Late one night on the roller-coaster ride toward Auckland, New Zealand, in the Whitbread Round the World yacht race, George Collins leaned overboard to rein in a loose halyard on Chessie Racing.
The concern made sense. Collins, who was president and chief executive officer of T. Rowe Price for 13 years, is the primary backer of Chessie Racing, which stood fourth after six legs of the 31,600-nautical-mile Whitbread, with three legs to go.
It was Grant (Fuzz) Spanhake, one of the boat's two watch captains, who tugged at Collins's jacket. ''Maybe he thought, 'If George falls in, this whole project might go to pot,' '' Collins said.
Certainly the athlete inside Collins, a veteran sailor and member of the New York Yacht Club, keeps screaming to come out. While at T. Rowe Price, the Baltimore-based mutual fund and investment counseling business, he even played on the company softball team.
That competitive fire is what led him, at 57, to become the oldest crew member in the Whitbread's 26-race history. Of course, no one could keep Collins from doing it. He had Chessie Racing built, then paid to equip and staff it. He figures that by the time the race ends in Southampton, England, in late May, he will have sunk about $7 million into the race.
''It's a good thing the stock market is up,'' he said straight-faced, sitting near his boat during the last stopover in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
What drove him to do it? A Baltimore resident, he wanted the city to be one of the Whitbread's nine stops. If Baltimore had a boat in the race, a stop could be justified, he was told.
After a stopover in Baltimore, the eighth leg will be a 3,390-nautical-mile trans-Atlantic voyage to La Rochelle, France.
Although he is still on T. Rowe Price's board of directors, Collins retired from the company last April and made the leap from boardroom to boatyard.
He played football and baseball with distinction at Manhattan's McBurney High, swam competitively at Virginia Military Institute, and over the years became adept at golf, skiing and sailing. But nothing quite prepared him for going out to sea as the Whitbread's only grandfather.
Collins made his debut on Leg 3, a 2,250-nautical-mile jaunt from Fremantle, Australia, to Sydney. He followed that with a 1,270-nautical-mile journey on Leg 4, from Sydney to Auckland.
Below the deck of Chessie Racing as it headed toward Auckland one night, Collins tried, in a standing position, to munch on some freeze-dried food. The overhead cord that sailors normally use to keep their balance was not in place. Suddenly a wave hit, turning the boat violently. Collins went down hard, slamming against a wall.
This happened twice, and almost a third time. ''You lose your balance when you get older,'' he said, shrugging.
Two weeks before Collins was to join the Chessie Racing crew for Leg 3, he actually had a premonition of worse things. He dreamed that his boat collided at sea with a freighter.
''The next day my wife said, 'Now tell me again why you're doing this,' '' Collins said.
But there he was at sea with some of the world's premier sailors.
Collins negotiated separately with two wristwatch companies about assuming the brunt of Chessie Racing's expenses, but both wanted control, both wanted the boat made in Europe, and both suggested he stay off the boat.
Collins saw that as tantamount to a challenge.
He intended to sail all nine legs, but aching knees from skiing travails prevented that.
What Collins has brought to Chessie Racing is a focus, allowing decisions to be made that much swifter.
Spanhake said Collins has convinced the crew of his seaworthiness.
Collins, who planned to sail Leg 7 and Leg 9, would like to have done one main thing different for this race. He would have allowed his crew to train on an old Whitbread-60.
Still, Chessie Racing's fourth-place standing is noteworthy for a nonprofit organization.
The boat has been donated to the Living Classrooms Foundation, which provides hands-on education and job training, with maritime themes, for children.
At race's end the boat will be sold. Collins expects more than $1.2 million to go to the Living Classrooms Foundation.
That will give him a thrill, roughly similar to the lift he senses will be there when the Whitbread yachts ease into Baltimore, his backyard. That thought brings the competitor in him to the surface.