Music to Die for

My friend Bondy is the Englishman who managed to get kicked out of the exclusive Arroyo Hondo Country Club after only one day as a member (see blog of 17-Nov-12).

 

He remembered another bit of foolishness during our early days in the Dominican Republic and wanted to relate it, so I’m giving him the floor.

Bondy’s Tale:

Bondy back then

I had been transferred by Shell Oil—my employer at the time—to the Dominican Republic and this is where I met Peter Lawson in the early seventies. Despite the fact that he was Australian and a bit rough around the edges, we hung out together as there were few expats living there.

Another Brit, Alan Williams, was doing design work for an expanded airport and had rented a magnificent house overlooking the ocean on the south coast. Every weekend became a two-day party at his place.

In aid of these weekly events I flew up to Miami to buy long-playing records of the then current singing stars—the Stones, Neil Young, Van Morrison, etc. We discovered that ‘Astral Weeks’ by Van Morrison was massively popular with the Dominican ladies. Needless to say, it was played frequently.

Some weeks after my return from Miami, one of our bashes was in full swing when in walked a Five Star General who was also high up in the civilian government. He’d heard of us and the parties we threw. He had brought with him his entourage, all wearing pistols on their belts.

Now a couple of days earlier this same general had visited the most fashionable restaurant in Santo Domingo and had shot dead at his table someone he disliked and who had apparently shown a lack of respect. He did it simply because he could—and walked away. No questions asked. Nothing more became of the matter.

So he walks uninvited into our party with his pistol on his belt, helps himself to our rum, chats to some of the girls and listens to our music. He then decides that ‘Astral Weeks’ should end and we would have Dominican music instead. Over he goes to the record player, lifts Van off in mid-song, puts on his own meringue record and returns to his seat. All of us were shocked at his presumption and rudeness.

Lawson, without missing a beat, marches over to the record player, lifts the General’s record from the machine and hurls it—Frisbee-like—across the room and out through the window. He then calmly replaces Van Morrison and walks back to what he was doing, which was enjoying some magnificent Dominican rum.

Me way back then

I thought, Bloody Hell, what’s going to happen now? Will guns be blazing? Are we all about to die? WHAT?


There was a moment of stunned silence then the General, although clearly displeased, managed to force something that might have passed for a smile onto his face. He stayed a little longer then left without a word of thanks to his host.

We all breathed a deep sigh of relief but refrained from any jubilation lest he hear it and return to round off the week with another shooting. He clearly felt, and possibly admired, Lawson’s temerity. I’ll never forget that night.

Bondy lends the story the perspective of a heroic stance of principal faced off against a bullying strongman. But it was not like that at all. So let me set the record straight.

There was nothing noble attached to the incident. It was no more than a dangerous combination

of rum, youth and naiveté.

 

Move over James Bond

A few years ago, I anchored near the mouth of the Rio Douro near the city of Porto in Portugal. At the time, I was single-handing a thirty-nine foot Buchanan which, although built of glass, had the lines of a classic wooden vessel.

No sooner had I got the hook down than an eighteen foot Zodiac came roaring out from the shore and bumped alongside. The man driving the boat handed me a card showing his name and that of the bar he owned. I’ve forgotten both, but I’ll call him Manuel. He spoke perfect English and seemed as if he’d be good company.



That evening I made my way into Manuel’s place. A few other sailors were yapping at the bar and in no time we were swapping beers, jokes and lies. And as I had thought, Manuel proved to be a lively host, joining in with a tale or two, buying the odd round and happily accepting the drinks we returned.

At the far end of the bar was a rather subdued group of four—three of whom appeared to be a trifle envious of our rollicking lot. The fourth was slightly older than the others—a rather severe looking character with a perfectly trimmed blond goatee, hawk-like nose and a humourless slash of a mouth.

Shortly after our group got into full swing, Hawk-nose finished his beer and departed, seemingly none too happy that others might be enjoying themselves. Before leaving, I heard him issue a stern reminder to the other three not to forget that their vessel would be sailing at six sharp the following morning.

After a few minutes, the three joined us and we began to hear tales of misery and deprivation that made Captain Bligh appear as a Saint. There were no floggings as I recall, but the mood of the crew seemed to suggest they might commence at any time.

