Donna Lange - the Musician, the Sailor and her 28-foot Southern Cross sailboat
INSPIRED INSANITY

I knew nothing of this woman that night other than the fact that her beautiful voice overshadowed her tired and weathered appearance.  She sang three inspiring songs that night of her own writings to a small crowd attending Michael Beans Happy Hour on the hill.  Donna used a borrowed guitar and harmonica and sang like a bird.  I ran across Donna a few weeks later.  By then I’d heard tales of her adventures and tragedies so I couldn’t help wanting to learn

more.  By this time she had given up the tired look and replaced it with energy.  I had met her in the midst of rebuilding herself after a long journey.  She was finally successfuly putting the pieces of her life together and becoming strong again.  It didn’t take long to realize this woman was much more than beautiful music.

Donna Marie Lange, a mother of four, set off on the most difficult challenge known to man or woman, to solo the globe in a 28-foot yacht.  Although the completion of her dream has not yet been concluded, the ongoing story of this 42-year-old yachtswoman is incredibly intriguing. 

Background

Donna, a qualified nurse, hails from the farm country of Saratoga in northern New York where she was involved heavily in athletics and endurance water sports.  Competitive whitewater kayaking and canoeing among other activities were a big part of Donna’s years.  She married young and had three children, Ptarmigan, 23, Cooper, 20 and Keel, 19, all attending college in the States.  Donna was married 20 years and in 1998 she separated.

Donna was involved in a horrific car accident in which a number of people lost their lives.  She was extremely lucky to survive the crash.  She was traveling home one night from her job in the hospital when the accident changed her forever. 

Donna ended up in St Thomas where she planted herself for a while and worked on boats as well as playing her music. 

An inspired idea later arose of taking her music show to the high seas, like a sailing minstrel.  One of Donna’s dearest new friends, Michael Bean provided encouragement and support.  Donna finally found a boat in November of 2000, a Southern Cross 28 she would soon give the name ‘Inspired Insanity’.  The boat had been surveyed but the inspection was all wrong.  There was nothing on that boat that was useful to her.  She worked seven days a week to rebuild it.   She even had to rebuild the hull of the boat.  It took Donna 18 months to get the boat seaworthy in hopes of sailing around the world by herself.

The Journey

Donna set off on her first marathon voyage in August 2000.  She sailed to South America and then onto Trinidad.  Still having boat problems, Donna made her way back north through the Caribbean Islands participating in folk song gigs along the way.  She concluded that she must return the boat to the States for a complete refit.  This money raising effort and travels back north would end up consuming the next twelve months. 

Donna’s sailing community of friends in the Caribbean helped her every way they could.  She became overwhelmed with their generosity.  Donna set sail in May of 2002 leaving St Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands heading back to Newport, Rhode Island. 

• Personal Journal Entry:  Off I go into the wild blue yonder.  15 days to Newport.  Two major gales.  One was a fierce lighting storm I thought was there to take me home to my maker.  I lost the SSB (radio) early.  The last transmission I heard was a warning from my friend Dave.  A huge front was before me and at my boats hull speed; I would have to sail through it.  There was no way to outrun what was about to happen.  It was a wild night.  Torrents of rain fell as songs erupted.  I finally sought the engine but somehow, the prop had spun off the shaft.  I tried three times to replace it with a spare.  Placing ones self between the hull and a rough sea is terribly risky and usually futile.  Each time going overboard and under, fully tethered, even the prop.  I could not situate the keyway with the movement of the sea. 
  

• Personal Journal Entry: Only a lone shark visited me and a few petrels over the course of this trip.  The final night of my trip was this massive front and lighting storm system.  The fronts of lighting passed over me dancing and striking all around.  I truly thought I would die.   
  
• The gale lasted into the next day.  It calmed for the early afternoon only to pickup again around 3PM.  I was approaching my first unfamiliar shore with no engine in the midst of a storm.  The Coast Guard was marvelous and guided me in.
  
•  I headed north into Naraganset Bay only to be caught again in a wild gale.  Making this harbor in Bristol, Rode Island was a nightmare and a great challenge.  I had to place myself either by anchor or mooring without prop, without an engine.  The squalling shifting winds were screaming at 25 plus nauts.  I had a mooring in my hands twice only to break the flag and have to drop it.  Finally I tried anchoring.  I was exhausted and angry.  Angry at the circumstances, Mother Nature, God and whoever else I could think of.  My thoughts ran ramped.  I could be basking in my little secret harbor, working and enjoying weekend sails.  Why am I doing this?  Finally I anchored way out where the winds were steady with 250 feet of line. 

