The Storm: Part 1

Continuing with the origin story of John Lennon’s song ‘Grow Old With Me,’ as noted previously, on June 4, 1980, Lennon set sail from Newport, Rhode Island on the Megan Jaye headed for Hamilton, Bermuda. Hank Halsted, Cap’n Hank as he was known, was the captain of the 43-foot boat. Tyler Coneys, who had given Lennon sailing lessons that spring, and two of his cousins, Ellen and Kevin Coneys, were crewmates. 

As they set sail that evening, they left behind the clouds that surrounded Newport. “This is cool. I’m moving out of the clouds, moving forward into a clear horizon,” Lennon said to Halsted.[1]

Halsted created a watch system where the crew would be working at the helm in four hour shifts. With the exception of Halsted, they worked in pairs, with Lennon teamed with the highly experienced Tyler Coneys. Halsted, meanwhile, took the night watch.

Early in the trip, however, most of the crew was overcome by seasickness. “It was the only time I’d been seasick in my life,” Tyler Coneys said.[2] Though Lennon was the only inexperienced crewmember, all of the crew, save for he and Halsted, were incapacitated to greater or lesser degrees. This left Lennon and Halsted with plenty of time to talk.

“If I’m not wrong, this [trip] was designed as a psychic cleanse to him,” Halsted said. “I'm not sure he was expecting all he got.”[3]

Despite most of the crew’s incapacity, Halsted was not concerned about having to pilot the boat himself.

"Eighteen hours at the helm for me is a relatively normal drill,” Halsted said. “I can sit there in bliss, feeling every molecule going across the rudder and just drive a boat offshore. For me, it was no huge thing, and I was 30 years old, so driving the boat was a ball.”[2]

On Friday, June 6, however, the skies started to darken. The boat began to experience turbulent seas. By that evening, a storm that would last the better part of three days was rocking the boat. 

Before long, the boat had only its storm jib up and was moving at a meager five miles per hour. There was a gale-force warning and a thunderstorm warning. There was rain and poor visibility. It was, quite simply, frightening conditions.

"Once the weather started to close in, it was scary,” Ellen Coneys said. “We had some tough stuff, lots of wind and waves coming at you bigger than a house.”[4]

“The storm knocked us all apart. It was brutal,” agreed Tyler Coneys. “The waves were huge...The sea is so big and the boat is so small. We were on 20 degrees of keel. The massive waves were coming up behind like buildings. We'd be surfing down these liquid mountains. I was like, ‘Oh, my God. I hope we live.'”[5]

Lennon, however, seemed to enjoy every moment.

“While you're there, you wish you were home, but he didn't,” Tyler said. “He did not wish he was home. He was in all his glory.”[6]

Lennon was about to get more than he bargained for, though. The boat soon lost the use of all of its sails.

“We virtually ran off for 24 hours with no sails at all,” Halsted said. “I’d never run off on bare poles before.”[6] By Saturday June 7, it was a force-eight gale with winds gusting 40-46 knots with waves cresting up to 20 feet.[7]

Despite the stormy conditions and incapacity of most of the crew, Halsted was still not flustered. He was an experienced captain who had seen stormy seas before. Subsequently, Lennon was not worried either.

Soon, however, Halsted had another problem. He was exhausted.

Halsted had piloted the Megan Jaye for a whopping 30 straight hours due to the seasickness of the other crewmembers and Lennon’s inexperience. Needing to sleep and recharge, the only other person who could possibly pilot to boat was none other than John Winston Ono Lennon.

“I got to the point where I knew that I was going to be dangerous,” Halsted said. “And that's when looked at John and I said, 'Hey! Come on up here, big boy. You’ve got to drive this little puppy, ‘cause I gotta go to sleep.”[8]

As one might imagine, Lennon was skeptical. He had limited experience sailing outside of his adventures with Coneys in Oyster Bay that spring.

“Well, jeez, Hank, all I’ve got are these skinny little guitar-playing muscles,” Lennon said.[9]

To that point, Lennon’s responsibility on the trip had largely been confined to cooking. Now, he was going to have to pilot the boat in a serious storm. There was no other choice.

“I never intended for John to sail the boat alone,” Halsted said. “He would only sail with one of the experienced crew beside him, never alone. His duties were in the galley, where he was responsible for preparing all of the food. He came aboard knowing he would only be learning, an observer…

“But I had been up for nearly three days. I had a situation where I felt it was necessary that someone else take the helm. The others couldn’t do it; they were too ill. The Megan Jaye didn’t have an autopilot on board at that time. The captain’s station and bunk below are only a few feet away. I could have been at his side in seconds had anything gone wrong. Being on the boat, you sleep lightly.”[10]

At 3 p.m. on Saturday June 7, tethered to the ship with a safety harness, Lennon took over the helm of the Megan Jaye. Halsted gave him some advice.

“Focus on the horizon, not the compass,” Halsted said. “Try to anticipate what this boat's gonna wanna do. And by the way, there are a couple of things that you absolutely do not do. Don't jibe. Don't let the wind get across the back of the boat. Other than that, John, you really can't hurt us. You might get wet, you won't get washed overboard.”[8]

Halsted spent a bit of time watching Lennon steer the ship. Then, he went below deck, leaving Lennon at the helm in the midst of the storm.

Image from Lennon Bermuda. Freisenbruch Brannon Media.

[1] Neil, Scott. Lennon Bermuda. p.21. Freisenbruch Brannon Media. Kindle Edition.

[2] Neil, Scott. Lennon Bermuda. p.22. Freisenbruch Brannon Media. Kindle Edition.

[3] Neil, Scott. Lennon Bermuda. p.24. Freisenbruch Brannon Media. Kindle Edition.

[4] [3] Neil, Scott. Lennon Bermuda. p25. Freisenbruch Brannon Media. Kindle Edition.

[5] Neil, Scott. Lennon Bermuda. pp.25-26. Freisenbruch Brannon Media. Kindle Edition.

[6] Neil, Scott. Lennon Bermuda. p.26. Freisenbruch Brannon Media. Kindle Edition.

[7] The Storm, the Stars, and the Sea: John Lennon’s 1980 Sailing Voyage to Bermuda. Utterly Interesting.

[8] Madinger, Chip; Raile, Scott. Lennonology: Strange Days Indeed, A Scrapbook of Madness. p.515. Open Your Books. 2015.

[9] Neil, Scott. Lennon Bermuda. p.27. Freisenbruch Brannon Media. Kindle Edition.

[10] San Souci, Brian R. “There’s no place like nowhere.” (John Lennon, Bermuda, 1980). Rhode Island Monthly. June 7, 2010.