I don’t know quite what it was that convinced Manuel and I to take up the cause of the ill-treated crew, and I don’t remember which one of us instigated the plan, but not long after, we found ourselves purring quietly out to the anchorage in Manuel’s Zodiac.
 

We stopped off at my vessel to pick up a bucket then Manuel eased over to the bow of Hawk-nose’s boat and I climbed stealthily aboard. The vessel was about forty feet long with an aft cabin. According to the crew, this was where their commander slept.

At the shrouds, I paused to fill the bucket—it was late October so the water was a mite chilly. I then padded aft, banged on his cabin door and stepped back with the bucket at the ready.

Well, the door burst open and Hawk-nose came charging out like an enraged bull. I had a brief second to notice that he was stark naked and his sparse hair was sticking out in tufts before I nailed him with the contents of the bucket.



There was murder in his eyes...can't say I blame him

The force of the icy water stopped his forward momentum briefly—just long enough for me to catch the murder in his eyes.

I went racing up the deck laughing like a hyena, knowing however that if he got his claws on me it would be a close-fought struggle.

Grabbing the forward shroud I leapt into the air. My grip on the wire spun me over the rail and out. I was prepared to swim for it, but Manuel had been keeping pace with me alongside the boat and I landed on my feet in the dinghy. Manuel hit the throttle and we zoomed off into the night, the two of us roaring with laughter.

It was something out of a James Bond movie and to Hawk-nose it must have seemed as if we’d rehearsed the move a hundred times—but in fact we hadn’t even planned my escape. It was just one of those things that came together perfectly.

Back at the bar, the crew were in stitches when we recounted the details of our little jape.

I have a strong suspicion though, that the remainder of their voyage was not destined to be a happy one.

 

 

 

The Sharks went Hungry



Peter, Esther, Katheryn in DR

In the early ‘90’s I was living in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic with my second wife and two small children. My parents flew out from Australia for a visit and decided to stay for a while. This was fine with me as I always had a good time with them.

One afternoon, Dad and I were sitting on our balcony looking out over the ocean yapping about our lives. After a few too many beers, the old man decided to get all serious on me. “I’m getting on a bit Peter,” he said in his most sombre and earnest voice. “When I go son, I don’t want you making a fuss about it. Just stick me in a box and shove me into the ground.”

Dad always managed to give me an opening for what some people claim to be my rather warped sense of humour. “I’ve got a better idea,” I beamed. “The farmers sometimes butcher cattle out on a point near Sosua and the offal brings in the big hammerheads—they tend to hang around there at night. What I’m thinking is that I could hire a boat, fill it with tourists and they could pay to watch a human being devoured by sharks.”

Dad and Mum

The look of horror on Dad’s face was priceless. “I don’t want the sharks to get me,” he blurted, his voice edged with fear.

“But you’ll be dead,” I assured him. “I wouldn’t throw you in until you were dead.”

“Ooooo, I still don’t want the Noah’s* to get me,” he implored me bleakly.

As it turned out, he was back in Australia when he went, some ten years later. We scattered his ashes at a place where he liked to fish. It was a freshwater river so there were no sharks to get him.

*A common term for shark in Australia. It’s rhyming slang—Noah’s arc = shark.

You can always count on your Friends

My friend Rob and I were living aboard a 26 ft. Westerly sailboat in Puerto Banús, a marina situated near Marbella, on the south coast of Spain. It’s rather an up-market place and our vessel must have been about the smallest there.

The Westerly Centaur

One evening, we were sitting in the saloon having a quiet couple of beers when the vessel gave a sudden lurch, the bow dipping down and the stern thrusting skyward.

“Someone’s come aboard,” I announced, somewhat superfluously.

“I think they’ve broken the bow off,” says Rob.

“Oh my God. Must be the Scottish girl,” I said.

The ‘Scottish Girl’ was someone I’d chatted to a couple of times at one of the local bars. She was a lovely girl with a good sense of humour. Unfortunately, she must have also had a raging appetite for food because her figure was one that might charitably be termed generous.

Being male and what some females might term ‘shallow’, my taste in women tended toward the slim-ish. But I had the impression that the ‘Scottish Girl’ had developed a not so platonic interest in me—hence my decision to stay clear of the bar that night.

