Sailing in the Mediterranean Episode 283 Sailing With Norman Jewison

I want to share some memories I have about my time sailing with Norman Jewison.

Norman Jewison was a remarkable man whose life and achievements left an indelible mark on me and those around him. Though my interactions with Norman Jewison, and his at the time girlfriend, Lynn St David were primarily through our shared pleasures of skiing and sailing, I always held great admiration for Norman’s illustrious career. His contributions to the film industry were unparalleled, and his legacy will continue to inspire generations to come.

The news of his passing on January 22, 2024 at the age of 97 has caused me to reflect and reminisce about the time we spent together.

The first time, in the year 2000, after he received the DeBeers Diamond award at the Taormina Film Festival for his Film Jesus Christ Superstar.

When Lynn and he arrived at the boat In Puerto Rosa in Northern Sicily, I can only imagine what Lynn thought she  saw my boat. I don’t think it is what Lynn was expecting. However, Lynn was a trooper and made the best of what I’m sure she thought was a terrible situation. We proceeded to have the worst weather of any one week that I’ve spent in the Mediterranean with guests. It could not have been worse.

That first night on the island of Volcano, it was flat calm when we anchored then after the sun went down the wind came up, and up, and up, and that quiet safe anchorage became a dangerous lee shore. I decided it would be more dangerous to try and move the boat in the night, so I decided I had better keep an anchor watch. The boat was rocking and bucking all night long, I couldn’t imagine that Lynn and Norman Jewison were able to sleep up in the forward berth. The boat next to us dragged its anchor, and I watched it slowly move downwind and ended up on shore. The next morning the wind died to nothing again, and then we went and enjoyed the mud baths. My skin stank for weeks, smelling of the sulfur mud after that no matter how much I went swimming.

Then we sailed around the island of Lipari and tied up on the uncomfortable, surging concrete quay in the city of Lipari that next night. Then the weather started to deteriorate again, and we were stuck there for several days.

We were bored just sitting around the harbor, so on July 12th, 2000, we rented scooters to drive around the island, that was my birthday and we stopped at that little restaurant in the middle of the island. Lynn and Norman bought me lunch as a celebration, and then we decided to turn around and go see some caves. In turning around the scooter, the clutch grabbed and accelerated into the rock wall lining the road. I was so worried about Lynn two, but Norman Jewison was just sitting there on the pavement with a bloody arm laughing. What a great sense of humor!

To top off the evening after supper, Lynn fell into the water when it was dark while trying to get on the boat in that surging harbor. Lynn could have easily been seriously hurt, but fortunately, Lynn just got wet, and a bit pissed off.

Finally, the weather broke, and I thought I had a weather window to go enjoy some of the other islands, so we sailed on up to the island of Panarea. Again, in the middle of the night, the weather came up, and we were in a dangerous lee shore situation, again… Norman took the helm well I brought up the anchor, in the process we were swinging back and forth coming very close to bumping into another boat at anchor who was also dealing with the same wind and trying to get out of there. So back to Lipari we go. This time it was very difficult to find an anchorage because it was so deep and so many other boats had run for shelter, we finally tucked back into a corner with a lot of chain out in order to hold the boat in the strong winds. I think we were there for two or three nights and one day we all got off the boat, Lynn and Norman went one way, and I went exploring in another direction, I think we needed some space.

When I got back to the boat, the boat was no longer where I left it, and I found it tied up next to a fisherman’s boat. While we were gone, the wind died and when the wind died the boat started drifting because we had so much anchor line out. A Frenchman on a catamaran saw what was happening and went over with his dinghy and moved my boat over to the fishing boat to tie against to prevent it from damaging other boats.

Norman and Lynn were flying out on the 20th so we needed to get somewhere on the mainland so I think the next day we motored all the way to the town of Cefalu we tied up in the Marina and explored the delightful little town. After that they caught the flight out of Palermo.

I’m sure Lynn was glad to get off the boat at that point in time.

After Norman and Lynn left Jack and Louise Mahoney from Park City UT joined me to sail the boat around to Catania. I don’t know if Lynn knew but Jack passed away a few years ago after battling Parkinson’s disease for quite a while. Jack was another of my favorite sailing companions on both his boat “Desperado” and mine.

After that experience we continued to see each other up Deer Valley when Norman Jewison and Lynn two came up to go skiing. I had assumed that Lynn would never want to go sailing with me again after that first experience.

Imagine my surprise when it turns out that that first miserable sail with me turned out to be one of the stories Norman and Lynn told friends about. Lynn confirmed my theory that the most uncomfortable experiences turn into the best memories and stories.

I invited Norman Jewison and Lynn again to go sailing in 2010, Norman told me that this was the first time he had been back to Croatia since he had filmed Fiddler on the Roof when it was Yugoslavia, I felt honored.

In August 2010 Norman and Lynn two joined me in the Marina at Dubrovnik after spending one night in the picture perfect harbor of Cavtat.

We proceeded to sail north in comfortable conditions, spending a couple of nights in the National Park on the island of Mijet. We were tied up to a dock at a restaurant in the National Park when Nigel who I had met the previous year in Brindisi Italy before I crossed over to Croatia.

The first time I met Nigel was in in Brindisi, Italy, he knew who the designer of my boat and he was admiring her. I didn’t know who Nigel was, I just knew he was a nice guy that liked my boat, and he had a very nice boat himself. He belonged to the Royal Yacht squadron which flies the white British sailing flag that some of the elites fly on their boat he told me about the flag, but I didn’t know what that really meant until he joined us on the boat. I remember the conversation in my crowded cockpit with some drinks, it went something like this:

Norman: what do Lynn do for a living?

Nigel: I’m retired now but I worked as a physician.

Me: Lynn fly that white flag what does that mean

Nigel: that means you are a member of the Royal Yacht squadron.

Me: How do I get into that yacht squadron?

Nigel: ….. ah …you must be invited.

Norman: How did you get invited?

Nigel: I was the Queen’s physician and she knighted me when I retired and then they invited me to join.

Me: what’s your full name?

Nigel: Nigel Southward

Me: So, Sir Nigel Southward

Nigel: Yes. Norman what do Lynn do?

Norman: I make movies. Nigel: Anything I would know?

Norman: Fiddler on The Roof, ………………

And then it goes on from there I remember Norman talking about when he met the Queen, I imagine Nigel was looking at me, my little boat, looking at Lynn, and Norman and thinking, what the hell are they doing on this little boat.

Nigel invited us over to his much larger boat the next night and we had a delightful evening of conversation. I remember his beautiful wife had lost an arm in an accident, yet she was still sailing.