Before the Bermuda One-Two sailboat race started nearly three weeks ago in Newport, R.I., Peter McCrea told me I would return with an amazing amount of confidence in my seamanship. Even before that, Peter had told me I’d better get a light-air sail lest Monica and I get caught in calms on the return trip.The Prophet Peter! Now Monica says we will have a spinnaker before we do this the next time.

And I can tell you, now that we are 53 miles southeast of Newport, my confidence has shot through the roof.A first long offshore passage is, if my experience is common, the best – and perhaps the only – way a sailor can test all the theory he or she has accumulated. And this trip in particular has given Monica and me such a broad range of conditions that we have had the opportunity to test a whole lot of hypotheses, from dead calms predicted by Peter to the rough squalls under last night’s passing front.

We did not have 35-foot seas at any point, and I can say without qualification that I’d really rather never deal with that situation. But once you’re offshore you, and you alone, must deal with whatever you encounter. That’s the only choice, other than offering yourself up as nautical road kill. So while I’ll continue to try, through a careful look at weather forecasts, to avoid those survival conditions we so often write about in Soundings, I now have practiced some of the recommended survival means.

As an example of the learning process, Monica – who before this trip would never indulge me in a man-overboard-drill – an hour ago said that she sees she would not know how to communicate and emergency from Robin if I became incapacitated. She recognizes that she doesn’t know how to activate the EPIRB or, in this case, to use the satellite telephone.

I, on the other hand, have never yet set off a flare of any kind. I’ve read the instructions. But to fire a flare right now, I’d have to hope the operation was pretty intuitive.

What I have practiced, several times now, is going forward in a blow, clipped on with my tether to the jackline, and reefing sails or raising or lowering them. I can say that the foredeck holds no horror for me, as it once did. The worst thing that can happen – as long as you are properly attached to the boat and it doesn’t capsize while you are up there – is that a wave will break over you. I’ve survived a few small ones now. In foul weather gear I didn’t even get my feet wet.
And what you learn by doing is that when you reef in a timely manner, the boat really does work a lot better, just as you read it would.

It will take many more offshore journeys with lots more practice in real ocean conditions before we can claim any substantial level of seamanship. But here is a bit more evidence that doing it has its rewards.

This morning, after a harrowing night going through the cold front, Monica was sitting in the cockpit while I was doing something in the cabin. She looked down at me and said: “I’m looking forward to a long, hot shower in Newport and dinner at the Brick Alley, but I’m also not looking forward to getting off the boat, because this has been a very nice journey.”