NEWPORT — All they have is faith.

The loved ones of four missing Rhode Island sailors have joined a community in a seafaring city that no one wants to be part of, those waiting by the sea. Here, the old houses have widow’s walks, from centuries ago when others watched for ships to return. They know the ocean makes no bargains. Its beauty belies its danger.

A dozen days after the 54-foot Flying Colours disappeared in a storm off North Carolina, relatives and friends hold a determined hope that the young sailors will be found. Tonight, that hope will translate into a lively vigil at the Newport Shipyard for Patrick “Trey” Topping III, 39, Jason Franks, 34, Christine Grinavic, 26, and Rhiannon Borisoff, 22.

“No one should think this is a memorial. No one is allowed to be negative,” said Walter Cavanagh, 26, of Newport, who is Franks’ first mate on the ketch Adventuress and Borisoff’s boyfriend. “This is Newport. It’s sailors. It’s Trey and Jason. You have to have a party.”

The families and friends are hosting the vigil to thank the well-wishers, those who’ve helped search and those who’ve offered support. They also need this vigil, which some call a party to lift their spirits. They have rented a tent big enough to hold hundreds of people.

“It’s a tight-knit community in the sailing world,” Cavanagh said. “A lot of them know you can’t give up too early. … There’s too many stories of survival.”

The missing four are well known in Newport’s sailing community that caters to tourists. Before becoming captain of the Flying Colours, Topping worked the Madeleine schooner. Franks is captain on the Adventuress ketch. Grinavic and Borisoff had both worked on the Madeleine and the Rumrunner. Grinavic was working lately on the Arabella luxury yacht.

The loss of the four is a blow to the sailing community, which is now on the edge of the summer season’s opening.

Arabella Capt. Sandy Sunderland remembers the envious looks on the faces of some passengers who watch the young crew and wonder, Why didn’t I do that with my life? They see the romance of sailing, the camaraderie of the crew, the ability to travel, but not the realities of life as an itinerate sailor.

It’s the life only some can live — never rooted in one spot, living out of a suitcase, able to share small quarters with strangers and be sociable.

“It’s tough. You work nonstop hours. It’s a boat, and it never ends,” Cavanagh said. “But you have incredible trips, and the sailing community is so tight, so small, that you know everyone.”

The four missing sailors fit the life. They have a knack for dealing with people, friendly and easygoing, and adaptable, friends and family say. Sunderland fondly called Grinavic “my ace in the hole” because she could handle several different jobs on board. Borisoff, who was learning to train dogs for her “land job,” was enthusiastic about sailing, Cavanagh said.

They have all been adventurers. Topping traveled the world, by sailboat, bicycle and foot. Grinavic fluttered from country to country, writing thoughtful essays about her trips. “It would be like tying down a butterfly,” Grinavic’s mother, Mary, says of her wanderlust daughter.

And a love for the ocean goes without saying. “Jason was more comfortable on water than on land,” said his girlfriend, Lindsay Little.

Their disappearance is the side the tourists rarely see.

Some in the sailing community still hope for their return. Some are already mourning.

All wonder what happened.

The Flying Colours was sailing from St. Thomas to Annapolis, Md., when it was caught in the brewing tropical storm Andrea off the North Carolina coast. At 3:30 a.m. on May 7, the boat’s emergency radio beacon was triggered and alerted the Coast Guard. The Flying Colours was one of four sailboats within hundreds of miles that were in trouble that night.

The Coast Guard found the other three boats and rescued the crew, but there was nothing but open water where the Flying Colours was supposed to be. The boat’s beacon had suddenly stopped after 3½ hours.

After he heard about the disappearance, local sailor Frank Lotito pulled out the reports from the weather buoys near where the storm had formed. He’d worked with Topping and the two women on the Madeleine last summer, and had faith in their abilities. “They’re all great people,” he said.

He was troubled by the reports. The buoys, which were farther away from the storm than the Flying Colours, were showing the birth of a hurricane. Within six hours, the wind shifted from a gentle southerly breeze to northerly winds of 65 knots, kicking up 40-foot seas.

“I don’t think they really knew,” Lotito said. “It was that quick.”

The Flying Colours would have been on the eastern corner of the gulf stream, which travels at about 3½ to 5 knots. Storm winds were east, northeast, opposite the current and probably building rogue waves bigger than 40 feet tall, said Tony Bessinger, associate editor at Sailing World magazine.

There were other hazards. The sailboat was in a well-traveled shipping route, where a cargo ship named the Paris Express had lost 21 steel containers during the storm. The 40-foot steel containers held packing material and ceiling fans, and would have created a hazard impossible to see in the dark stormy waves.

The Flying Colours “was in the worst possible place at the worst possible time,” Bessinger said.

At 52, Sunderland has been in stormy weather during his lifetime on the water — in hurricane winds that nailed his chin to his chest and waves the size of buildings. He and other experienced sailors have an idea about what the Flying Colours crew was facing during those early morning hours of the storm.

This week, he packed up Grinavic’s belongings from the Arabella and brought them to her mother in Cumberland. “It’ll take a while,” he said. “It’s four people from a small community.”

Other sailors are being extra careful since the Flying Colours disappeared, said Elaine Lembo, managing editor of Cruising World magazine. “They fully know, no matter how cautious you can be, stuff still happens,” she said.

Down at the dock at the Newport Shipyard, the Adventuress was being readied for the season. The restored Fife sailboat, built in 1924, sat easily in the water, as Ruckus, a black miniature poodle that Franks had called “the perfect boat dog,” wriggled happily on deck.

Cavanagh showed off the gleaming teak interior and talked about his friend’s easygoing nature. This was to be their second season as captain and first mate on the Adventuress. “Jason still is captain right now,” Cavanagh said. “We’re just hoping he comes back to fulfill his duties.”

Under moody gray skies, Cavanagh raised the colors on the Adventuress.

The flags bore a message: Keep faith.

amilkovi@projo.com