Yachtsman

My cousin Tom Blackaller, the champion sailor and America's Cup contender, died of cardiac arrest at Sears Point Raceway Thursday, getting ready for an auto race this weekend. Tom was a character straight out of a Damon Runyon story: funny, charming, disarming, blustery as any northwest wind that ever screamed through the Golden Gate and slammed into the St. Francis Yacht Club.

Three times in eight years, destiny had beckoned Sir Peter Blake and then turned its back on him, leaving him to his fate in a part of the world that had driven sailors in centuries past to madness. It's a section of the South Atlantic Ocean, between the equator and Ascension Island. On global maps of a certain age, it retains its ancient designation, The Doldrums.

Kevin Hall is used to navigating unpredictable situations. Each time he competes as a sailor he faces a perplexing set of variables, when an error in judgment might cost several places in the standings. Beginning today Hall, 26, from Ventura, faces such circumstances off the coast of Savannah, Ga., as he attempts to best 49 other sailors and earn the only U.S. Olympic berth in the Laser class. But waves and sudden wind shifts are not the only obstacles Hall will face.

Brazilian police arrested seven men and said they were closing in on another suspect Friday in the slaying of Peter Blake, a yachting champion from New Zealand shot to death by pirates in the Amazon. "The suspects claimed they fired in self-defense. They said they didn't know anyone famous was aboard and they weren't expecting any resistance," federal police agent Jose Araujo said by phone from Macapa, in the northern state of Amapa.

Disturbing, unnerving and wire-to-wire involving, "Deep Water" is the story of a dream that got so wildly out of hand that it ensnared the dreamer in an intricate trap of his own devising. Nominally a story centered on the participants in an especially daunting and arduous nautical race, this gripping British documentary takes us daringly close to a man who ended up over his head in ways he never imagined.

Nick Scandone was arriving home in Fountain Valley from work 3 1/2 years ago when his cellphone rang. Scandone had been having trouble walking. His neurologist was calling. "I'm pulling into my driveway and getting out of the car and he says, 'Have you ever heard of a disease called ALS? Or Lou Gehrig's disease?' "And I said, 'The only thing I've ever heard about it is the guy died before he was 40.' " Nick was 36 then. He'll turn 40 on March 4.

The grueling odyssey of Newport Beach yachtsman Scott McClung ended here Friday when a federal judge freed the ailing mariner, five weeks after McClung was arrested for having guns aboard his vessel. Drawn and wan, McClung, 36, embraced his father, girlfriend and attorney after he was informed that Judge Alfredo Torres--deliberating for 28 hours over three days--had dropped weapons charges that could have meant a 5- to 30-year prison sentence.

Crouched over the navigation table in his tiny cabin, the exhausted sailor plunges the scalpel into his arm. He cuts fast and deep, just as the doctor instructed. Pus and blood spurt everywhere, and he gasps at how far the infection has spread. The boat heaves, shoving him against the side. Above, the wind shrieks through the sails. For a second, he worries as much about his yacht's chances of survival as his own. Focus, he tells himself. Focus. He pulls a 4-inch stick of gauze from his medical kit and pushes it hard into the wound.

The day before, the seas were so high that the little dinghies in the smaller classes were flipping over, masts in the water, sailors clinging to the sides. The waves were so high that many of the races, even those for the larger-class boats, were finally canceled. In one of the races that was held, a Singapore sailor was swept overboard and a Canadian had to circle to save him. The Canadian, Lawrence Lemieux, dropped from second place in the Finn-Class race into 23rd.

An elderly sailor en route from San Diego to Hawaii has been rescued after spending a week adrift on his yacht in the Pacific Ocean while drifting in and out of consciousness, authorities said Sunday. Kirk Lightbourne, 82, of Scottsdale, Ariz. was brought ashore Saturday. He had been found unconscious last Tuesday aboard his 36-foot yacht, Cazador, about 885 miles southwest of San Diego, U.S. Coast Guard Lt. Erin MacDonald said.