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specific ship, he’d been on many like it and was familiar with their luxurious appointments. Now, with seven days’ worth of stubble on his chin, salt crusting his eyebrows, and sweat stains under his arms, he looked at the far-off ship; its marble baths, leather and oak bar infused with the smells of fine whiskey and Cuban cigars, and wide promenade deck seemed a world away.
    With a final look at the billowing smokestacks disappearing over the flat ocean, Dudley returned his focus to the Mohawk and to a storm brewing in the skies behind him. He ordered the crew to lock down the hatches and prepare for the gale, trimming the sails and lashing themselves to the mainmast and cockpit. For nearly six hours the Mohawk heaved from side to side, the storm soaking her decks and battering the men. Several times a crewman lost his footing and was nearly washed overboard, but his lash kept him on the boat, albeit bruised and exhausted. Finally, the gale moved off and calm returned to the sea and the Mohawk . Those would be the only rough seas of their nearly month-long race. Most of their remaining days to Spain were spent like any other enjoyable sail in fair weather off the New England coast, with Dudley watching the woolly telltales tied to the bottom of the sail for any whisper of air to be captured in the thousands of square feet of canvas above. Their nights were spent quietly, even serenely, as each man took his turn at the helm while his mates caught a nap or ate. One night Dudley watched a pod of porpoises play alongside the Mohawk , jumping through its wake as if through an invisible circus hoop. Then, as if touched by a giant torch, the seas lit up with phosphorescence through which the Mohawk sailed, leaving an aisle of shimmering green light in its wake.
    Twenty-five days after leaving New York, the Mohawk raced to a second-place finish in Santander, Spain. Her crew looked more like a band of pirates than Ivy League men, each sporting a beard and their tattered college sweaters. Welcomed like heroes home from a successful battle, the men of the Mohawk accepted an enormous silver chalice from King Alfonso XIII and Queen Eugenia Victoria. That night, the streets of Santander were alive with celebration, and everywhere the crews of the various yachts went they were feted by handsome, dark-eyed women offering the men bottomless carafes of sangria.
    In every race he entered, Dudley listed himself as “owner and captain.” While he enjoyed the trappings and gentility of the sport, it was more about the boat and the ocean and the race and he wanted to be crucially involved at its heart—the helm. It was a love he shared with his younger brother, Grafton.
    Grafton Wolfe Smith was a charming man with a beauty that was almost ethereal. From his earliest days he attracted friends and lovers and gained easy entry into high society’s finest clubs and private organizations from Maine to Palm Beach. Like Dudley, he owned and sailed his own yachts, and for years, on any given weekend, at least one of the Wolfe/Smith brothers could be found racing in regattas off the eastern seaboard. Grafton also developed a love for horse breeding and racing, and, in September 1931, while driving his new car home to Hamilton, Massachusetts, from the racetrack in Saratoga, New York, he lost control and hit a telephone pole. The car had been going so fast and the impact was so violent that three wheels were sheared off. Grafton was thrown clear of the wreckage, unconscious but still alive. Passing motorists stopped at the scene, piled him into their car, and drove him to a nearby hospital. His wife, Janice, was called, and she raced through the night to the hospital. But when she arrived, he had died of head injuries. Perhaps suspecting that alcohol may have been involved, the family ordered a toxicology report which came back clean; no alcohol or drugs were found in his system. The young man had simply been driving too fast.
    After Grafton’s death