Popular Culture Review 29.2
New Moon , “ a twenty-one foot , two-masted knockabout ,” that his parents had given him when he turned sixteen . “ He sailed New Moon almost every summer at Campobello , further honing his skills at learning how to read the tides , currents , and fickle weather of the often-unpredictable area ” ( Cross 2003 32 ).
Consider an incident in 1908 . Eleanor Roosevelt ’ s brother Hall recalled a cruise he and two other classmates took at Campobello with Roosevelt at the helm of Half Moon , a 51- foot sailing yacht . “ Hall was seventeen , and FDR was twentysix .” Encountering heavy fog , strong winds , and currents they corrected a list and kept the boat off mud flats only by tying lines to the masts and to anchors , then putting the anchors in boats they rowed through pitch darkness under the shouted directions of FDR . Subsequently , there was a “ fierce storm ” that “ tossed the tiny vessel around for many hours . FDR was at the wheel and he successfully navigated his craft through the heavy winds , huge swells , and tumultuous seas .” Hall wrote later that FDR “ relished such a challenge as this ,” and said , “ as far as I ever saw was absolutely without a single fiber of physical fear in his entire make-up ” ( Cross 2003 34 ).
Equally impressive , although no doubt less dramatic to non-sailors , was
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