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Show Family Weekly/July 9, 1967 Our Baby Was Born While We HENEVER I LOOKED at my 100-foot brigantine Laila being battered between angry surf and jag- ged rocks, I’d feel that a good part of my life was disintegrating in sea and wind. Nothing, I thought, could be worse. Then on Nov. 27, 1966, six days after our shipwreck on a deserted beach in the Caribbean, my. wife Ytta told me, “Stephen, I’m having cramps. I think it’s the baby.” We had always referred to our first-born as our “Christmas baby,” but I could understand why it might be coming prematurely. After all, Ytta had been buffeted about when the Laila smashed into the rocks of Rum Cay; then she’d been carried ashore in windwhipped seas; she'd helped salvage survival material; she’d suffered the anxieties of not knowing how long we would be stranded. And complicating Ytta’s first delivery was a serious RH-blood factor. A primitive village was 10 miles from us, but it had no medical facilities and only weekly direct contact with civilization through a mail boat—which we were to learn was out of service. “Ytta,” I said, “it’s just nerves, not the baby.” I didn’t really believe that myself. I asked Jim Butler, one of my crewmen, to head for the village, a day’s walk (and he was barefooted) through coral and thorny underbrush. We hoped a telegraph operator there could convince the Coast Guard it was safe to. land an amphibian plane off our shore. Then Ken Mazzaferro, my other crewman, andI. tried to reach passing ships with our radio. But about 5 a.m., Nov 28, in our tent madeof spars and square sails, Ytta called, “Stephen, the time has come.” Outside, I could hear the groaning of timbers as the Laila slowly died, and with her my life's work. Rum Cay had taken that from me, but it would not take Ytta and our baby. = “Don’t worry,” I said. “We'll have the baby—and we’ll name him Rum Cay!” 5 qj eee The story began two years ago when I was a lonely man with an ambition. After service as a legal officer in the U.S. Navy, I'd worked 10 years on charter boats in the West Indies and had scraped together enough money to buy my own vessel. I went to Scandinavia to find it—not knowing what I was looking for, just knowing that I'd recognize my boat when I saw her. Months later in western Denmark I found the-Laila-and fell in love with her—an outdated coastal wheatcarrier, bulky oak and beech but not without grace. She would need complete renovation to accommodate 16 paying guests, but if you love boats, you love working on them. I started sailing her home by way of Amsterdam—and fell in love again. Amsterdam was where I met Ytta, herself of Danish extraction, lovely, happy, the rare kind of woman who could sail with you in all kinds of weather—literally as well as figuratively. Together, we sailed to England to replace a missing spar, then put in at ports in Spain, Portugal, and North Africa. In short, we had an adventurous honeymoon before setting sail for America with an itinerant crew. Awaiting us was almost another year’s work to make the Laila a comfortable charter brigantine. We scraped decks in Nassau, had cabins and deckhouse redesigned in Miami, then with the help of numerous relatives in Wrightsville Beach, N.C., fitted each plank and sewed each seam with care. We headed for the Caribbean in October to avoid beating into the trade winds and to be “home” whenour baby was born. We should have taken out insurance for the Laila, but every cent we had was invested in the boat. Wecouldn’t have wished for fairer winds than those that drove us toward Nassau. Weleft Miami and turned in about 1:30 am. At 4, Ytta heard the whine of a pump and went on deck to check. “Stephen!” I heard her cry. “Land dead ahead!” I rushed to the deck and saw the glint of surf line and white beach. With square sails aloft, it was impossible to try to sail windward and gain an offing. “I'll try to start the engine,” I shouted. The engine was a complicated one-ton semidiesel which I alone knew how to start. I whispered to it, “For once, just once, don’t be stubborn.” But on my first try, the Laila rolled hard and threw the flywheel out of position. On the second try, the engine started—but in the wrong direction. Suddenly the.Laila pitched and all but tumbled me. There was the sickening crunch of keel on rock. I made a third frantic attempt, this one successful. But the Laila didn't respond. A high-pitched “scream over the wind told me that our screw had lifted out of the water. We were helpless. Wind and sea rose in fury, just as animals do at the scent of blood. I found Ytta, her face glistening in sea spray and moonlight, and told her what she already knew: “The Laila’s done for. But she’s sturdy, and we'll have time to get a lot of equipmentoff.” “We're alive,” Ytta said. “That's what's most important.” As dawn heightened, the sea and wind picked up and pounded the The reef-ringed island-had takentheirlife's work; now,stranded onits deserted beach, they feared it would take their “Christmas baby” Family Weekly, July 9. 1967 Laila on her rocky bed. We took off bedding, food, the radio, and other essentials. After a few hours, though, the boat ,was lurching so violently we were thrown to the surf-washed decks. Carrying Ytta, we waded through the foaming water to the safety of the beach, too exhausted to be bitter about the past or fearful of the future. Our charts told us we were on Rum Cay, a dot in the Bahamas 180 miles from Nassau, and that there was a village nearby. Ken and Jim tried to walk there the first day, but the terrain was too difficult for exhausted men. So life began on Rum Cay, and not too arduously, either. We had an 18-foot skiff and even electric lights from the boat’s generator. We suffered only from mosquitoes and a scarcity of water. On the second day, Jim and Ken got to the village and returned with coconuts and water. But they brought no encouraging news. The village had no large boat to take us to Nassau and no immediate prospects of any boats put- ting in. The waters off our beach were still too turbulent for planes to land. So for the next few days we salvaged what we could from the Laila, tides permitting, and con- |