I've only sailed the Fantome in my dreams.

Ah, but what dreams they are.

I've splayed my bare feet on her smooth, teakwood deck, felt the salt spray
in my face, heard the wind sing in her rigging.

I've climbed out onto the widow's nest under the prow to hang there in the
netting, watching her bow slice cleanly through the blue waters of the
southern Caribbean 15 feet below.

I've watched the wind billow the sails on her four masts, sending her
skimming across the waves, and slept in the gentle rocking of her passage.

But only in my dreams.

And now she may be lost forever.

In the immense tragedy of human suffering and destruction wrought by
Hurricane Mitch on Honduras, Nicaragua and surrounding islands, the story of
the missing ship Fantome, prized jewel of the fleet of Windjammer Barefoot
Cruises, has been mostly reduced to a few lines in the newspaper each day.

`Search continues for missing tourist ship. Empty rafts and life jackets
found. No sign of the 31 crew members who were aboard when she sailed out of
Belize, trying to outrun the storm.'

No sign.

The words are almost more than I can swallow, too painful to comprehend.

I'm a 'Jammer. It's as simple as that.

We -- my wife and I and six other friends -- discovered the wonderful secret
of Windjammer cruising two summers ago. We sailed the Flying Cloud out of
Tortola and through the British Virgin Islands and we were hooked, like the
barracuda crew members occasionally caught off the stern of the ship.

Last June it was the Polynesia and a week in the French West Indies,
shopping and diving and dancing at Le Select, where Jimmy Buffet wrote his
famous `Cheeseburger in Paradise' on St. Bart's. I thought I'd gotten too
old to have that much fun.

There's something magical about sailing the tall ships, something that stirs
the blood and makes a person as dizzy as the potent, icy rum swizzles the
stewards ladle out by the bucketful every afternoon.

These ships are the true "greyhounds" of the sea. Swift. Silent.
Aristocratic.

Every day, as the sails are raised, the ship's speakers come alive with the
sound of bagpipes playing `Amazing Grace.' It is the fleet's theme song and
each of the tall ships plays it faithfully before a sail.

Standing on the deck of a big sailing ship, watching the canvas go up, maybe
even pulling on a rope, having that music engulf and fill you, is one of the
most moving experiences of my life. They will play that song, complete with
bagpipes, at my funeral, when I make my final sail.

The Fantome, we'd all decided, would be our next ship. We'd sail out of
Belize and dive the famed Blue Hole, then on to Lighthouse Reef, Puerto
Cortes and Roatan.

The Fantome is -- I won't say was, not yet -- the flagship of the Windjammer
fleet, built in 1927 for the Duke of Westminster. At 282 feet and easily
able to accommodate 120 passengers, she is among the largest four-masted
schooners in the world. She was built for kings.

She has been owned, at various times, by the Guinness Brewing family and by
Aristotle Onassis, who bought her as a wedding gift for Princess Grace and
Prince Rainier. When he wasn't invited to the wedding, the gift was never
delivered.

She joined the Windjammer fleet as its flagship in 1969 and underwent a $6
million refurbishment.

And now, heartbreakingly, she and her crew may be gone.

Aboard the Fantome in late October, just on the cusp of the hurricane
season, They were reporting 100-knot winds and was listing more than 40
degrees from gigantic waves, somewhere southwest of the island of Roatan.

Then the phone line went dead. The ship has not been heard from or seen
since. Three Coast Guard planes continue to search an area the size of
Colorado. The British Navy vessel HMS Sheffield recovered two empty life
rafts, half a dozen life jackets and other debris it believes came from the
Fantome. The 31 crew members aboard have vanished.

Searchers are becoming more and more convinced that the ship is now at the
bottom of the sea.

Since crew members sometimes move from ship to ship, there may have been
someone on board who sailed with us on the Flying Cloud or Polynesia.
Windjammer Barefoot Cruises, still holding out hope, won't release a crew
manifest unless the worst case scenario is realized or they are rescued.

Lord knows, we need a miracle.

I keep thinking of the crew, courageously trying to save that beautiful ship
by taking her out into the open ocean.

Running from the wind.

This time, she may not have been able to run fast enough.

The only way we may ever sail her now, is in our dreams.

Jim Reeves, (817) 390-7972

                      A HUGE air and sea search was under way last night for a Westcountry
                      skipper feared drowned with his crew aboard a luxury yacht as it tried to
                      outrun Hurricane Mitch in the Caribbean.
                      Guyan March, 32, from St Austell, was captaining the Fantome, a
                      four-masted schooner once owned by shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis,
                      which lost satellite telephone contact last Tuesday.
                      Described by Westcountry seafarers as a natural sailor, Mr March is among
                      the 31 international crew members as yet unaccounted for, and the only Briton
                      aboard.
                      Debris, seven life-jackets and two empty life-rafts from the Fantome have
                      been found by United States coastguards combing the area around the islands
                      of Guanaja and Roatan, off Honduras.
                      But the coastguards, who have been helped in their search by
                      Devonport-based Royal Naval warship HMS Sheffield and the Honduran
                      Navy, have not given up hope of finding the crew of the 282ft, steel-hulled
                      vessel alive. There were 11 life-rafts on board, each with a capacity for 25
                      passengers, and automatic distress beacons have not been triggered, which
                      suggests that the yacht might still be afloat.

