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Into the Screaming 50s (Cont.) SKIP NOVAK AND TWO RACING PALS built Pelagic in 1987, after Novak's third Whitbread. The idea was to get off the professional-yacht-racing treadmill and see a bit more of the world. Novak, who grew up in Chicago and is now based in England, wasn't interested in cruising the temperate zones; from the beginning he knew he wanted to go south, to the Patagonian channels, South Georgia, and above all Antarctica. Pelagic was built of steel, to withstand the ice, and equipped with a lifting keel, crucial for navigation in uncharted waters.
Our next stop is a different story. As we inch into Bahía Schapenham, I see a great curving beach, some low, forested hills, and behind them a cirque of alpine-looking peaks and spires every bit as dramatic as that in Captain Rice's sketch. Novak isn't convinced, however. The stream isn't in the right place, for one thing. And there's a large island protecting the bay from the northeast—Isla Yellow—but no small island at all. Before he puts us ashore he wants to check out Bah'a Rice, two miles to the south. When we do, we conclude that it's too deep, with more than 100 feet of water just off the beach. So Schapenham it is. An hour later, having inflated a 12-foot Zodiac and dropped it over the side, we're beachcombing, hoping for a chunk of 19th-century coal that will prove we're right. The next morning, Novak pulls on a wetsuit and makes a brief dive, but he doesn't find any black gold either. The rest of us hike to the top of the cirque, scuffing through a heathery gray-green landscape reminiscent of the Scottish Highlands. We kick up two grouselike game birds called tinamou, but otherwise see no living creature larger than a spider. When we get back to the beach that afternoon, Novak is hopping with excitement. "Dear Gilles," he says, narrating a mock letter to Fortineau. "We regret to inform you that we have concrete evidence that Schapenham Bay was indeed the site of the River Boyne's scuttling..." While we were ashore, Novak had taken soundings from the Zodiac. Near some rocks where he thought the River Boyne would have been beached, in about ten feet of water, he'd glimpsed what looked like a number of burlap sacks lying on the bottom. Novak moves Pelagic in by the rocks, connects a grappling hook to the shackle on the end of the spinnaker halyard, and tosses it over the side. Richard Fernie begins cranking the winch, while the rest of us bend over the side, peering into the murk. A minute later a bulky form emerges, draped in kelp like Nemo's chest. Novak leans over the rail with a machete and hacks away at it. Sure enough, there's a sack underneath, though it's made of white plastic rather than the antique burlap I'm expecting. "It's gotta be drugs," somebody says. Novak succeeds in cutting a slit in the bag. He looks back up at us with a quizzical expression. "It's nylon," he says. "Some kind of fishnet." (Later, a French skipper tells us the nets are for centolla, or king crab—the main cash crop in these parts. Legally, they're supposed to be fished only with pots; hence the need for secrecy.) Despite the red herring, I'm still convinced. We've scoped all three of the bays north of Punta Lort, and Schapenham is the only possibility. It does seem odd not to find a single piece of coal, considering that 60 tons were dumped overboard. Then again, that was 127 years ago. John Rice pronounces himself "reasonably certain" that we've found the spot, and we run the Zodiac ashore for some final documentary photos. Novak alone seems unsatisfied. "There's one more place I want to check," he says after dinner. "We'll do it tomorrow on the way to the Horn."
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