• Personal Journal Entry: When the gales calmed, I made my way to shore.  Miracle meetings begin occurring in my life.  I met up by chance with a brother of a friend and was escorted to a bath and warm bed for the night.  Miracles continued as I canvassed the town with the Rabbi’s good name and my music in hand.  Folk sessions arose, gigs were consistent.  Great friends beyond my understanding.  Repairs began in Bristol while I headed home for my daughter Ptarmigan’s wedding.  I learned of great news of a pending grandchild only to later hear of its loss.  I enjoyed great jams with my son Keel.  We all played together at Café Lenas and Grand Times.
  

 Off to Ireland

• Personal Journal Entry: After a false start to the sea, I finally left for Ireland on July 18^th.  Four days of fog and no winds left me only 200 miles out.  The radio propagation never improved and I had to face the fact that it was not working.  The earlier repairs did nothing.  But I would not turn back again though I had no accurate weather or means to report my progress.  The lack of weather reports would play a huge role in the challenges of my trip, and in the end, the fantastic gifts I gained.
  

• Personal Journal Entry:  I was to hit my first 9-force gale 250 miles off New Foundland.  Two days of gales culminating in 25 plus foot seas and 45 naught winds.  Steady winds.  In the night, I was to lose the trim tab and rudder to my steering vane.  Another backhanded gift I was to receive.  I decided that I could somehow make myself steer the boat for the next 2100 miles without it.  If prisoners of the Holocaust can survive weeks of trains heading for torture and death, I could sit and endure three weeks of sitting in one place steering toward my dreams.  But it was to be an endurance challenge beyond my imagination that would teach me the meaning of true mediation.  Life where time had to stop being relevant.  Time was my enemy.  I would panic as the next storm would appear on the horizon.  At one point, ten straight days of gale force winds rolled over me including one 8 and one 9-force blow.  The last one, only 300 miles from Ireland and two weeks without sleep.  The storm was to track more NE but at the last moment it turned due east driving directly over me.  But that was to be the last gale of the journey. 
  

• Personal Journal Entry:  The sun finally came out after the ten days of gale and almost three weeks without sunshine.  Finally I would enjoy 1-1/2 weeks of sunshine but the winds had died.  I couldn’t get to land without finally running the engine.  I took on fuel off shore, which ultimately clogged my small engines fuel system.  After hours of cleaning the systems, I managed to get off Cape Clear on the SW coast of Ireland before I was thwarted and finally rescued five miles off harbor in Baltimore.  Ten dolphins, seagulls and petrels saved my psyche.  I had learned to meditate inadvertently, not realizing it.  That is how I managed to not sleep for weeks at a time.  But the dynamic moment when I first smelled earth, I smelled Ireland long before stepping on her ground.  The visions from movies and such came alive in the rich earthy smells. 
  

• Personal Journal Entry:  … after 10,000 miles of running reaches, the bulkheads and every internal piece of wood, has developed its own chorus of squeaks and groans.  Sleep evaded me and so did sanity.  I was somewhat in contact with weather through Herb and Chris Parker but they managed to incorrectly predict my conditions.  I felt like I was in a twilite zone of trouble until another boat also reported similar gusts to 45 and 50 knot winds.  Only 200 miles or less to go and I had two incidences that reminded me that surviving the sea in itself is enough to make any crossing successful.
• During one of the squally nights, my mainsail blew out in its 3^rd reef.  When I went to change it out for my spare after the winds abated some, the boom jibed and back headed me full on.  It through me into the lifelines and I was lucky to have caught myself and still be conscious.  If the main had been raised and full, it would have done more damage.  I spent the last 10 days nursing a dislocated rib. 
• Life is precious.  The lack of sleep over the last 5-months has really taken its toll both on my strength and psyche.  By the time I headed into the Virgin Islands I had come to the conclusion that, until I have outfitted my boat with more sensitive self steering and taken some sailing lessons on my boat, I may be putting on crew for future long trecks.  It was a warm welcome in Marina Cay with great friends there.  The pirate of pirates, good friend, Michael Bean to be an understanding ear, I took respite on the dock for my first night back.
  

Donna completed a 28-day Atlantic crossing from Cape Verde, Africa to the Virgin Islands on Tuesday, January 13, 2004.   The day I first met her. 

