In November 1988 I was sailing single-handed from Negro Head, N.S., to Boston in my forty-foot catamaran. A storm was centred off Cape Hatteras and heading eastward. About fifteen miles off Cape Cod the storm veered North and slammed us. Sometime in the night the bow of one of the hulls was holed and the boat started taking on water. A wave partially crushed the cabin roof of the other hull. It was snowing, with the wind blowing forty to forty-five knots. A fibreglass canoe on the deck was smashed in half. “The Mary Ellen Carter” was the favourite tune that night. I kept singing it over and over, and I kept the boat afloat. About 3:00 a.m. the U.S. Coast Guard contacted me and towed us into Providencetown. Mild hypothermia was the only problem.

—Bob Burdett, Georgetown, ON