I quickly slipped into the quarter berth thinking, ‘If she gets her claws on me I’m finished.’



My supposed friend Rob with dinner

(For those not-so-nautical readers, a quarter berth on a small boat is usually a single bunk situated beneath the cockpit, enclosed on the sides by the hull of the vessel and the engine bulkhead. It’s a small space about the size of a coffin. When sleeping there, one’s head is the only part sticking out into the saloon).


I’d no sooner crammed myself into the end of the quarter berth and pulled in a couple of bagged sails to stopper the entrance when I heard a Scottish voice asking Rob where I was.

“He’s just stepped out to get milk,” the bastard replied. “He’ll be back any minute. Come on down and have a cup of tea.”

I was squished into the tiniest space and extremely uncomfortable, but I couldn’t move a muscle.

The tea took fifteen minutes to prepare and drink, and when the girl expressed a desire to leave, my friend Rob talked her out of it with the offer of a beer.

I ended up being kept prisoner for half an hour. When I finally emerged, Rob had a grin from ear to ear.

Willy's Unfortunate Condition

Another Kalinka* story.

Willy and I had just returned to Gibraltar from a voyage along the coast of Spain. No need for details here—suffice to say that the trip had not gone well.

Kalinka in front of The Rock

By the time we dropped the hook in the anchorage, Willy and I had ceased to be on speaking terms due to some disagreement we’d had along the way. I was, however, civil enough to serve him a plate of the stew I’d prepared that evening.

Three things must be explained at this point:

1) The toilet on the Kalinka was situated in a corner of the saloon. It had its own enclosure, but it was right there—the door opening directly into what was basically our living room.

I had plans to move it and I think the previous owner of the vessel had the same idea because, attached to the outlet valve was a rather long length of flexible tubing. This was not marine grade reinforced rubber but more like the suction tube you’d find on a household vacuum cleaner.

2) During our little jaunt, Willy had managed to pick up some kind of stomach bug that had cleaned him out completely and left him thin as a pencil.

3) At sea, I always turn off all outlet valves.

So, Willy and I sat across the table from each other eating our meal in silence. Shortly afterwards however, that silence was broken by the gurgle and rumble of Willy’s tortured stomach.

A couple of minutes later, he made a desperate dash for the toilet.

After a rather protracted session on the throne, I heard him begin to operate the pump—a long lever situated beside the toilet bowl. It made a kind of vwooping sound. But as Willy pumped, the vwooping got higher and higher in pitch.

You stupid bastard, I thought. You’ve forgotten to open the sea cock.

I was tempted to tell him, but resisted the urge.

Willy and me in a more amicable moment

Instead, I allowed the vwooping to build to an impossible high.

Then there was a bang, like the crash of a drum at the finale of a symphony.

I pictured the scene. The hose coming off the seacock and thrashing around the small enclosure like a demented snake. As it turned out, that is exactly what happened.

A moment of silence, then the door slowly opened.

Willy looked like he’d been plucked from the Okefenokee Swamp.

Without a word he strode across the salon, climbed the companionway and I heard the splash as he went over the side.

He’d left the door to the toilet open though. And there on the back of it was a perfect silhouette of Willy.

My punishment for my lack of sympathy was that I had to do the cleaning myself as Willy’s delicate constitution was not up to the task.

*See blog dated 3-11-‘12

Clam & Eel (or Lawson's Revenge)

Captain Clam* and I were continually playing stupid pranks on each other. Usually dangerous pranks. It's sort of surprising that both of us are still around.

One time we were on a sailing boat anchored somewhere close to Nassau in the Bahamas. I was snorkelling some hundred yards or so off to the side of the vessel when Clam, having quaffed far too many ales, conceived the playful idea of pinging a few bullets from his .44 magnum Smith & Wesson around me.

As soon as the first bullet went zipping through the water in front of me, I headed for the bottom. I then made my way back to the other side of the boat without surfacing.

Had Clam been aiming to hit me I would have been fairly confident of my safety because his eyesight was not the best. The fact that he’d been trying to go close but miss me was terrifying.

“Almost got you,” he brayed gleefully as I climbed the boarding ladder.

I had my revenge a couple of weeks later though when the two of us were snorkelling for lobster at Porpoise Rocks off the north end of Bimini.

