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Family and friends dried their sorrowful tears upstairs in the Seamen's Church Institute library, as loved ones paid tribute to the four young sailors of Flying Colours during a memorial service on Saturday.
Last May, Captain Trey Toppings, 39, of Newport, called his friend Jason Franks for help in bringing the 54-foot sailboat home from the British Virgin Islands. Toppings, a well-known "adventurer," had a restless spirit.
"He was always spinning the globe in his head," said Captain Casey Fasciano, of Newport. Fasciano is married to Toppings' aunt, Margaret Palmer, and captains the Black Watch. At a Palmer family Christmas party in Georgia in 1996, Fasciano swayed Toppings to try the Newport boating scene.
"We were on a golf course whacking some balls around and Trey wasn't sure what he was going to do next. I said, 'why don't you come up and try sailing in Newport. I can probably get you a job.' He came to work with me on the Spirit of Massachusetts that spring. The only job I could get him was as cook. He jumped in the galley, the first week we had 30 cub scouts on board ... He made big vats of chili for them and he wore this shirt with an advertisement for Mr. Bubbles and henceforth became known as Mr. Bubbles. The banter between them was pretty amusing," Fasciano said.
"Trey with his quick wit, sharp intellect, southern charm and handsome good looks had it all and lived more in his 40 years than some of us in 80. He will always sail on with his crew always and forever."
Jason Franks
Franks, a 34-year-old Newport captain of the 83-foot, 1924 classic ketch, Adventuress, was given a week off from his employer, Georgi Smith, owner of Adventuress, to help Toppings.
Franks brought Newport sailor Rhiannon Borisoff with him down to the Islands to meet Toppings and his mate, Christine Grinavic. Franks, not a fan of Newport winters, was likely getting itchy to feel the warm island winds at his back.
Franks and Borisoff were to help sail Flying Colours as far as Annapolis, according to Franks' mother, Carol Dale.
He grew up in Dartmouth, England, on the water and came to the states with his mom in 1985. He graduated from Dansbury High School in Connecticut and Florida State with an MBA in International Business. He received his captain's license while living in San Diego, before finally coming home a few years ago. He taught as a substitute for the Newport school system during the "dreaded winter months."
Franks' love of sailing and the water came from his childhood days on the River Dart.
"I loved the stories Jay would tell of himself and his brother, Tony, heading off on their rowboat — with their food, sleeping bags, tent and their faithful dog Sheeba — down river on their Huckleberry Finn adventures," said his father, Ron Dale.
Rhiannon Borisoff
Rhiannon Borisoff and her boyfriend, Newporter Walter Cavanagh, crewed with Franks on Adventuress.
Borisoff, 22, originally from Oregon, must have heard the sea calling, and settled with family in Newport. Her parents named her after the Fleetwood Mac song, according to Cavanagh. Having a love for animals, Borisoff studied animal behavior in college and worked for Potter League for Animals in Middletown.
"We felt she would have been the next dog whisperer," said Cavanagh.
"Rhiannon was a free spirit. She was tough physically and mentally and did not know the meaning of quitting. She had a love for everything nautical, the sound of lines hitting the masts. She always said that we are defined by how we rise after we fall," her parents stated in an e-mail to Cavanagh.
Cavanagh, the current captain of Adventuress, lost four friends in the storm. "Rhiannon had an unwavering love, and I consider myself lucky to have worked, played and lived with all four of these people. They all had a love for this adventure we call life, and I ask that we take this spirit wherever we go," he said during the memorial.
Christine Grinavic, 26, Toppings' mate, was a writer, sailor and adventuress in her own right, who boasted visiting 19 countries. The Pawtucket woman and D&D coffee lover dreamed of opening a coffee bar in the Caribbean.
Your son is missing
Franks called his mom when he got to the islands last spring. He would need her to pick him up on Wednesday, May 9.
"The next call I received was from the Coast Guard," Carol Dale said, "Your son is missing and we can't find them."
On Monday, May 7, Flying Colours with two captains, Franks and Toppings, and two seasoned sailors, Grinavic and Borisoff aboard, found themselves fighting for their lives in waves reportedly as high as 40 feet. Tropical storm Andrea, about 160 miles off the North Carolina coast, was ripping up the sea.
"That storm was so bad it turned the Gulfstream around," Carol Dale said.
The radio beacon of Flying Colours registered at 3:30 a.m. Coast Guard crews in that area rescued crew members from three other boats that were caught in the raging seas that day. Four hours later, the Flying Colours beacon signal was lost.
Newporters and National Guard help in the search
For six days, an exhaustive search of planes and boats hunted in a Texas- sized area of sea for the missing yacht. Twenty-seven boats in a sailboat race leaving the Caribbean joined in the search by forming a grid pattern on their way back to Newport. Other crews making boat deliveries to Newport for the season also helped in the search.
On the last day of the search, the Dales called friend and Ron's former boss, Major General Reginald A. Centracchio, former commander of the Rhode Island National Guard. General Centracchio sent a C-130 out on a 12- hour "training mission" in one last effort to look for the lost yacht.
"I wanted so much to pick up that phone and tell Ron and Carol that we found them. That was a constant thought many days after, to just say, we found them," said the general during the memorial service.
"God found them first. That's not all bad," the general said.
Trusted sailors
"I trusted Jason with my life many times. They were great sailors," said Adventuress owner Georgi Smith. "That storm must have been bigger than they were, otherwise they would have made it back."
The Dales kept the search going for as long as they could. "This wasn't the first time my son has been lost at sea. He's been in 40-foot waves before. He was lost for three weeks on a sail to Portugal in 2006. Flying fish jumped aboard the boat and they made sushi with them," said Carol Dale in explaining how they kept themselves alive.
"We kept the search (for Flying Colours) going forever and ever. We never gave up hope. I still haven't," Carol Dale said.
The Dales have received permission to put a bench out at Brenton Point as a final resting place for the four-person crew.
"We were sad that we lost them, but we are happy everyone is finding peace," said Ms. Smith.
by richard w dionne jr
editorial@newportthisweek.com
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