It officially feels like summer in New York City and I had an AMAZING afternoon yachting! A 78-degree June day offered the perfect opportunity to celebrate a friend for her birthday. As a woman of color, I am cognizant of the many different threads that are woven into the history maritime experience.
Amalfi Coast yachting vibes
I love the way boating offers a unique way for me to connect and build memories. As the champagne flowed with the Statue of Liberty off in the distance and music blared in between our laughter, I looked back at the Manhattan skyline reminiscing about my grandfather’s boat. Modest in comparison to the boats that are pictured here, I wondered if the freedom that I felt as we cruised over the crest with the wind rustling through my braids was similar to what he felt when he would dip off for hours on Saturday mornings to hit the sea with his buddies. It was through him that my earliest memories of boating began to bloom during my childhood.
Another opportunity to enjoy the freedom of the water (read more about my affinity for water here), I spent much of my youth longing to join him on one of his fishing trips. Much to my chagrin, the vessel that took up half of my grandparents’ driveway was pretty much a floating “man cave” for the former Navy man and his buddies. The one time that he finally did let my grandmother, aunt, mom, cousins and myself jump aboard to join him on the open seas remains a magical moment for me.
Cruising with the “Pink Girls” along Italy’s Amalfi Coast
Now I have opportunities to yacht around the world. So, where did the term yachting come from? Yachts were invented by the Dutch Navy in the 14th century to catch pirates and thieves quickly in shallower waters where larger ships couldn’t be sailed. It wasn’t long until wealthy merchants and ship owners began using these smaller and speedier boats to sail out to celebrate their returning merchant ships. Sailing yachts also became popular with royalty.
And while it quickly became chic to use them for pleasure cruises, the joy of sailing was not felt by all. The 19th-century ship the “Wanderer” was an opulent pleasure yacht. In July 1858, the ship left port for West Africa while flying the pennant of the New York Yacht Club. One of the last known illegal slave ships to enter the US, the Wanderer had a sinister underside: a hidden deck where hundreds of enslaved African were trafficked into the US.
Decades later, the freedom stories would become a part of the waterfront lore to the descendants of the enslaved Africans that were brought to the US against their will. It turns out that the first six autobiographies written by black men in English were all written by sailors. All first generation black autobiographers. All mariners. Centuries later, we continue to change the narrative around boating.
“It is the set of the sail, not the direction of the wind that will determine the direction we will go.” - Jim Rohn