I was at the base of one of the rocks—a depth of maybe twelve feet—when I looked into what I’d first thought to be a small cave. But in fact it was the entrance to a tunnel going all the way through to the other side of the rock--a distance of perhaps fifty yards.

This was too tempting to resist. I took a good lungful of air and swam into it. Once inside, I was committed—it was too narrow for me to turn around.

Half way through, the tunnel opened up into a small chamber about five feet around and four high.

To my horror, residing in a crevice on one side, was the biggest moray eel I’d ever seen. The thing had a head the size of a football.

Well, like most creatures, morays don’t like intruders coming into their territory. Get too close and it kind of snaps and snarls like an angry dog. It makes no noise—just opens and closes its mouth baring wicked-looking fangs.

I’ve never been bitten by a moray, but I’ve been told that if one does get its teeth into you, the only way to get free of it is to cut its head off. Otherwise, it will wrap its tail around a rock and drown you.

I put myself as far from those horrible fangs as I could and ever so gently finned by. Once past, I shot through the remaining part of the tunnel and out the other side.

I caught up with Clam and told him of this fabulous tunnel. He couldn’t resist being foolish either.

As he headed for the entrance, I thrashed around to the other side to greet him as he came out.

Well, his exit was quite spectacular. He shot out of the water like a breaching dolphin. “You bastard,” he yelled on seeing my grinning face.

I’ve heard him tell this tale on a number of occasions. In his version, I prod the eel with my pole spear in order to stir it up for when he makes his appearance. Not true. I went by it as meekly as a little lamb.

*See blog dated 29-10-12
 

 

Bondy's Brief Foray into Dominican Society

This story falls under the category of ‘Other Scoundrels’, one of them being Alan Bond, the other, I guess, me. Because I wasn’t actually living on a vessel at the time, I can’t claim the moniker of ‘sailor’.

I was living in a house in Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic, having arrived there on a Dutch fishing boat a friend and I sailed from Holland.

Anyway, I went down to Santo Domingo to catch up with my mate Bond, an Englishman who was living there.

Bond

Well, Bondy’s wife was off somewhere with her girlfriends so the two of us did our catching up on the balcony of his apartment over a few glasses of rum. Well…maybe a few more than a few.

At some point in the evening, Bond mentioned that he’d been admitted that very day as a member of the prestigious Arroyo Hondo Country Club. He boasted of its wonderful facilities and mentioned the exorbitant membership fee*. But, he reasoned, the business and social connections would be well worth the cost. And how convenient it was—almost directly across the road from his apartment.

And in this fact lay his downfall.

It must have been around three in the morning when Bondy suggested a dip in the Club pool.

We made our way to the pillared portal of the exclusive Arroyo Hondo only to find that some idiot had inconsiderately closed the place up.

By this time however, our hearts were set on a swim and we were not to be thwarted, so we scaled the fence. Bondy, after all, was a paid up member—who could possibly begrudge him and a guest making use of the facilities?

We’d neglected to bring swimming gear with us, but there were no other members around to object to the exposure of our personal members. And besides, the pool was in relative darkness.

No sooner had the two of us plunged into the water from the high board when night turned to day. The pool lights came on and two guards with automatic weapons rushed to the poolside.

Despite Bondy’s protestations that he was a member, we were marched at gunpoint to the dressing room and told to put on our clothes.

While Bondy was arguing with the guards over his rights as a member, I slipped out the door and made a dash for the diving board. My entry into the water brought the guards racing out to nab me. But while their attention was thus diverted, Bondy made his break for freedom.

This back and forth escape and recapture went on for two or three episodes but the guards eventually managed to collar the two of us and eject us from the Club grounds.

The next evening a chastened Bond called to tell me his membership had been revoked and the Club was not not refunding his money.

*In today’s currency around $25,000.

 

 



Sharing a Good Story

I found this on a sailing blog and couldn't resist sharing.
http://saltysailors.com/articles-cruising/a_brilliantly_dumb_idea.html#

Message from a Dolphin

My buddy Rob and I were en-route from the Caribbean to Halifax, Nova Scotia in a twenty-six foot twin keel Westerly. Hardly a breath of wind as we crossed from the blue water of the Gulf Stream into the green of the Labrador Current.