                      Mr March's family were yesterday attending the funeral of his grandfather in
                      London as they awaited further news from the Caribbean.
                      His brother Paul said the family was very worried for Guyan's safety. 
                     "We are in constant contact with the office in Miami. All the family have
                      their fingers crossed, we are very concerned. This news, especially coming
                      on a day like today, has shocked us all."
                      The yacht was built in 1927 for the Duke of Westminster and was bought by
                      Onassis as a wedding present for Prince Rainier and Grace Kelly, which he
                      kept for himself after not being invited to the wedding. 
                      It is registered in Antigua and is operated by Miami-based Windjammer
                      Barefoot Cruises. It was on a tourist cruise near Belize and the Bay Islands,
                      but the itinerary had to be abandoned as the hurricane approached.
                      The crew dropped off 100 passengers on shore on Monday last week before
                      sailing toward Roatan to avoid Hurricane Mitch, which has brought havoc to
                      Honduras and Nicaragua, killing as many as 7,000 people in floods and
                      landslides.
                      Two patches of debris were located by the US coastguard's spotter planes,
                      one near Guanaja and the other 30 miles north of Roatan.
                      So far, more than 120,000 square miles have been scoured since Thursday
                      evening in the hunt for survivors.
                      US coastguards resumed their search for the Fantome at first light yesterday
                      morning. Petty officer Jeff Murphy, in Miami Beach, said no more signs of
                      the ship had been seen, and that searchers were trying to discover if a
                      staircase spotted floating in the water on Monday had come from the vessel.
                      "If the staircase can be traced back to the vessel, that would be a really
                      strong suggestion that the vessel sank," he said, but he stressed that hopes the
                      crew will be found safe and well were far from over.
                      The Fantome was carrying a satellite position indicator, which would have
                      been automatically activated if it had been immersed in water or become
                      detached from the ship. The fact that no signal had been received suggested
                      that the yacht might still be upright and unharmed, with its communication
                      equipment out of order, he said.
                      Westcountry-based round-the-world yachtsman Sir Robin Knox-Johnston,
                      who knew Mr March's vessel, said she should be able to survive the weather
                      she was caught in, although the wind strengths were "slightly worrying".
                      He said it was a "positive sign" that there had been no distress signal
                      from safety equipment which would have activated when it hit the water.
                      Only two life-rafts have so far been found. 
                      "If she had gone down they would all be automatically released along
                      with a lot of other stuff, so I think that is the best bit of hope going," he said.
                      Mr March learned some of his sailing skills at the Island Sailing Club in
                      Salcombe, South Devon, and qualified as an instructor there.
                      He had been sailing square riggers in the Caribbean for 10 years.
                      The club's operations manager, Jeremy Linn, who has sailed with Mr March,
                      said last night he was an extremely skilful sailor.
                      "He was a natural sailor from when he came to the club as a teenager,"
                      he said. "He is extremely good at his job but it is difficult for anyone to
                      cope with anything like that. If anyone can cope, he will."
                      Last night Cdr Colin Hamp, aboard HMS Sheffield, which has been involved
                      in the search for survivors, said he suspected the Fantome would have been
                      "right in the middle" of Hurricane Mitch, with winds gusting up to 185
                      knots and seas of 25 to 30 feet last week.
                      He added: "We have been working alongside the US coastguard, mainly
                      using our aircraft, looking for wreckage and any other indications of what has
                      happened to the vessel."
                      Teachers at Penrice School in St Austell, where Mr March was educated,
                      were shocked at his disappearance.
                      Former pupil Rachel Averill, who now teaches at the school, grew up with Mr
                      March in the village of Charlestown near St Austell.
                      "They are a wonderful and lovely family and Guyan was the middle of
                      the three lads," she said. 
                      "Their dad used to run a diving business in the village and also used to
                      be into sailing. It seems natural that one of the sons would follow him."
                      He is also remembered by former physical education teacher Phil Evans, who
                      took Mr March on a skiing holiday.
                      Mr Evans, who is now head of year one, said: "He was one of the most
                      amiable and easygoing people I've met, he always had a smile on his face.
                      A spokeswoman for Windjammer Barefoot, which has refused to confirm
                      that Mr March is among those missing, said the discovery of the debris did
                      not necessarily mean the yacht had sunk.
                      "There are things on the ship that can be dislodged with a wave that
                      came across the bow," she said. "That would explain some of the items
                      being in the ocean. We still feel the ship is out there and are continuing to
                      search for it."