Casting Off

PHOTO: LEELA AGUADULCE LANDRESS Stowe sees a unique view of New York from the deck of Anne, his 70-foot gaff rig schooner.

When Reid Stowe castes off in December from Pier 63 on the west side of Manhattan, he will follow global trade winds from New York to the southern coast of Africa, past Australia, around the end of South America and on and on. If all goes as planned, his return to New York will be the first time he even sees land in almost three years.

Stowe has employed the aid of his close-knit group of friends to help finance the project.

One of the expedition's organizers, Sterling Barrett says, "I've known Reid for long enough to see that he's both a visionary and an adventurer."

Which might sound odd when you hear Stowe talk about about his aversion to hardship as he loads more wood into his stove. "I don't like being cold," he says. "I don't like being wet."

He's referring to his last significant voyage, in which he and his ex-wife, Laurence Gillem, sailed a course in the shape of a sea turtle using the South Atlantic as their canvas. The 200-day voyage began in January 2001 in the middle of a snowstorm. Almost immediately, his 60-ton schooner flipped for the first time in its 25 years at sea.

Then it flipped again. And one final time for good measure.

PHOTO: LEELA AGUADULCE LANDRESS

"The boat vibrates in a harmonic sort of way. I've been keeping her in tune always ready to go." — Reid Stowe

Yet, there is an intense spiritualism about Stowe and his grasp to find profound meaning through this expedition. He repeatedly talks about the need for humans to expand their consciousness, and that he is setting out on this voyage to do just that.

"There's something about the comfort of the sea, and there's something about knowing that the sea can gobble you up in an instant. The sea might be calm one moment and the next moment it's raging and it's overwhelming. The waves might be soft and rolling but inside, it has a beast's heart that could eat you up."

Stowe knows what he is talking about. Over the course of his life, he has sailed some of the world's most perilous oceans on expeditions that he says are antidotes for our speed-
obsessed society."

He displays a spiritual machismo as he talks about it, a psychological swagger when he illustrates how this journey is a part of his own evolution from a young teen who simultaneously discovered sailing, yoga and the study of religion and mysticism after reading 'The Tibetan Book of the Dead.'

Remaining stranded on dry land, not accomplishing what he has dreamed of doing for nearly 15 years is his greatest fear.

"When you walk the sidewalk that thousands of people have walked before you, you're part of that common conscious-ness. You think the thoughts that they think. But when I go out over the sea to those faraway places where no one has ever been, my consciousness is free. Right away I'm tuning into nature, and nature is part of the universe, and I am expanding out in all directions."