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Outside Magazine 2003

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Last Time Around (cont.)

IN MAY I TRAVELED TO ST.-MALO, an ancient walled seaport on Brittany's coast, for the sailors' reunion. It was in a tavern here in 1937 that six sea captains founded the brotherhood of Cape Horn sailors, the Amicale Internationale des Capitaines au Long Cours Cap-Horniers, which was eventually opened to any sailor who'd rounded Cape Horn on a deep-sea commercial sailing vessel but adamantly excluded "sportsmen" rounding on "yachts." Thus, it's been impossible to qualify for full membership in the AICH since 1 a.m. on July 11, 1949, when the Pamir, under full sail and a starlit sky, doubled the Horn with my father aboard.

It was decided long ago that the 2003 St.-Malo gathering would mark the last of the annual AICH "congresses," as the membership had dwindled from several thousand to a few hundred aged men. The group would then disband forever—"to end in beauty," as the president put it, "and die in dignity." I went alone to the elegant champagne-and-caviar receptions, the flag-raising ceremonies with military bands, the dedications of monuments. I sat in a pew next to an old Finnish Cape Horner and his wife during the memorial service in St.-Malo's great Gothic cathedral, the sea crashing just beyond the city walls. Hundreds of relatives and well-wishers attended the service, plus a few dozen of the old Cape Horners, with their blue blazers and white hair.

"And now let us pray for all sailors," intoned the priest into the dim and towering stone spaces, "for those who go down to the sea in ships, and follow their trade in great waters. Keep them in their hour of special need."

The 12 chapter presidents read off the names of Cape Horners who had "crossed the bar"—died—since the last congress. The German chapter had lost scores of members in the past year, the land Islands of Finland had lost dozens, and the North American chapter—tiny to begin with—had lost two.

"William Stark. After weathering many storms, may he have found a safe and tranquil sea."

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