1992

A LIFESTYLE CRUISING LESSON

So it’s ’92 we’ve made it to Stuart, Florida, I was too green to even call myself a “newbie”, back then Stuart was very cruiser friendly, good anchorage, nice town. Gerrit, my crew and I had left Toronto just a few months prior. I was lucky to wind up with Gerrit, a fairly successful one design racer of 24’ Sharks, a popular local keelboat. He taught me to sail and everything I now know about sail trim, I’d like to say that I’m now a great sailor, but as you know, the sea has a way of humbling anyone. The first time I was ever on a keelboat was Thalia’s seatrial and they’d already cashed the deposit cheque. He’d responded to an ad I’d placed in a local sailing rag and we seemed to get on pretty well, however, Gerrit had one interesting trait, he was afraid to sail at night, he explained it to me and flat refused to do it and if that was a deal breaker he wouldn’t come south with me. I figured, what the hell, we can do it without overnight passages by hopping in and out of the Intercoastal Waterway and right up until one dark and stormy night when we failed to get into an entrance in daylight in, I think, South Carolina, we were trying to motor up the channel in driving rain and 20 kts of wind. We’d obviously wandered out of the channel as we couldn’t see the marks and were running out of water. “Let’s get the hell out of here before we run aground.” Said Gerrit solemnly. “But you said…” I stammered. “Yeah, I know what I said, but breaking your boat isn’t part of the plan.” We put about and soon were back in the Atlantic, we traded watches and the night passed uneventfully and he awoke me at dawn proudly showing me 2 tuna he’d caught. Geritt left Thalia and I in Marathon, in the fl Keys, that had always been the plan and I found myself torn between excitement at singlehanding and being terrified at screwing up. Five years later Ulla, my unbelievable crew/mate for 6 yrs, and I left Thalia in south Florida where we’d returned for a work gig. I called Gertit and he immediately came over to my parents and discovering Ulla is Danish they delightedly conversed in one of the Scandinavian languages. He finally dragged out his chart case and showed me his transatlantic tracks, he’d been doing deliveries, he claimed it was all due to me getting us lost in South Carolina and forcing him to deal with his sailing fears. Huh?

So back to Stuart, we rowed the Chameleon dinghy to the dock and were immediately embraced by a fellow cruiser who boomed “Nice nesting, sailing dinghy there, I’ve one as well, tell you what, we’ll have a dinghy race at 4 pm, from the dock out to the red buoy and back. Loser buys a case of beer, winner helps drink it, the rules are no Schlitz.” Well, the rules seemed fair and I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’d never actually rigged the 6 square meter windsurfer sail and boom I had on deck to the dink, actually I couldn’t get a word in. But what the hell, it just meant rigging a mainsheet from the stern tie down padeyes c/w a block on to the back of the cat rigged sail boom. Not too tough. We tried out the dink and it sailed pretty well, even Geritt seemed impressed. We rowed back to the dock at 4 pm, not wanting to reveal the secret sail weapon. Bob, our competitor, looked over the sail as we rigged it and intoned sadly “I believe I’m f**ked.” as he hoisted his recycled bed sheet sail. Geritt waited on the dock as we’d not rigged a trapeze, but did take a finish line photo. As it turned out Bob was right, it wasn’t a race it was a slaughter. I had the good grace not to explain it was the first day of the dinghy’s sailing career.

Later, as we worked on the spoils of victory, I found out that Bob and his wife, who wasn’t witness to the debacle, had lived on Maggie May, a Florida built, cold molded, centerboard boat, for almost 20 yrs sailing between the Bahamas and Florida. “Wow, what luck, a real cruiser, maybe I shouldn’t have kicked his ass so bad. I could’ve left him with a scrap of dignity.” I thought. But Bob was cool, he seemed to take it all in stride and he was seriously good at sucking back beer, fortunately Geritt wasn’t much of a drinker and me… well, you decide. Bob gave us a lot of excellent information on the Bahamas, all of it turned out to be good. What I remember from what is now a blurry night. But I do remember one piece of advice he gave me very clearly. “Always do one thing to maintain your boat every day, don’t do 2 unless you have to, it’ll screw up tomorrow’s project. It’ll keep you from feeling like a worthless boat bum, which’ll improve your self-esteem and the most important get it done before 10 am so you can have a beer.” He stated positively. Words to live by.

“If I’m lyin…”