Other sailors had told me about the clarity of the demarcation between the two currents but I didn’t quite believe it until I actually saw it with my own eyes. It’s a line. Not just a merging of colours, but a clearly defined line—blue one side; pale green the other.

Perhaps when the wind’s howling the line might blur a little, but on this day there was little more than a breath.

Just into the green side, four dolphins joined us, languidly flopping around the bow as we edged through the water. We were moving so slowly I decided to join them. I donned my wet suit, mask, fins and weight-belt then slipped over the side.

Upon my entry into their realm, the dolphins descended to around thirty feet and hovered there in a row, observing this odd new creature floating on the surface peering down at them. For the first time I noticed that one of the dolphins was considerably larger than the other three.

I took a lungful of air and headed towards them. As I descended, the larger one detached itself from the others and came slowly up to greet me. How wonderful, I thought—this wordless communication between us. This meeting of human and marine mammal.

What would we do when we came together I wondered? Would we shake hand and fin? I was unsure as to the correct protocol for this particular situation.

The dolphin enlightened me.

We were almost nose to nose when it slowly turned around and fired off a great squirt of feces—right in my face. The water around me turned a muddy brown.

Apparently I wasn’t welcome. As I headed for the surface the reason dawned on me. The big guy was a male. He had his harem of three ladies and was not about to welcome an interloper.

What male could fault him?

 

 

Stupidity, Me and the Sea

Sometimes I amaze myself at just how idiotic I can be.


Kalinka in front of the Rock of Gibraltar

The particular madness I’m about to relate took place around 1972 when I purchased a 52 ft. ex British Navy harbour launch in Gibraltar.  I’d set out to buy a sailboat, but due to some  brain damage I must have suffered as a child (perhaps I was dropped on my head), ended up with this thing.

Her name was Kalinka. She had a hull of diagonal double planked teak along with teak decks. Her engine was a five cylinder Rustin diesel that was started by a burst of compressed air.

Bringing the engine to life made the most delightful sound—a great whooosh of air then the steady thump, thump, thump of the big slow-revving diesel.

My shipmate Willy (who became the designated engineer) and I chuffed around the ports of Spain and Morocco in the old Kalinka and had a fine time of it.

Beneath the engine room floor snaked an absolute labyrinth of copper pipes, the workings of which the previous owner—a burly Irishman by the name of Patrick Rafferty—took pains to explain. I dutifully made a detailed diagram of said pipes but did not, however, trace them to check the veracity of what the Irishman had told me.  Being double planked, the hull took on so little water during our coastal jaunts that it was easier to use the hand pump than deal with a daunting number of valves.

These short coastal voyages gave me confidence. Way too much confidence—and this is where the really dumb part comes in.

Me and Willy

I decided to sail the Kalinka back to Canada.

One would think, after all the ocean sailing I’d done, that I’d be a trifle leery of taking a vessel specifically designed for harbour service across the North Atlantic.  But no—when you’re young, anything seems possible.  Besides, it was summer so how bad could the seas get?

Willy and I loaded the aft cabin with drums of diesel and, one fine morning after Rob, our third crew member had arrived, we set out—spirits high with the promise of adventure.

A hundred miles or so out to sea, with night closing in, our adventure arrived. The headwind and waves began to pick up disturbingly.

As darkness fell we commenced our staggered watch system which would have two of us in the wheelhouse at all times. Willy was to have the first couple of hours below.

Kalinka had a fine bow suited to cutting through calm harbour waters…which meant that she also cut through, rather than rose above, the rising Atlantic seas. Waves crashed over the bow and slammed into the wheelhouse.

After a few minutes, Willy came back up to the wheelhouse attired in—believe it or not—a pair of green monogrammed pyjamas, carrying a wormed toothbrush and glass of water in his hand. The moment he stepped out on deck to attend to his fangs, the Kalinka buried her nose into a wave, soaking Willy to the skin. Inside the wheelhouse, Rob and I roared with laughter.





An hour or so after a drenched Willy had gone below I opened the engine room hatch to check on the old Rustin.

Willy and me pretending we know what we're doing.

