1997

STARBOARD TACK

SO IT’S ’97 and Ulla, my spectacular crew/mate for 6 yrs, Thalia and I are sailing on the Bahamas Bank, we’ve just completed a 7 mth work gig in south Fl done the usual haulout of Thalia and attendant maintenance blitz, we were really ready to head south. We’d even managed a 2 wk trip to Toronto, my 1st trip back since I’d started sailing. The family were delighted to meet Ulla and when asked what they could get her for Christmas I immediately suggested a red mountain bike. She was over the moon and wanted to try it in the snow, dissuading Ulla wasn’t easy but we managed. Seven mths prior we’d sailed into Ft Lauderdale, not the most cruiser friendly spot, looking for work. As we were a bit discouraged with the search, we hit a 17th St bar that looked cruiser friendly, (funny how so many of my tall tales involve a bar, somewhere) the bar tender had lots of time to talk, as it was a slow afternoon, told us he had a regular, a boat broker, that was looking for someone to work on a boat, he had no more details, but promised the guy would eventually show up. Encouraged, we had a couple more beers and waited but no broker and we finally told the bar tender we’d be back and perhaps we could get the guys phone #. “No problem” was his response. We’d gotten no more than 100’ when the bar tender caught us on the street. “The guy just showed up, c’mon back” he entreated. We headed back and were introduced to, damned if I can remember his name, but he started telling us about this custom 53’ S&S motorsailor that he’d sold to a rich guy and after 8 yrs of benign neglect and being sailed 3 times, the owner had instructed him to clean it up and sell it and the broker wasn’t happy with the people doing the present work. We explained our credentials as boat bums and the broker said we sounded perfect for the task. The boat was lying in West Palm Beach in one of the canals and that there was a good anchorage by the bridge linking Singer Is to Riviera Beach, a short dinghy ride to the boat. “Man, that sounds perfect” we enthused. He drew us a map and made an appointment for 3 days hence.

We were there with bells on and viewed what had once been a beautiful boat, the renovation project had started with an exterior paint job of hull, deck and mast, it would have been nice if they had refitted the mast boot or at least kept the bilge pumps working. The shallow draft centerboarder also had a shallow bilge and the water stains on what had once been a lovely limed oak veneer interior were 6” up the wall and the veneer was peeling in places, needless to say the cabin sole didn’t look to cherry either. Nothing worked, dead batteries, etc, etc. “What do you think?” asked the broker cautiously “Well, she’s a gorgeous boat and clearly she needs some work, I think the way to start is to do an inventory of what’s needed to be done, prioritize the work and get started.” I explained. The broker seemed to like our response and we agreed on an hourly wage of our combined efforts and Ulla became, among other things the timekeeper. We promised him the inventory in 5 working days and he resolved to visit as often as possible. I promised him the bilge pump would be working just as soon as we got some life into the batteries, the boat wasn’t even plugged in and being a 240v Euro system he thought that would be a problem. But I pointed out a step down transformer and he left looking a lot happier. And so it went, he liked the inventory and we continued working. Seven mths later we’d fixed everything that was fixable, which was everything on the inventory except the electronics which were hopelessly outdated. Ulla between helping me with mechanical/electrical systems had done wonders cleaning and varnishing, even the wall and cabin soles were looking pretty good, the broker pronounced the boat salable, and arranged to have it moved to Ft Lauderdale so he could show it. We were out of work, but the cruising kitty was looking a lot more cheerful. We wound up buying a $600 Oldsmobile, which we fondly dubbed “The piece of s**t” and got a bit more work from other boaters in the area and one day got a call from the broker, we’d even gotten a pager. How’s that for affluence? “Could we come to Lauderdale to get the mechanical holding plate refrigerator/freezer system working?” He entreated, he had a buyer but they wanted to see the system work, it was a deal breaker for him. I’d rebuilt the system and vacuumed it then put a minimum surface charge on it, the shaft seal compressor if not used regularly would leak the Freon, I’d explained it to him and he understood, but the buyers remained unconvinced. “No problem” we said “We’re going to the Dania Boaters flea market with friends anyway tomorrow, they’ll drop me at the boat and if you’ll drive me to the Flea Market when we’re done it’ll be easy.” We were on, tomorrow dawned we loaded friends, tools and Freon into “piece of s**t” and headed out. The prospective buyers were a really nice young couple, we soon had everything cold and I explained in detail how everything worked as I’d had to bypass and modify a lot of the original systems, so operating them wasn’t quite as intuitive as you could hope. But once they saw that it all worked they were thrilled and took lots of notes. I rejoined my friends, locked my stuff in what we jokingly referred to as a car and bought way too much good stuff at the market. “Piece of s**t” expired 2 days after, I called a junkyard, told them where the thing was, assured them the electronic dash worked and they promised to come get it off the side of the road where we’d had to push it.

A few days later we were on the Bahamas Bank where I started this story. Did you think I forgot? Ulla, who is a wonderful sailor, is morbidly afraid of shallow water and I knew doing 6 kts in 10’ of water for miles would make her nuts. But it has to be among the best charted water in the world, I believe individual piles of grouper s**t make it onto the charts. So the 1st night we just dropped the anchor in the middle of nowhere, turned on the anchor light and called it a success. The next morning we got under way about 0730, around 0830 we’re reaching at 6 kts reading in the cockpit and we heard it. We looked at each other in horror and sprang to a belated watch, you see if you’ve never heard the sound of another sailboat over the sound of your own, then count yourself lucky, it exists and it’s unmistakable. Seconds later a sub 40’ sloop cut across our stern by less than a boatlength, it was no trick to read the name on the stern and badly shaken I went down to the VHF to offer my abject apologies. “What are you apologizing for mate?” came the reply “You were in the right, you had starboard tack.” I suggested that when two sub 40’ boats collide in the middle of nowhere, through simple inattention, no one gets to be right. He paused and added “Yeah well, we could see into your cockpit you were on autopilot. We had a bloke steering, we’re currently devising a suitable punishment” I offered him my cat-o-nine-tails and wished him fair winds. Soon we had the Banks to ourselves. Again. George and Thalia

“If I’m lyin’…”m