The Super Sailors

During the frosty days of a bygone January, The Marco Beach Hotel and Villas was the Queen of Marco Beach. The Mackle brothers were working hard to project an image of Hawaii, Tahiti, and Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Seas romantic sunsets, but during an early year of the effort, and before St Valentine’s Day could claim the calendar, the icy fingers of winter found a way to grip Marco Island.

To help with the visual marketing of the Marco brand of paradise, an impressive fleet of beachside sailboats was always a colorful icon standing by to offer traditional sailing as an adventure for any Marco guest who would like to take a hand on a tiller.

To watch over this little fleet of sailing boats were some of the first Marco Beach Boys and Girls. The command center for the tiny sailing operation was a small chickee hut huddled up next to the sailboats at the edge of the water.

On most winter days, the weather is fair and the sailing is wonderful. Before winter cold fronts arrive, the balmy wind is truly like the South Seas with a coastal breeze coming out of the southeast before clocking to the southwest. The winters on Marco Beach, however, are always like a great roulette wheel of weather. On most occasions during winter, the warm wind and the balmy days prevail, but when the wind veers to the northwest, high humidity and chilling water can create a frosty wind-chill to rival any winter wonderland.

The weather on Marco Beach is always fun to watch—especially when a strong cold front arrives. On the midwinter days when the blustery northwest wind conquers the compass, the Gulf can surrender the emerald color of the tropics to the gray and white breaking waves of winter. The coastal Gulf in winter can indeed be fickle, and so can the sailors who arrive and believe that southwest Florida is always tropical.

When the three Super Sailors arrived and demanded to rent a catamaran despite the northwest wind that was light but whispering a warning, the beach crew gave each other a glance. After the ringleader of the three Super Sailors began to swagger and crow about his previous exploits as an expert sailor, even the seagulls watching from the sand seemed to sense trouble.

Everyone who rented a sailboat at Marco Beach received the same instructions and warning: “Stay in sight. No one can help any boat that is out of sight!”

When The Super Sailors heard the rule to stay close to the beach because the winter weather was indeed an unpredictable roulette wheel of weather, they laughed and once again began to name-drop famous sailing destinations and nautical vernaculars. The overconfident ringleader was basking in his own limelight and bolstering support from nodding acolytes who were also bragging about many salty years of seagoing experience. After the rental paperwork was complete, the three Super Sailors climbed aboard a Hobie Cat in the rising surf and set out toward the southwestern horizon.

When The Super Sailors began to embark on their latest adventure, the late afternoon sun was reaching for the offshore horizon. After half an hour, The Super Sailors were almost out of sight. With the seagulls still watching with steely eyes and the Marco Beach Boys searching with binoculars, the tiny Hobie Cat with the colorful sails was a fleeting image and apparently heading for Key West.

Anyone familiar with boating and wind recognizes that streaking whitecaps are the key to understanding wind speed on the water. When the wind is calm, the surface of the water is like a glassy swimming pool. When the wind begins to strengthen and build, streaking whitecaps are the newly forming cresting waves.

When the Super Sailors capsized and the colorful Marco Beach sail went tumbling over, the whisper of the northwest wind was no longer whispering. It was shouting, biting with a chill, and churning the earlier whitecaps into a seaway with waves that were breaking bigger with every moment the runaway sailboat remained capsized.

When two of the four Marco Beach Boys jumped on another catamaran and went out to help, the earlier weather forecast of light and variable wind was only a frustrating memory. After crashing through the offshore building waves, and all the way hoping the wayward Super Sailors and the flipped over boat were safe, the beach boys arrived to find the trio of expert sailors freezing with chattering teeth and frustrated that they were unable to right the capsized catamaran and sail back to the beach.

After the Marco Beach Boys came alongside in the heaving seas and the building wind, everyone was soaked through, almost numb, and losing heat fast. With the rescue boat as an upright platform, the wayward catamaran soon came upright, but the driving wind was pushing both of the sailboats away from Marco Beach.

Sailboats cannot sail upwind without tacking or zigzagging. Returning to warmth and safety was only possible after another hour of sailing through drenching seas before both boats landed in the surf and touched the shore where the other beach crew and the seagulls were still watching.

On the way back to the beach on that suddenly very chilling and unexpected rough weather day, when the roulette wheel of weather almost came up on more than a triple zero, the Marco Beach Boys remembered their training from mentor Captain Jim Martin. “Remember crew,” Captain Jim always instilled. “The most dangerous thing about the water is the temperature. The colder the water, the more dangerous it becomes. With relative high humidity and water in the 60s, hyperthermia can take command of any offshore situation—fast!”