To my horror, the floor boards were submerged and the flywheel was sending oily bilge-water all over the place. Engineer Willy had to be roused from his bunk to deal with the situation. Again he ascended to the wheelhouse in monogrammed pyjamas—this time of a burgundy shade. But after a few minutes in the engine room they were blackened by the oily bilge water being liberally distributed by the flywheel. After activating the mechanical bilge pump, he returned to his bunk.

Fifteen minutes later I checked to see how the pump was faring. I was aghast to see that the water had now risen to more than half way up the flywheel—the lower portion of the engine was completly submerged.

So there we were, over a hundred miles from land, with the wind beginning to howl, the seas rising and the vessel taking on water at an alarming rate. The captain (me) assembled the crew (Willy and Rob) and—according to Willy—uttered the words that to this day he has never allowed me to forget: “We’re in a serious situation lads.”

So what was my crew’s reaction to these captainly words of wisdom? The two clowns doubled over with laughter!

Well, to lop a bit off an overly long story, there was no sleep for any of us that night. We exhausted ourselves taking turns at the manual pump and slumping over the wheel.

Around midnight, having discovered that our dinghy/lifeboat had been carried away, discretion overcame valour—we did a one-eighty and headed back toward land. Thrashing away at the hand pump with the wind and seas behind us, we almost managed to keep pace with the incoming water. We only began to gain when Willy turned off the mechanical pump.

We later discovered that the wretched Irishman had given us totally incorrect directions. In following them we’d activated the fire fighting equipment and, with no hose attached, were pumping vast quantities of the North Atlantic into our bilge.

This is a shorter version of an article that appeared in Better Boating in 1975.

 

Captain Clam Defies Hurricane Andrew



Captain A.P. Clam

For a number of years, I lived in South Miami, Florida. My sailing and diving buddy down there was a rogue I’m going to call Captain A. P. Clam. I’m granting him a pseudonym because he frequently exhibited a rather relaxed attitude toward laws he deemed inconvenient.

Captain Clam claimed to be a reincarnation of the comedian W. C. Fields*. He spoke like Fields and possessed many of the actor’s mannerisms. He also had a rather casual regard for the property of others and, as this story will demonstrate, a somewhat cavalier attitude toward his own as well.

As an example, on one occasion we were whipping down a street in a wealthy part of the suburb of Coconut Grove in Clam’s MG sports car. “You’re going too fast for this corner,” I remarked as we hurtled toward a ninety degree bend at around fifty miles per hour.

“Pipe down Lawson,” says Clam. “I know this road like the back of my hand.”

Well, I guess he hadn’t observed that particular appendage for some time because at that point we spun out, mounted the curb, sliced through a meticulously groomed hedge and ploughed our way onto a perfectly manicured lawn. A large, obviously expensive house, scowled at our intrusion.

“Good place to install a gate,” Clam offered casually as we drove out through the opening he’d created.

When Hurricane Andrew was approaching the east coast of Florida in 1993, I was living in Fort Lauderdale and Clam was in South Miami. I phoned him around two in the afternoon to enquire as to whether he’d prepared his house for the onslaught of the hurricane. In his typically haughty manner he replied, “Hurricane? What hurricane?”

“The one that’s approaching,” I reminded him patiently. I could tell by the tone of his voice that rum had been consumed.

“Let it come! Let it come!” Was his arrogant retort.

Well, it came all right, and with a vengeance.

Initially it was supposed to make landfall around Fort Lauderdale so I prepared for the worst. But its direction changed—perhaps due to the hot air Clam was exuding. The phone lines went down around six that evening so we lost communication. The next day I drove south to see how he’d fared.

Although I’d lived just around the corner from him for a number of years, such was the destruction and chaos that it took me over an hour to find his house. All the landmarks that I’d unconsciously used to navigate the area were gone. Huge ficus trees had been ripped out and lay around helter-skelter, blocking roads and perched atop crushed houses. There were no street signs. It was as if a bomb had flattened the whole area.

I eventually found Clam standing on his front lawn looking forlornly at the ruin of his house. The only undamaged part was a bedroom he’d added. A trail of garden implements led off to the west but there was no trace of the shed that had once housed them. While we walked the property he related the events of the previous evening and morning.

