Girl power: Back-to-back river trips leave their mark By Lucy Chabot Reed Capt. Kelly Gordon and her crew aboard the 75-Sunseeker M/Y Corporate Retreat had just come the long way around from Florida to Chicago. Thanks to COVID-19, closed borders and closed locks, the traditional run to the Great Lakes for a boat that size instead took weeks around the tip of Florida, through the Gulf of Mexico and nine days up the inland river system of America’s heartland. The trip was full of emotions: the highs of a good crew that clicked, the pride of compliments and smiling faces at every port, the tension of navigating alongside enormous river barges, the stress of dodging floating debris in the swift spring current. Capt. Gordon, First Mate Gianna Mesi and delivery crew Shane Hughes made the trip without incident, and then were asked to immediately do it again. “We ran the rivers twice this season, once to bring this boat, and again to help a broker deliver his boat,” Capt. Gordon said. “It was pretty amazing.” Capt. Gordon and Mesi are in the second year with the owner of M/Y Corporate Retreat. This vessel was delivered to South Florida in January and needed to get to its cruising grounds for the start of the season, COVID or not. “With COVID, can you believe they ABOVE: Capt. Kelly Gordon, left, and Gianna Mesi delivered two yachts up America’s river system this summer. BELOW: Huge barges and their cargo worked the rivers day and night, making radio calls and communication critical. PHOTOS PROVIDED
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deemed the Erie Canal and its workers non-essential?” Capt. Gordon said. Necessary work on eight locks was halted when the pandemic hit. Usually open in mid-Spring, the locks weren’t expected to open until July 4, and even that was questionable. The St. Lawrence route was out when Canada closed its borders, so the only way to salvage the summer cruising season was down, around and up. “I’ve spent all my time on the East Coast, New England and Florida, and the Bahamas and Cuba, when that was still allowed,” said Capt. Gordon, who has earned her USCG 500-ton ticket working on yachts up to 132 feet for the past 10 years as a mate, engineer and captain. “My first fresh water was last summer up here in the Great Lakes.” First Mate Mesi has spent her whole life in the Great Lakes. When she was about 12, she helped her dad take delivery of his new 60-foot Sunseeker in New Jersey and they drove it to Detroit. Her yacht captain brother helped her land her first yachting job about four years ago, which ended up being a perfect beginning. “That first boat was a great experience,” Mesi said. “I had never done anything so official before.” The yacht had a chef and ran trips with 20 guests who were served seven-course meals. “I definitely learned how to do things right, right off the bat.”