Donna Lange shared the following in an email to me on June 16, 2004.  It’s not only inspiring as is her entire story, it offers some answers to questions so many of us have about the solitude aspects of her time at sea.  I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

• Didn't I get lonely out there?  This is the most commonly asked question of the solo sailor.  Not everyone is born to be completely alone for weeks or a month at a time while putting themselves a thousand miles from everywhere in the middle of the open ocean.    
  
  I found the solitude in the vastness of the sea to be very dynamic.  I have always been one to keep my needs to myself, responding to others.  The classic trait of a mother of 4 having been married for 20 years. The beauty of sailing solo at sea was finding the time and freedom to get to know myself.  No one else's routine or timing had to be considered.  I was able to conclude how "I… me" like things. 
  
• My demands came from Mother Nature and my boat, Inspired Insanity.  Mother Nature was much like a demanding 3-year old, completely irrational and uncontrollable.  My boat is best described like a demanding 5-year-old child, sometimes reasonable and predictable, sometimes not.  How I looked forward to the smooth tradewind days when I could be left alone from both.
   
  
• Part of loneliness is the challenges created by being "the only one". My boat is far from solo friendly.  I’ve never had an auto helm (self steering).  So I lack the luxury of just running the engine and pointing to course during a sail change or simple repair.  The only line accessible to my cockpit is the jib furling.  I can’t imagine the number of laps I did across my deck in setting sails, adjusting and repairing.  It took repetition of tasks and allot of forethought to finally efficiently set maneuvers, tasks, place tools in appropriate order and reach. Yet even with good technique in times of long extreme weather, injury, strains, bruised ribs and complete exhaustion, the tasks become very demanding.  
   
  
• Oh the panic that would arise when once more, Inspired Insanity would be pulled to the wind with sails flapping in a tantrum, until I reset her.  Using mechanical advantage became paramount to accomplish tasks alone.  Extra blocks, longer halyards to reach to points of more convenience.  At just 5'2" and 120lbs, I employ the winches and long handles of advantage to loosen bolts.  Yet, I climb like a monkey and then hang on one handed to tie knots and rethread halyards at the peak of my mast.  
   
  
• Anger becomes acute sometimes until finally an explosion erupts.  I scream vehement displeasure, occasionally smash whatever the hand finds.  Then cessation of violent pent up energy, self talk to calm, slowing of the heartbeat and recovery phase.  The sigh...  "Life goes on", I quote from an old friend. 
   
  
• I was once told that my learning style is verbal.  I believe this might be true.  I found it helpful to talk through ideas to help me learn or resolving.  I am able to verbalize aloud at sea where hearing my own voice allows me to counsel and advise.  I can give a double dose of self-talk to my brain.  If an outsider were to ever over hear, the illusion may sometimes sound as if there’s a ranting raving diesel mechanic on board with a twist of PMS.  My own voice can calm myself while I’m cramped up in the knuckle busting confines of my hull.  Much like I would comfort a friend, with compassion and understanding, non-judgmental.  
   
  
• My world of iteration was spiritual.  My mind would become quieter as words roll off my tongue instead of tossing around my brain.  Emotions could flow without check.  I found this new practice enabled me to interact with myself more constructively.  Yes, finding new ways to live and function, this is what my travels are about.
  
• I took some fine company on board in the form of the written page.   Many meditative and poetic writings.  Classics I had never taken the time to read.  These writings benefited me in incredible ways amidst the environment and challenges of solo sailing to foreign lands.  Reading often gave me a language and framework for the spiritual growth in my journey towards self-love.  I was not feeling alone out there at sea.  Instead, I felt more and more comfortable with my own company.  I found that I was a capable person.  I was a good friend.  I was a hard worker.  I enjoyed myself. 
   
  
• I also read a random variety of books given to me.  Books I would never have chosen off a shelf.  But I wanted entertainment so I turned to them.  Yow!!  It was an unusual education.  I wasn't used to encountering sexuality and cruel worlds on the written page where the imagination is not limited by an artist's portrayal or directors depiction.  
   
  
• I cruised my own stories of life and realized the fullness I have enjoyed.  Yet I was daily grateful for the time to focus on myself, free to be spontaneous at every moment.  Each moment to embrace and create on my own.  The next step would be to integrate this new self into the universe of wild and continual human energy.  Do it without losing myself in the old patterns of response.  My personal research goes on.   
   