“All night the wind was screaming and rain was lashing down,” he told me. “Then, around two in the morning it went suddenly quiet and I went outside to see what was happening. Well, the rain had stopped and I could see stars in the sky. I could also see that the situation wasn’t going to remain peaceful for much longer—we were in the eye."

“I went back in the house and climbed into bed just before the storm returned. It seemed to peak around three in the morning at which time there was a loud crash. I climbed out of bed and went into the living room to see what had happened. Well, the first thing I noticed was that the roof of the main house was gone. It must have lifted like a lid and gone sailing off into the night. So I went back into the bedroom, closed the door and told Joan (Clam’s wife) the situation.”

“Oh my God! What are you going to do about it?” she asked.

“What do you want me to do, dear? Bridge the gap with my body? I’m getting back into bed if you don’t mind.”

That was typical Captain Clam.

*A. Pismire Clam was a name conjured up by W. C.

A Ghost Ship* of my Acquaintance

Sometimes a vessel is better off being left to its own devices. I became acquainted with such a craft under about forty feet of water off Grand Turk Island when a couple of friends invited me to assist them in bringing her to the surface.

The boat was a schooner of around sixty feet, built (I believe) in Maine—a replica of some noted vessel from the eighteen hundreds. She was around six years old at the time of my meeting with her. The upper portion of her bow was stove in and she had about half a mainmast and a broken stub where her fore had once stood. And, as I mentioned, she lay under around forty feet of water—a fascinating but sad sight.

How she arrived there is an interesting tale…and one with a moral. And the moral is: That the vessel itself is normally stronger than her captain and crew.

This all happened in the late 1980’s so the details are a little sketchy in my mind. But the basics are as follows: A captain and crew were hired to sail the ship from Boston to the Virgin Islands. Well, about half way through the voyage, they encountered a storm and began to take on water. For whatever reason, the captain and crew were unable to deal with the situation so a ‘mayday’ was sent out and a freighter came to the rescue. When it drew near, the captain of the schooner rammed his unfortunate vessel into its steel side in his eagerness to abandon ship.

All boarded the freighter safely and a message was sent to the owners that, despite all efforts to save her, their schooner was now at the bottom of the Atlantic.

Well, said vessel obviously didn’t grasp her rôle in the drama because, despite supposedly taking on water and having her bow smashed in, she remained afloat.

For three months she drifted—doing just fine without the clowns who were supposed to be in charge of her.





Anyway, it appears a fishing boat came across her, took her in tow and she ended up anchored off Grand Turk. What finally sent her to the bottom was that dreaded scourge of wooden ships in tropical waters—teredo worms. These little bastards munched away mercilessly at her timbers until this proud survivor finally gave up the ghost and went to the bottom.

Well, as you can see, we brought her back to the surface. But unfortunately her liberation was short lived. As her new owners were towing her to a mooring in East Caicos, the generator powering the pump that was keeping her afloat packed it in. She now rests in about two thousand feet of water.

*A Ghost Ship is generally considered to be a vessel sailing with no living captain or crew.

The Duel

In late 1971 I was working at a marina in Los Angeles when a gorgeous wooden ketch of around 70 feet pulled into the slip beside me. I got talking to one of the crew and found out that they were off to Hawaii the next morning.

A few words with the skipper—Bob something-or-other—and yours truly became the fifth crew member. As it turned out—apart from me—Bob was the only one with any sailing experience.

We stopped off in San Diego, where one of the crew and I met a couple of young ladies in a bar. Around two in the morning, on our way back to the boat, we happened upon a couple of supermarket carts. Being the gentlemen we were, we helped our new friends into these vehicles in order to spare them an arduous walk.




Most of our voyage was uneventful.
 Yours truly at wheel.

Well, sometimes chivalrous intent, mixed    with an excess of ale, has a tendency to take an unexpected turn. In no time at all, the sedate transportation of the ladies evolved into a race. We were neck and neck when the flashing lights of a police car brought an end to the contest. A grinning officer actually wrote us a speeding ticket! If only there were more cops with that same sense of humour. But alas, nowadays it seems the majority of them are being recruited from Serious School.

Wind beginning to pipe up.

Most of our voyage was uneventful—a steady fifteen to twenty knot breeze on the beam scooting us along at around nine knots. But a day out of Hawaii, the wind piped up.

