Rob nodded and said, “If I get electrocuted, I want you to give Shelly seven thousand dollars for a breast job. She’s been driving me crazy about it since the day I met her!”

“Consider it done,” I said righteously.

Three minutes later Rob was back with the Ludes. “ God,that fucking hurt! I think I got third-degree burns on my feet!” Then he smiled and said, “But who’s better than me, right?”

I smiled knowingly. “No one, Lorusso. You rule.”

Five minutes later we were all up on the helicopter deck, and I was watching in horror as the basket swung back and forth a hundred feet in either direction. We were up there for a good thirty minutes—watching and waiting with sinking spirits—and then the sun dipped below the horizon.

Just then John came on deck, looking panic-stricken. “Everyone needs to come back downstairs,” he ordered. “The helicopter ran out of fuel and had to go back. We’re gonna have to abandon ship; we’re about to sink.”

I looked at him, astonished.

“Those are captain’s orders,” he added. “The life raft is inflated back by the stern, where the dive platform used to be. Let’s go!” He motioned with his hand.

A rubber raft? I thought. In fifty-foot waves? Get the fuck out of here!It seemed like sheer lunacy. But it was captain’s orders, so I followed dutifully, as did everyone else. We made our way to the stern, and the Bills were holding either end of a bright-orange rubber raft. The moment they placed it in the ocean it washed away.

“Okay, then!” I said with an ironic smile. “I think the rubber-raft idea is a definite loser.” I turned to the Duchess and extended my hand toward her. “Come on; let’s go talk to Captain Marc.”

I explained to Captain Marc what had happened with the raft. “God damn it!” he sputtered. “I told those kids not to put the raft in the water without tying it up first…. Shit!”He took a deep breath and regained his composure. “Okay,” he said, “I want you two to listen to me: We’re down to only one engine. If it goes, I won’t be able to steer the boat anymore, and we’re gonna get broadsided. I want you to stay up here. If the boat tips over, jump over the side and swim as far away as possible. There’s gonna be a strong down current as the boat goes under, and it will try to suck you down with it. So just keep kicking for the surface. The water’s warm enough to survive for as long as you have to. There’s an Italian naval destroyer about fifty miles from here and it’s on its way. They’re gonna try another helicopter rescue with their Special Forces people. It’s too rough for the Coast Guard.”

I nodded and said to Captain Marc, “Let me go downstairs and tell everyone.”

“No,” he ordered, “you two are staying here. We could go down any minute and I want you together.” He turned to John. “Go downstairs and explain everything to the guests.”

Two hours later the boat was barely afloat when a crackling came over the radio. Another helicopter was overhead, this one from the Italian Special Forces.

“All right,” said Captain Marc with an insane smile on his face, “here’s the deal: They’re gonna lower down one of their commandos on a winch, but first we gotta push the helicopter over the side to make room for him.”

“You’re shitting me!” I said, smiling.

“Oh, my God!” exclaimed the Duchess, putting her hand to her mouth.

“No,” replied Captain Marc, “I shit you not. Let me go get the video camera; this one needs to be saved for posterity.”

John stayed at the controls while Captain Marc and I headed up to the flight deck with both Bills and Rob. Once there, Captain Marc handed the video camera to one of the Bills and quickly undid the helicopter’s restraints. Then he pulled me in front of the helicopter and put his arm around my shoulder. “Okay,” he said, smiling, “I want you to say a few words to the studio audience.”

I looked into the video camera and said, “Hey! We’re pushing our helicopter into the Mediterranean. Isn’t this fucking great?”

Captain Marc added, “Yeah! It’s a first time in yachting history! Leave it to the owner of the yacht Nadine!”

“Yeah,” I added, “and if we should all die, I want everyone to know that it was my idea to make this ill-conceived crossing. I forced Captain Marc into it, so he should still be given a proper burial!”

That ended our broadcast. Captain Marc said, “Okay—wait until we get hit by a wave and the yacht starts tipping to the right; then we’ll all do a heave-ho at once.” And just as the yacht tipped to the right, we all pushed upward and the helicopter went flying over the side of the deck. We ran to the side and watched it sink below the surface in less than ten seconds.

Two minutes later there were seventeen of us on the flight deck, waiting to be rescued. Captain Marc and John remained on the bridge, trying to keep the yacht afloat. A hundred feet above us, a double-bladed Chinook helicopter was in a stationary hover. It was painted military-green, and it was absolutely enormous. Even from a hundred feet, the thumping of the two main rotors was deafening.

Suddenly a commando jumped out of the helicopter and began descending on a thick metal cord. He was dressed in full Special Forces regalia, wearing a black rubber wet suit with a tight-fitting hood. He had a backpack over his shoulders and what looked like a speargun dangling from one of his legs. He was swinging back and forth in a wild arc, a hundred feet in either direction. When he was thirty feet above the boat, he grabbed his speargun, aimed it, and then harpooned the boat. Ten seconds later the commando was on the deck—smiling broadly and giving us the thumbs-up sign. Apparently he was having a ball.

All eighteen of us were lifted to safety. Yet there was a bit of chaos with all this women-and-children-first business, when a panic-stricken Ross (the formerly brave outdoorsman) knocked over Ophelia and the two Bills, made a mad dash for the commando, and took a running jump at him—wrapping his arms and legs around him and refusing to let go until he was off the boat. But that was okay with Rob and me, because we now had fresh material with which to rip Ross to shreds for the rest of his natural life.

Captain Marc, however, would go down with the ship. In fact, the last thing I saw before the helicopter pulled away was the yacht’s stern, as it dipped below the water for the last time, and the crown of Captain Marc’s square head, bobbing up and down amid the waves.

The nice thing about getting rescued by Italians is that the first thing they do is feed you and make you drink red wine; then they make you dance. Yes, we partied like rock stars aboard an Italian naval destroyer with the very Italian Navy. They were a fun-loving bunch, and Rob and I took that as a signal to get Luded out of our minds. Captain Marc was safe, thank God, and had been plucked out of the water by the Coast Guard.

The last thing I remember was the captain of the destroyer and the Duchess carrying me to the infirmary. Before they put the covers over me, the captain explained how the Italian government was making a big deal over the rescue—a public-relations coup, so to speak—so he was authorized to take us anywhere in the Med; the choice was ours. He recommended the Cala di Volpe Hotel in Sardinia, which he said was one of the nicest in the world. I nodded eagerly and gave him the thumbs-up sign, and said, “Zake me zoo Zarzinia!”

I woke up in Sardinia, as the destroyer pulled into Porto Cervo. All eighteen of us stood on the main deck, watching in awe as hundreds of Sardinians waved at us. A dozen news crews, each with a video camera, were anxious to film the idiot Americans who’d been foolish enough to sail out into the middle of a Force 8 gale.