Miami to Nassau Yacht Race

You can't be a kid growing up in South Florida without an awareness of water. It is everywhere, from canals draining land to allow houses to be built, to the “River of Grass” of the Everglades, and from the Intercoastal Waterway separating Miami Beach from the mainland, to the islands strung together by the thread of the Overseas Highway from Key Biscayne to Key West.

Even the original heart of Miami fronts on Biscayne Bay at the mouth of the Miami River, whose origin is in the Everglades, which totally dominate the lower portion of the Florida mainland, itself at six feet elevation, barely above the level of the Bay. As a boy I spent much time either at the beach or in The Glades, with a bit of time in The Keys, including a school bus trip with my high school band when our football team played Key West High School. 

Each of us was paired with a family having a child in their school band. I don't remember much about the family or the stay other than a statistic the father of the student mentiond...that there were more boats than cars registered in the Keys.

You can't not be mesmerized and enchanted

Beach at Bahia Honda
Old railroad and highway bridge in background

My memory of the Keys is of achingly lovely little islands linked by a two lane road and bridges over an endless expanse of Baby Blue sky, puffy white clouds, and crystal clear turquoise water. In particular I think of the high arched Bahia Honda bridge over the ship channel and its adjacent beach, where you could walk for what seemed like half a mile in water that was never more than waist deep and at near body temperature, in which you could see your own toes and a million dollars worth of tropical fish of all colors playing in and out around your legs.

The old bridge at Bahia Honda

The above photo of the Bahia Honda Bridge shows how the high rise was built over the old Florida East Coast Railroad right of way...in fact you can see the tracks running just above the concrete piers. Unfortunately, in the typical way Florida and America devalue history, rather than trying to restore the bridge a bypass was built and the center of the bridge torn off,  leaving behind an ugly stub of remains.  While the original roadway and bridges did not take into consideration the interruption of natural current flows, contributing to one of the 20th century's biggest disaster in the great hurricane of 1935, more could have and should have been done to preserve what also was one of the most audacious engineering feats of that century...the "Railroad Which Went to Sea."

1935 Hurricane Victim Memorial
Islamorada, Florida

Even as a young adult, at least before my folks moved up to Cocoa for my dad's new job with a newspaper which became the protoype for the version of “Today” we now have (It had the same name), I spent time in and around the water, including a photo shoot during which I captured Marcia in a goofy pose on steps at the Miami Marina at the north end of Biscayne Park. 

In a Goofy Mood
Probably just after saying "goo"
c1971

The mouth of the Miami was where the city was born. Back then some of the early buildings were still there and active. I remember the Mayflower Cafe in particular because, as a boy of perhaps ten, for some reason my Mom took me there (we must have been downtown for some errand of hers). I can recall sitting at the counter, which had backless stools and was in the shape of a “U” for efficient service by the staff. We sat at the base of the “U” and looked directly up at the back wall, upon which was a cartoon which stuck in my mind forever. 

On each side of a tray of donuts was what I recalled as a chef in full white gear, bent forward over the tray. Above it was the following ditty: “As you ramble on in life, brother, whatever be your goal, keep your eye upon the donut, and not upon the hole.” Odd what makes a permanent impression on a ten year old. 

Obviously an imperfect memory
But then I was only 10 or so
Surprised I remembered the slogan

At the north end of the wide promenade of Biscayne Boulevard was the anchor of the Miami New Building. Much later in life it became, and remains, the “Freedom Tower.” But while my dad worked for the News and before they moved into new quarters a bit further north, at the edge of the Bay and between two of the causeways linking the mainland to the beach, I was actually there at least once on “bring your kid to work” day. 

For many years, on a spot across the Boulevard at the edge of the shore, there rested an old freighter which had been blown onshore by the 1926 hurricane which all but destroyed the city. 

Returning to the south, at the heart of downtown, just at the mouth of the river, stood the DuPont Hotel on what was then known as Dupont Plaza. The hotel had what I guess was its own wharf. At any rate, for some time before the start of the Miami to Nassau yacht races some of the entries were tied up at that wharf and were open for public viewing.

My memory says all these boats were sloops. Of course it also says that I toured some of them while they were held open for viewing...while the former seems to be the case (the few exceptions seem to be either ketch or yawl configurations...I can never keep them straight), the latter may have been just in my boyhood dreams.

They were impossibly beautiful, impossibly large relative to my modest dreams of having a sailboat, with masts that exceeded the lengths of the boats and, in at least some cases, rose 40 or more feet from the decks.

I suppose that the costs of owning and racing one of these wonderful sloops is no more or less crazy than that of the vintage racing I have been doing for decades, or that of the other classic cars I had or still own. In both cases I would guess there are budget participants such as I have been, playing in a much wealthier field.

I would hope there was and is an equal aura of camaraderie.

Two sloops on the race course
As a boy the boats seemed a lot bigger

The model in these photos is not one of those magical boats of my youth. They are of the yacht Brittania, which contested the Americas Cup in its first years. There is another boat called the “Pen Duick” I would like to have built, but its cost and the complexity of the kit intimidated me and I opted for what I hoped would be a more simple build, yet, as it is an Italian version with that attention to fineness of detaill for which the Italians are renowned , it will do well representing that era in my life and the (perhaps embellished by time) memories I have of those visits at the mouth of the Miami.

After almost four full months and hundreds of hours I learned the Britannia, at least as executed by Mamoli, had I known, would have intimidated me every bit as much as the Pen Duick kit...and I never would have attempted it.

That effort is detailed further in a forthcoming blog entry. I'm glad I took it on and am proud of the effort, but it has been both the most rewarding, as well as the most frustrating, model I have erver attempted.

The Real Pen Duick
What a gorgeous craft

The Royal Yacht Britannia...an equal beauty and clear inspiration for Pen Duick

Large Scale Handbuilt Model I did
An Exercise in Learning, Patience, and Love