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ac Allen of Jamestown, NC pulled up to the Town Dock last Saturday morning on “Kuheli”, a Halberg-Rassy 35. He was in town to pick up a new mainsail because his old one blew out off of Montauk, Long Island a few weeks ago while he returning to Matthews Point Marina from Martha’s Vineyard.

Mac Allen in the salon of SV Kuheli

Just inside the companionway of "Kuheli" there are a two framed photographs. On many a sail boat these might be pictures of the sailboat itself. But the boats shown here are tough working vessels, one a tug, the other a stout fishing boat. They offer an explanation for why Mac made the recent trip to New England; both boats are connected to an old sea captain named Roy Campbell of Martha’s Vineyard.

The fishing boat is an Eastern dragger named the "Roann", which Roy had built in 1947 and named for himself and his wife Annie. Mac says that over the next 15 years, Roy "spent more time on that boat than he did on land." Then, in the early ’60’s when Annie was diagnosed with cancer, Roy changed that ratio. He ended his fishing and started running a tugboat out of Vineyard Haven. It was named "Whitefoot" and is the boat in the other photo on "Kuheli".

That’s how Mac met Roy. In the mid-70’s, just a few years out of high school here in North Carolina, Mac went to work for him.

It was a small crew: Just the cook, Roy and Mac. From Vineyard Haven, the Whitefoot kept busy handling equipment for the oceanographers at Woods Hole, meeting Navy subs halfway to Bermuda to help test sonar, even towing tall ships in to harbors in the Bicentennial year. There were rougher times too. In August of 1979, Mac recalls the "Whitefoot" chugged to a spot east of Long Island where it was supposed to rendezvous with a Japanese long-line fishing boat. Instead, the tug and crew weathered a three day storm with 45 foot seas and 80 mile an hour winds. Later, Mac figured it was the same storm system that had wreaked havoc and killed many racers in the notorious Fastnet sailboat race around the UK. "But back then," says Mac, " I wasn’t paying attention to yacht stuff".

Kuheli at the Town Dock

He does now and the three years of working on the tug with Roy Campbell have stuck with him. Asked if it ever was so harrowing out there that he feared for his life, Mac says no. Roy, he says, taught him to always be prepared for the sea to "take what comes and do the things you have to do.. It’s the same way I run a sailboat off shore now".

It was to see his mentor that Mac went off shore a few weeks ago. The tug boat has a new owner and name — "Weatherbird" —- and its home port is now Beaufort, NC but Roy Campbell still lives on Martha’s Vineyard. He’s in his early 90’s and dealing with Parkinson’s. Mac visited with him during the week he was there.

Crewing on the trip to the Vineyard was Mac’s 10 year old
son, Kiron who was making his first off-shore passage. He wasn’t just along for the ride, but was pressed in to service, says Mac, standing watches with another member of the crew. Indeed, one of the first things that Mac mentions about the trip, was that Kiron was along and did so well. But then, the boy and the boat go way, way back. Mac says that he and his wife Sushmita took Kiron on board "Kuheli" when he was only two weeks old, hanging his cradle just above the salon, not far from those photos of Roy Campbell’s "Whitefoot" and "Roann".

On the way back from the Vineyard, Mac stopped to see Roy Campbell’s "Roann" in real life at the Mystic Seaport in Connecticut where the 55 year old boat is now part of the dockside collection.

After tying up nearby for the night, Mac left Mystic on a Tuesday. Then, off Long Island, " I got knocked around a bit. I had the main sheeted too flat and too tight and it just ripped." Sailing only under jib, and with a helpful wind, Kuheli pulled in to Cape May, NJ on a Thursday night and made time on the ICW that Mac says, "I thought wasn’t possible", arriving at Matthews Point Marina 76 hours later.

Mac, who lives near High Point and works for a biotech firm, says he tries to get off shore once a year. He talks about taking the boat "down Hiway 76 (meridian) to Green Turtle Cay" perhaps next year. But he adds that his trip this summer to the Vineyard where sailboats vie for limited space, (and pay dearly for moorings and slips) "makes you appreciate the anchorages around North Carolina" where you can still drop the anchor.

On his recent trip to Oriental, Mac didn’t anchor out but tied up "Kuheli" (a girl’s name in Bengali that loosely translates as "Misty") at the Town Dock because he was getting a new main from Wally Chapin’s Oriental Sailmakers. On Sunday morning, he put the sail to use for the first time as he tried a maneuver you rarely see anymore in Oriental, or any harbor. Mac raised sail at the Town Dock and then sailed off…..

Kuheli departs Oriental…..

Posted Thursday August 29, 2002 by Melinda Penkava

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