Day Staff Columnist, Stonington/Mystic
Published on 9/20/2004Stonington — While other experienced sailors ignored reports of bad weather and started a race off Greenport, Long Island, Saturday morning, Chris Conradi and Peter Harvey decided to do the smart thing and head home instead.As they sailed Harvey's 31-foot trimaran “Andiamo” back toward Stonington, a vicious squall enveloped them near Niantic Bay about 10:30 a.m. The 50-mile-per-hour winds and six-foot swells fueled by the remnants of Hurricane Ivan capsized the boat and flipped it upside down. Both men were wearing life vests but the 38-year-old Conradi was trapped underneath the boat among the tangle of sails, rigging and other equipment.Harvey, who is much smaller, managed to extricate the athletic, 6-foot-4-inch Conradi from underneath the boat and pulled him onto one of the hulls. For the next hour he tried to resuscitate his close friend and racing partner with no success. Finally, Harvey was able to get the attention of some passing fishermen. They brought the two men into Crescent Beach in Niantic while one the fishermen continued CPR. The trimaran was abandoned. On Sunday, friends and relatives of Conradi, an experienced sailor and skier who lived in the borough, tried to deal with his death.“If ever you thought this would happen to someone it wouldn't be Chris. He was the embodiment of life,” said borough Warden Andrew Maynard, who was the best man at Conradi's wedding last year. “He was just the most positive person you'd ever want to meet. He always had a smile and a good word. If I ever needed a lift he was the one I'd call.”The two men, who were once roommates, lived a few doors away from each other on Trumbull Street. They talked just about every day.A shaken Peter Harvey declined to comment while standing in his yard Sunday morning.But his brother Darrell said his brother did everything he could to save Conradi.“They're experienced sailors who got caught in a horrible, fluke accident. It happened so fast they didn't even know what was going on,” he said. “Chris was (my brother's) good friend and a great sailor. Peter is just trying to deal with all of this personally and do whatever he can to help the family.” Conradi's brother Randy of Stonington said he especially felt bad for Harvey. “He did everything he could,” he said.A developer, Harvey co-owned the trimaran with local attorney Peter Laskey. Along with Conradi, they usually raced together. Laskey would have been aboard the Andiamo Saturday except he had to take his daughter to the doctor Friday when the New London to Greenport race began.Laskey had known Conradi for 18 years and Conradi was his son's godfather. They had raced together many times over the past five years including the Greenport race numerous times.“All the boats were still out there but they decided not to race under those conditions. They thought they were doing the safe thing,” said Laskey, who struggled to talk about his friend. Conradi has a sister in Minnesota while his father lives in Westerly and his mother in East Lyme. He grew up in Mystic and graduated from Robert E. Fitch Senior High School. As they were growing up Chris and Randy Conradi, along with Maynard, worked at their father's boatyard in Avondale, where they scraped boat hulls and installed docks. That was where Chris Conradi developed his love for sailing. Conradi went on to earn his bachelor's degree in industrial engineering from Northeastern University and his MBA from Boston University this spring. He worked as the vice president of manufacturing at the Faria Corporation in Montville. Last year he married Dana Murphy and friends and relatives said he became very close with Murphy's two sons, Chad and Tyler. Conradi and Murphy were renovating a house on Masons Island.Since finishing his MBA, Maynard said Conradi had more time to sail this summer. Last weekend he had competed in a 160-mile sailing race. Friends said Conradi was as a passionate about his skiing as he was about his sailing. “He had a tremendous energy and love of being in the outdoors,” Randy Conradi said. “He loved to challenge Mother Nature. But he could come and visit the kids and be just as happy as he was when he was out on the water. He got along with children so naturally. He was just a fun, adventurous person to be around.”Several years ago while skiing in Vermont, Conradi suffered a compound fracture of his leg. He wanted to have the surgery done at The Westerly Hospital so he took some painkillers and got a ride home in the back of a car.“He was as tough as friggin' nails,” Maynard said. “You wouldn't want to be on a boat with anyone else. He knew his way around the water and he wasn't a reckless person in any way. Peter Harvey was the same,” Maynard said.Sitting with his wife and children in his dining room Sunday night, Randy Conradi said he has listened to television reports calling his brother the latest victim of Hurricane Ivan, which claimed at least 113 lives from the Caribbean to Connecticut.“Those statistics always seem so impersonal and so far away. Now we've felt the effect of it here at home,” he said.
This appeared in The Hartford Courant>
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) _ The remnants of Hurricane Ivan dumped nearly 3 inches of rain in parts of Connecticut, whipping up heavy winds Saturday and is being blamed for at least one death in the state.
A Stonington boater died when his 31-foot trimaran capsized in Long Island Sound in 6-foot seas and winds of 50 knots, The Day of New London reported.
Chris Conradi was one of two men thrown overboard from the boat near Niantic Bay. They were pulled out of the water by passing fisherman. The second man, Peter Harvey, also of Stonington, survived. Conradi was not breathing and was taken to Lawrence and Memorial Hospital in New London where he was pronounced dead. The men were taking part in a two-day race from New London to Greenport, N.Y., when the boat capsized. The race was eventually canceled.
"You could see the boats in the race, they were just laid right over," Niantic boater Chris Miner told The Day.
The storm also did damage inland, bringing down limbs and trees and leaving thousands in the dark for several hours. But by evening, most of rain had ended and the departing storm left clear, cool skies in its wake.
