When we were kids my parents got an aluminum skiff and let my brothers and me break up our old wooden rowboat, then burn the pieces night after night on the beach.

It’s a love affair that began 45 years ago on a hot, sweaty bike ride. It was also a test, although I only learned that afterwards.

During the great age of yachting, in the early part of the 20th century, the premier ocean race, where boats and their crews were tested on a stage that was covered on front pages of newspapers all over the country, was the Newport to Bermuda Race.

We were young and foolish and unafraid to leap into what came to be called The Rib Wars of ’83.

As a child, sitting in front of the bookcases at home, I often revisited Beth’s death, in Little Women, that morning in May