For some reason, the owner and I didn’t get along too well. Perhaps it was because he was half Irish, half Cherokee and more than a little bonkers…or maybe it was me.

Anyway, as the sun set and the wind increased to a gale, Bob sent everyone below for the night—except me. He then announced that we would take hourly turns at being captain. I was crew for the first hour, and his initial command was for me to change the headsail.

Well, on a vessel this size, the sails are huge and weigh half a ton. Under a sane skipper, two or three people would be required to carry out his order. But on this night I was on my own.

So I dragged this monster of a sail through the cabin (I couldn’t take it out the fore hatch because waves were breaking over the bow) and wrestled it out through the main hatch. Then I hauled it to the bow along a wave-washed deck angled at around forty-five degrees—all under the gleaming eye of captain Mad Bob.

Once on the foredeck I lowered the sail we had up, climbed out on the bowsprit, un-hanked it and wrestled it into its bag. Then there was the replacement sail to put on and hoist.

The whole operation took me the best part of my hour and I was exhausted. When I returned, soaking wet, to the cockpit Bob had a shit-eating grin on his face.

But I soon removed that grin when I got the wheel in my claws and became captain. I adopted a thoughtful expression, scowled off into the gloom and announced that the wind appeared to have eased a trifle. “I think we could change up to a bigger headsail,” I gleefully told him.

What a joy it was to see him—through sheets of lashing rain and spray—perched out at the end of the bowsprit wrestling with a flogging sail as I drove him into the waves.

This went on all night with various sails going up and coming down with each change of command. The only difference between us (I discovered later) was that Bob had a supply of ‘bennies’ he was popping to keep himself awake.

The next day we sailed into port. Not a word was mentioned about our duel.

I recently Googled ‘yacht, Nam Sang’ and it would appear that captain ‘Bob’ went under a number of names and had stolen this renowned vessel from its New Zealand owners.

I caught this wahoo using
a strip of cloth as lure
—it was delicious

Additional post 30 Oct. '12

http://www.kamadofraudforum.org/viewtopic.php?t=507

http://www.stfyc.com/files/StFrancisHistory.pdf    Nam Sang is on page 28. She had a bowsprit when I sailed on her.

 

 



Sydney to Hobart Yacht Race

I grew up in Australia and began sailing around Sydney Harbour in 1957—when I was twelve years old. As anyone with a rudimentary grasp of arithmetic will be able to deduce, I am now well within the old fart latitudes.

In 1965, about a year before I sailed for Canada (aboard the Canberra, a P&O liner), I crewed aboard Seawind, a 43 foot wooden sloop, in the Sydney to Hobart yacht race. This is an annual event beginning on Boxing Day and taking (in those days) an average of a week to complete. Seawind was owned and skippered by Norm Brooker, an old rogue and excellent sailor*.

There’s always a huge spectator fleet to watch the start of the race and a bunch of police launches to keep these vessels in check.
 

For me, the highlight of this particular start was when one of the boys in blue on a nearby police launch went charging forward with a boathook to fend off an errant spectator boat. As he thrust his weapon at the bow of the offending vessel with all his weight behind it, said vessel suddenly reversed, leaving a void.

With nothing to impede his forward motion, our man of the moment charged off the bow of his launch like an unseated knight at a joust.

Needless to say he received a huge round of applause as he was hauled back aboard the launch.
 

*I recall only one exception to this statement. During a normal Saturday race, Norm would get through about half a bottle of Scotch and be little the worse the wear for it. On one occasion however, he had an unusual thirst on and managed to consume the entire bottle. The achievement put him in a decidedly aggressive state.

Upon spying his hated arch-rival Horrie Godden--slightly behind and to leeward--Norm eased sheets and headed for his enemy at ramming speed. There was a stiff breeze blowing so we were sailing along at a good clip.

We, the crew, were forced to mutiny in order to prevent disaster. We prised Norm’s claw-like fingers from the wheel and dragged him below. We then resumed the race while Norm snored off the Scotch.

Seawind on a Sunday afternoon. From right to left—Paddy (my girlfriend at the time), Norm, Dave and Peter (not me). Dave Linton was a master boat carpenter and did most of the building of Sea Wind. He claimed some kind of kinship with Hercules Linton, designer of the Cutty Sark.