  
• The social environment created by the animals of the sea, the schools of tuna, pods of dolphin and whale, flocks of seagulls, pairs of storm petrels, was a psyche saver.  They were there with me when I truly was alone, even unable to communicate because of my broken radio.  Visitations from the sea were my only social mimes.  I wonder if the dolphins know me as the big fish with the musical whistle that sings and plays tunes for them.  Somehow I felt they knew me personally as they returned daily in the north Atlantic.  They would even escort me into every approach to land and be there when I would leave to escort me back to sea.  Such concrete serendipity to the flow of life that I was most certainly a part of.  Instead of loneliness, I felt integrated with life.  So cared for, so much gratitude.  
   
  
• Lifelong issues were finally journaled, chronicled, and faced.  Often resolved into new understandings filled with love and the ability to move forward in life, free from inhibition. I realized that as a little girl, concealed shame imposed by religious constraints had condemned my individuality and creative expression.  
   
  
• Exploration and discovery had now become my norm.  Being alone amidst challenge reveals the qualities, the strength and true motives of my heart.  I found a gentle, kind and dynamic woman at the core.  When the sea and Mother Nature, God and the universe, tested me for endless days and nights, no sleep between challenges, I found nothing bad deep inside of me.  I am free at last.  No longer a lonely desperate woman in need. 
   
  
• Strange how it took extreme aloneness to end my deepest sense of loneliness.
  
  Upon surviving my north Atlantic crossing, my son's first words to me were, "Well, mom, if life's traumas don't kill you, they are bound to make you stronger".  And that it had.  He understood having had to recover from a major motorcycle accident at 16 years old.   
   
  
• I guess the hardest solo issue for me was sleep deprivation.  Praise be to sailors who are real engineers and love to do meticulous maintenance, have high tech efficient systems, sail as a day job.  My heroes.  But I am none of these.  I raised a family with junk old cars; we built canoes, built our house.  I never called a repairman but instead learned all types of small repair techniques. From this background, a degree in nursing and a passion for music and the outdoors, I piece together the skills I have to own, maintain and sail this boat.  
   
  
• No sailing school for me, yet.  I am planning to get some added veteran input to learn some more skills that will allow me more respite at sea.  I have found it too traumatic to really rest.  I always succumb to the determination of just getting out there to sail the boat.  I am more comfortable working the deck than flying around below.  
   
  
• But I believe I have much to learn.  Crazy weather systems, failing electrical systems, old gear, worn sails, injury, and soul searching mental anguish all tormented my attempts to rest.  The 3-year old would throw a tantrum and the 5-year old would demand a repair.  As the whisker pole line snaps I spy a new tear in the main.  The vane gear won't hold course, the electrical wiring shorts.  With no gauges to detect changes in
  the engine or environmental conditions, my senses never slept.  Every change in sound, off roll of the hull, slap of water, flutter of my tell tale flag, would bring me to the deck.  Well, it’s a boat … I know!
  
• So to answer that question, Nope!  I don't get lonely out there.  I look forward to future crossings (the Pacific next summer) with more reliable equipment, practiced techniques to respite amidst, added systems, gauges, alarms, so my senses can take a rest.  Rest ... AHH!  Fairest of winds and love, only gratitude. 
  
  Donna 
  

A Wild Irish Sea Story

March 1, 2005

I received an email from Donna on March 3, 2005 with the following story that I must pass along.

As I’ve settled into living in the British Virgin Islands, the opportunities to sing and play music are growing.  Famous old friend, Michael Bean, has opened up doors for me, as have other great supporters of my music and sailing.  I had the privilege to cover Michael’s show at Pusser's Rob White Bar on the hill at Marina Cay two nights ago.  Michael has such a following in the charter sailing industry with his Pirate show. Great energy, pirate toasts, conch shell blowing contest and great music.   

I had Michael’s usual full house to play to.  As I prepared to play I canvassed the crowd as I do as an entertainer.  In the corner, I spy three gentlemen sitting around a table.  I introduced myself to the audience and asked the gentlemen where they were from. One of the gents responded in a heavy brogue, “we’re from Ireland".  I couldn’t help enthusiastically sharing my tale of sailing solo from Rhode Island, U.S.A to Ireland and ultimately back to the Caribbean.  The interesting part was that my Caribbean arrival was right here at Marina Cay just a year ago, almost to the day.