Nearly 700 sailors, co-workers and friends crowded into the Clear Lake United Methodist Church on Thursday to say goodbye to veteran seaman Roger Stone, who died saving the lives of two students as their sailboat capsized in stormy seas.
"Roger was my friend and he demonstrated uncommon valor," Mike Janota, Stone's sailing partner for 25 years, told those at the memorial service.
Stone, 53, was the first to recognize that the keel had dropped off the Texas A&M University at Galveston sailboat, the Cynthia Woods, at about 11:45 p.m. Friday during a race from Galveston to Veracruz, Mexico.
Realizing that they had only seconds before the boat capsized, Stone hustled students Steven Guy and Travis Wright into the gangway.
Stone pushed Guy out as water rushed in, enabling Guy to struggle to safety underwater by grabbing the wheel and pulling himself toward the stern.
Known for his coolness in the face of danger, Stone had saved lives before.
"Roger was a hero well before the weekend," said the Rev. Tony Vinson during the service.
Vinson recounted how in a race two years ago Stone was disqualified after he dropped his sail and turned on his motor to help a competitor whose sailboat was dismasted and its crew thrown into the water, in danger of being swept onto the rocks.
"He basically put himself out of the race," to help the stricken crew, Janota said in an interview.
Stone's sailing skills were legendary.
Janota recalled a race in which a boat with a deeper draft was gaining on them and Janota wanted to maneuver the boat to cut off their competitor.
But Stone calmly calculated their relative positions with a cheap, aging GPS device and told Janota to stay on course. Predicting their opponent would strike the shallow bottom, Stone said, "He's going to run aground just about now," Janota recalled.
"He literally called it on the second."
Roger Winslow Stone was born in London, the son of Doris Lacy Stone, now 90, and the late Richard Winslow Stone. He was raised in Hastings-on-Hudson, N.Y., a suburb of New York City.
He got his first taste of sailing after his father purchased a 13-foot, French-made open hulled sailboat, said his sister, Valerie Stone, 54, of Boston.
After graduating from Bellevue Community College in Bellevue, Wash., with a degree in biomedical photography, Stone accepted a photography job in 1980 at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston.
He met his wife, Linda, in 1987 during a racing event and they were married on June 15, 1990, in Veracruz.
In Galveston he immersed himself in his life's passion, sailing, winning many offshore sailing trophies, family and friends said.
But his devotion to his children, Eric, 14, and Elizabeth, 12, was stronger than his love of sailing, family and friends said. Janota recalled him announcing unabashedly to a room of shocked sailors that he would not race in one of the most important races of the year because he had to accompany his daughter on an Indian Princess outing.
His ashes will be scattered at sea Saturday, Janota said.
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