The Knotty Boys are a loosely formed group
of friends from Toronto , Canada Caribbean for a couple of
weeks on a chartered sailboat. My impression was that they were in it
more for the rum and story-telling than the wind on canvas bit.
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| Nine Knotty Boys on one of their voyages-Pat in green shirt |
As a prelude to the voyage I’m about to
relate, on one of their adventures I’d arranged to meet up with them in Antigua . I was somewhere down in the Leeward Islands
aboard my thirty-nine foot sloop Mary Poppins at the time, and they’d chartered
a boat in Tortola . Antigua
was about the half-way point.
I was monitoring their progress by
phone-calls to one of the wives as I sailed north. According to
her information, a storm had brought winds of near hurricane force to the area
and the Boys were holed up in Virgin Gorda, some twenty-five miles from their
starting point.
So I was forced to battle my way some four
hundred miles up through this ‘hurricane’ to Gorda. By the time I got there a
few of the lads had abandoned ship and were comfortably ensconced in a
hotel—most of the time gulping down rum punches at the Tiki Bar.
Cut to a couple of years later when I was living
in Coconut Grove, South Miami : I get a
phone-call from Pat, one of the Knotty Boys. “Can you find us a cheap boat near where you are?”
There were not many charter companies
operating out of Miami , but I managed to find
one in Biscayne Bay . After looking at whatever
pictures I sent up, Pat and his parsimonious friend, Paul decided on the Viaven, a 45 foot motor-sailer owned by an
outfit called Easy Sailing. She was not the best-looking vessel at the marina,
but then you get what you pay for.
By the time I picked up the
five Knotty Boys at Miami
The boys were not overly impressed with
the Viaven. Her picture proved far more
alluring than her reality. Kind of like a blind date as Pat put it. But after
some grumbling from the rest of them they threw their bags
aboard and headed for a nearby bar.
As more rum went down, disenchantment with their ‘date’
increased and someone
organized a switch to a 51 foot Beneteau berthed alongside the Viaven. Late that night, they staggered back
to the dock and moved their bags and bodies onto the new vessel…in the nick of
time as it turned out!
Next morning they awoke, bleary-eyed to
discover that the Viaven had gone to the bottom. All that could
be seen of her was a mast poking
out of the water.
Late that day they cast off and set course
for Nassau
Well, the wind piped up that evening and
remained gale force for two days, unfortunately blowing from the direction in
which they were heading.
After the first night, the engine gave up
the ghost, leaving bits and pieces of itself scattered around the bilge. Then
the headsail blew out. Shortly after that something happened to the mainsail,
rendering it all but useless.
According to Pat there was a good deal of
sea-sickness, along with considerable dissention over navigation—perhaps a
contributing factor in their ending up in Freeport (a hundred miles east-north-east
of Miami and a long way from Nassau) and it taking them three days to get there.
Apart from the stench of sea-sickness during
much of the voyage—the rank odor of mutiny also hung heavily in the air. But what
had perhaps been the Knotty Boys’ undoing now came to their rescue—with five
captains and no crew, mutiny was out of the question!
On the second day, the ominous form of a
ten foot shark was spotted riding the waves, apparently eying them hungrily. I
suspect however that he was simply paying his respects—Pat being a lawyer.
So, three days after their exuberant
departure, a battered and subdued ship-full of Knotty Boys arrived at Freeport
According to Pat, “Several attempts were
made by mechanics to repair the engine but to no avail, so we abandoned
ship in Freeport
The return voyage to Florida
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