One of our newest owners, Kelsey Patnaude, contributed this blog. Thanks, Kelsey, and welcome to the fleet!
Just as quarantine restrictions were beginning to ease up, Fredeau (Frederic de Mesel), who has been locked down in Europe, asked me to go check out a Shields for him in Mystic. We had looked at a few this winter and this one seemed promising. With much of my working sailing season on hold—I had the free time and to be honest, my car really needed the epic trip ‘off island’. So, I went over two bridges and had a look at Prudence moored off the Mason’s Island Yacht Club.
Prudence (204) and the closely packed Newport Shields fleet approaches the nun by Fort Adams in a southeasterly breeze. Alice Athay-Croasdale photo
After going over the boat, which was in great shape for the price, I quickly decided that I wanted in. I remember over 5 years ago having a conversation with Austin Cohen about how we wanted to become part of the fleet someday, Austin saying “If you live in Newport and enjoy racing, a Shields is the way to go.” At the time, we were both young in our yachting careers and often joked and fantasized about joining the fleet over a couple of espresso martinis and Wadadlis, but never thought we would be able to get a boat till much later in our lives. So now on the car ride back from Mystic after seeing Prudence, I called up Fredeau and said, “we have to get this one.”
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It was the right price and didn’t have any disastrous issues that would require a lot of work from us. He suggested we find a third partner to go in on the boat with, and I immediately thought of Austin; within hours the three of us put in an offer.
Soon, Austin and I were driving Prudence to his house in Portsmouth to begin work, sharing our excitement with our co-owner over Facetime. The season’s fleet racing was just a week away now and we had some things we needed to sort out before splashing. We got up early every morning and immediately got to work, sanding the bottom and topsides and tackling small repairs. In just three days and with the help of our bow-woman Peyton, who rolled and tipped the topsides, we were ready to launch.
Now came the difficult bit, racing in a fleet of tremendously amazing sailors. Onboard we have myself, Austin, Peyton, and Alex whom we have already nicknamed ‘maestro’ because he makes sure we are all doing the right moves at the right times. Having missed a lot of our desired practice time, we as a team, decided to be cautious during our first Fleet 9 race and focus on our crew work and maneuvers. Next came the Aloha Saturday series which I discovered was in fact not a Hawaiian-themed costume competition. Wet, cold, and ecstatic, we finished the second race with a second and you would have thought we won Nationals.
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