Читать книгу Little Ship of Fools. Sixteen Rowers, One Improbable Boat, Seven Tumultuous Weeks on the Atlantic онлайн

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AS THE WINTER DEEPENED, Roy’s communication with the crew became increasingly fitful. There were stretches when we didn’t hear from him for weeks. He had taken time away to build another rowing boat, a smaller craft, for a team of British rowers—three of whom, ironically, had in recent months departed our own dwindling crew.

Roy’s own abrupt departure from the expedition in the late spring of 2010 might have been predicted. By that time, he had apparently fallen out with David, and the project was sinking into debt. The boat was far from ready for the ocean. No one knew quite what to do or think about Roy’s going. On the downside, we had lost our captain, a mercurial mastermind who had brought multi-hulled boats to ocean rowing and in so doing had revolutionized the sport. What we had gained, meanwhile, was the freedom to reshape the adventure, free of the singular fixations of an increasingly unpredictable leader.

Until now, the greatest mystery for the crew had been the nature of David and Roy’s connection, and of David’s connection to the boat. In the early days, David had been pitched to the crew as an engineer who would be aboard but not rowing, presumably as Roy’s assistant. Steve believed David was the money man, and that Shelter Island Boats was Roy’s operation. But with Roy’s departure, it quickly became clear that David, a man with the subtlest of egos, owned not just the boatyard but the boat and that he knew a good deal more than we had imagined about boatbuilding. Indeed, with a gaggle of his Long Island pals, two of whom were fellow Georgians, he was prepared now to take over the project. His motivation compared to Roy’s (whose was creative and competitive, as well as financial) was largely a matter of integrity. He and Roy had accepted money from those who had signed on, and David was not about to stiff them if he could help it.