A local sailor got his first taste of open-water competition last week, as Harrison resident Eli Lapkin completed the biannual Marion-Bermuda Race aboard a 47-foot yacht named Scarlet.
The five-day journey, which saw Lapkin chart a course from Massachusetts to Bermuda, was a true family affair, as the rising Harrison High School junior sailed alongside his father, Drew Lapkin, and maternal grandfather Barry Feldman in what he believes will be the start of a long life on the high seas.
Scarlet set out from Marion, Massachusetts, on June 9 and docked in St. David’s Head, Bermuda five days later, earning the local seamen a third-place finish in the 40th iteration of the famed yachting race. But for Eli Lapkin, the finish wasn’t nearly as important as the journey itself.
Eli Lapkin, who began his love affair with boating at an early age, said that he had set his sights on competing in the Marion-Bermuda Race for quite some time.
“I’ve been interested in this for a while, my grandfather has had a boat for as long as I have been alive,” he said. “He had done the race six or seven times, my uncle did it, my father had done three or four races, so it was something I wanted to do.”
Although his own experience was limited, in large part, to sailing on smaller boats closer to shore, Eli Lapkin’s enthusiasm for this undertaking was apparent from the outset, according to his father, Drew Lapkin.
In the lead-up to the race, which was marked by hours of sailing courses and safety preparation, Drew Lapkin noted that his 15-year-old son seemed to grasp the importance of the pre-race preparation, assuaging any fears he might have had about undertaking the grueling course.
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“I think he understood the seriousness of it,” Drew Lapkin said. “In the safety-at-sea courses, [Eli] was putting as much energy and attention into that as he would into his schoolwork, so I knew he would be ready.”
But despite all of his preparation, Eli Lapkin admits that he was a bit awestruck when the race kicked off and he found his boat in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean with no land in sight.
“Once we couldn’t see any other boats, with no land on the horizon, it’s different,” he said. “It really feels like you are all alone, in the middle of nowhere, just going across the ocean.”
With a crew of six working in shifts around the clock, Scarlet finished the race in four days, 17 hours, eight minutes and 31 seconds, covering a distance of more than 740 miles. But the trip was an eventful one, as bad weather at the start of the race, a faulty rudder and some calm seas toward the finish line made for a complicated voyage.
“It was definitely a tale of two races; the first 2 1/2 days we had big swells, rough seas and about three of our six crewmembers got seasick,” Drew Lapkin said. “We were making great time, but it was exhausting, and Eli did quite well in those conditions.”
The winds quieted down the homestretch, leading some on the boat to wonder if they would be able to reach their destination without turning on the boat’s motor and risking a disqualification. But on the fifth day, the finish line came into sight.
“It was so exciting, the wind picked up a bit in the morning and we could see Bermuda on the horizon,” Eli Lapkin said. “It was so close and we almost thought we weren’t going to make it.”
“It’s a great feeling,” Drew Lapkin added. “You can think back to what the early explorers went through as you are crossing that finish line; you know that your hard work and cooperation is what got you there because ocean sailing is all about adapting?] to any crises that are thrown your way.”
As for the quieter moments, Drew Lapkin said, it gave him, his son and his father-in-law a great chance to bond.
“It was special, especially considering the fact that it was three generations,” he said. “You’re completely detached from the real world, your cellphones aren’t working, and it just gives you a chance to get away from the day-to-day of life and have meaningful conversations.”
“Some people say that the longer you are on a boat, the smaller it gets,” Eli Lapkin said. “And I think I definitely grew closer to my dad and grandpa; it was so much fun to be able to do it with them.”
