2003

HEADS

So it’s ’03 and I’m in Portabello, Panama, a lovely anchorage. I’ve had this wonderful idea, what the cruising world needs is a 10’ nesting, planning, hard dinghy and I convinced myself that I was just the guy to to develop, manufacture and market them to a hungry, clamoring, cruising community, I fantasized about positive flotation and a 15 hp motor that would go like hell, leaving inflatable RIBs gasping in its wake. After all I’d built a Danny Greene Chameleon, nesting dink in ’91 and had always received positive comments on its weight, ease of assembly/disassembly, launching, retrieving, security of stowage on deck, etc. But it was a rowing, sailing design and a 2 hp was its maximum speed potential due to the rocker in the stern section that made it a good rowing dink. For those of you not clear on nesting dinghies the are 2 part, the bow and the stern each have transverse mating bulkheads which bolt together, the seat is the length of the stern section. The bow goes on deck, in Thalia’s case into teak cleats c/w padeyes, which capture the 4 corners, the seat goes on top and the stern goes over all, everything tied down to the padeyes, very secure, probably survive a roll over, certainly survived my knockdown. So now you have package, in my case under the boom of 62” long, 48” wide and 24” high. You launch it by throwing the 2 parts overboard, hopefully upright, climb into the stern and bolt it together, add oars and possibly a small outboard, the weight of the dink was 110 lbs. Ah, but it gets better, after a heavy rain don’t bail it, throw soap and dirty clothes in the bow section, stomp as required and there are 2 rinses in the stern. My friends were always trading dinghies with me after a rain. One rather pretty friend on C’est La Vie wound up on the cover of a sailing magazine with the caption “Caribbean Washing Machine”, I figure it was the bikini, no one ever took a picture of me doing laundry.So while the Chameleon was great, I was ready for a dinghy upgrade, I lusted after speed, among other things including Lynne.

I realize you’re thinking “What does this have to with heads” but I’m getting there. Honest. So I rented a room in Portabello and started building the prototype for my future dinghy empire. While toiling away I met a lovely Panamanian lady, Indira, who taught English at the school there, she lived an hour away by bus in Colon. For those of you not familiar with Colon, you haven’t missed anything, there’s a good reason they named it after a southerly point in the digestive system, they should have gone further south, but even anus would be too polite. It’s a dump, a dangerous one at that. While in Portabello Indira would sometimes stay on Thalia when she was too tired for the bus ride and on weekends would bring her kids and help me on the prototype. That’s how she found out that sanding fiberglass was much nastier than teaching. The kids loved Thalia, Miguel, 13 and Shirley, 9, were nice kids and viewed the whole experience as a moist cottage, plus there was a beach, well, more of a mangrove swamp, but they were in kiddie heaven. One weekend Miguel, Shirley and I were in the cockpit, I was trying to learn more Spanish, they were struggling to make themselves understood and Indira was in the head. See, told you we’d get there. Miguel looks over the port side of the cockpit and points, asking “Que es eso?” (What is that?) I pear over the side and explain “Es mierda de su madre.” (You’ll just have to figure that out for yourself) Amid gales of laughter they called wildly for their mother, Indira rushed up thinking all hell had broken loose, the kids pointed and still laughing yelled “Viste su mierda” Indira looked over the side an highly embarrassed admonished her kids in rapid Spanish in which all I got was there’s a more polite term for poo poo. And that’s how the family learned the ugly truth about direct overboard discharge.

“If I’m lyin…”