for seamanship. A boy helmsman
on a gaff-rigged dingy—crewed by his Commodore dad—pushed hard before
the wind, was knocked flat and foundered. Diesel snapped on. Towed in. Race over.
An SOS vetoes racing. But the final boom of the cannon brought a last place trophy,
an offer to join a lively sailing club. Bengal’d become a 22-foot-long life coach.

Proud sea mistress
Bengal soon endured
trials of her own—surviving
a reef-shorn center board,
her diesel, seizing after
a nor’easter hulled and
de-masted her. Undaunted
she visited Manhattan’s 79th St.
boat basin, where her century
old elegance, captured by
a real estate photographer,
splashed on bus stops all over
Manhattan. On our last voyage
to Mt. Desert Island, flying
before the wind Downeast,
she met her new owner and—
two eager-to-be-sailor boys
—not able to weather
her old captain’s divorce.