At three thirty in the morning of still another day the group left the Copley-Plaza and entered the gray of still another dawn. Once more sandwiches had been made, thermos bottles filled with coffee and cocoa, gear readied and packed. Again they climbed into waiting cars and drove through the wet deserted streets to T Wharf and clambered aboard the tugboat Sadie Ross. They chugged once more out to the Jeffrey Yacht Club in East Boston, and out to the anchored plane. The Friendship seemed a desultory bird, its golden wings and red body bubbled over with morning dew. It was Sunday, the third of June.
The fog was not too thick. The wind was reasonably right, blowing in from the southeast and churning up waves that pounded the pontoons and splashed over the outboard motors.
There were no good-bys; there had been too many before. Slim Gordon took the tarpaulin covers off the three motors. Bill checked the radio and the cockpit instruments. Slim, jumping from pontoon to pontoon, cranked the motors, and then climbed into the copilot’s seat.
The plane started to taxi out of the harbor. Amelia stood between the two large tanks in the cabin and glued her eyes on the air-speed indicator. Lou Gower crouched in the aft end of the plane, hoping the added weight of his body would help bring up the nose of the plane for take-off. The attempt failed.
A five-gallon can of gasoline was cast overboard, but that did not help. The plane was still too heavy. Lou Gower had hoped to go as far as Newfoundland, but realizing the inevitable, he gathered his gear and signaled for a boat from the tug. He wished the crew good luck and left the plane.
The Friendship taxied again down the harbor, propellers whirring in the spray, pontoons cutting the whitecaps. The tug trailed the plane in the churning wake of foam.
Inside the Fokker Amelia watched the air-speed needle while they tried for the take-off. The hand on the instrument moved slowly—to thirty, to forty, then beyond the necessary fifty to fifty-five, and finally to sixty. The three motors roared and snarled and strained. The pontoons rose on the steps, then quickly lifted from the sea. At last they were off.
Amelia glanced at her watch; it was 6:30 A.M. She looked out the window in the side door. Boston and the tugs and fishing boats began to disappear in the fog as the plane climbed to cruising altitude. The sun broke over the rim of the harbor. They were on their way straight up the New England coast, bound for Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.
As official recorder for the flight, AE pulled out her stenographer’s pad that served as a logbook. She sat on a water can and wrote:
96 miles out (1 hour). 7:30. 2,500 ft. Bill shows me on the map that we are near Cash’s Ledge. We cannot see anything (if there is anything to see), as the haze makes visibility poor. The sun is blinding in the cockpit and will be, for a couple of hours. Bill is crouching in the hatchway taking sights.