I was standing on a dock waiting for my ship to come in … no, wait, that sounds like the beginning of a metaphor. Let me start again. I was standing on a dock down in the islands waiting for my ferry to arrive, and idly watching a bunch of kids racing dinghies around the harbor. At one point, a Boston Whaler sped through the fleet, dodging nimbly in and out of the youngsters. Next to me, a young man wearing a Mt. Gay regatta shirt turned and said, voice dripping with scorn, “Powerboats are just lame, aren’t they?”
Drawing myself up and summoning my best haughty tone, I said, “Son, you be real mindful
of what you’re saying. There’s
two things a real sailor never blasphemes: motherhood and Boston Whalers!”
If you sail, it’s almost certain that you’ve been aboard a Whaler. Today, inflatable boats are in,
but back a couple of decades, Whalers were everywhere on the sailing scene.
If you learned to sail in dinghies, you were probably rescued by Whalers. As you were ferried ashore from a moored boat, the club tender was often a Boston Whaler. If you raced in a junior program, your sailing instructor probably yelled at you from a Whaler. And if you were unlucky enough to be stopped by the water cops, they were often aboard
a Whaler.
In the sailing community, powerboats are held in universally low esteem for a lot of good reasons. As a kid crewing for adults, I remember a real drifter where even the cigarette smoke went straight up, and one of the adults ripping off a chain of very adult words after a powerboat went past and its wake rolled any prayer of wind from our sails. Powerboats were the ones that beat us to the best moorings, left their generators rattling all night long, and were usually the first to drag anchor in a breeze. They were, and still are, regarded as a necessary evil by sailors, although I recall from my teenage days that the prettiest girls were often aboard powerboats. But that’s a tale for another column.
Why were Boston Whalers so popular? Well, they claimed they couldn’t sink, and the early ads for Whalers showed the inventor sawing one in half and then rowing away, still afloat.
So, because of their innate safety, Boston Whalers became de rigueur as rescue boats and junior program boats around yacht clubs and at sailing centers. A mark of someone who had been around was the ability to reach over the gunwale of a Whaler from in the water, feel around, and find the little hidden bronze bars that served as cleats. It was a badge of “been here, done this before.”
The first time I laid eyes on a Boston Whaler was when the boat dealer I worked for on weekends became the first Whaler dealer on the West Coast. One day a large wooden box arrived, and my high school chum Jon and I were sent to unpack a 13-foot Whaler.
We tore into the wood box with crowbars and soon had a pile of lumber lying around a rather
peculiarly shaped blue and white plastic container.
“What do you think it is?”, said Jon. “I dunno,” I replied as the elder. “Perhaps it’s a molded cover and the boat’s inside.”
Luckily, the owner of the dealership intervened before we attacked the Whaler with crowbars to find the real boat. It just didn’t look like any boat we’d ever seen.
I came to know that light blue interior intimately a few years later as a junior instructor for my yacht club that had a 16-foot Whaler for my use. It was during that long, hot summer that I learned to both love and hate that boat. It could pound your fillings out in a chop. The ads were right, though: it couldn’t sink. But it could sure fill with water.
That summer, the Snipes had a North American championship at our club and I volunteered to run the Whaler as a rescue boat. The regatta drew a lot of inland lake sailors who weren’t familiar with ocean swells, especially when the winds blew into the 30s and the seas turned into breakers. The fleet was soon decimated, and my radio was frantic, “Get the crews, leave the boats, get all the people!”
There were capsized Snipes everywhere, and my Whaler was soon filled like a New York subway at rush hour, with all of us standing thigh-deep in water, which was pouring over the rails as we fished more and more crews out.
I raced through the inlet to the club, dropping off weary crews to squish toward hot showers, and returned to retrieve the boats. Obviously, Snipes didn’t have the double-floors that now make capsizing a momentary inconvenience. No, these Snipes turned into water-logged sleds that weighed tons.
At first, we were wrestling the boats bow-first onto the Whaler, which allowed enough water to slosh out so they would float. Then a Coast Guard 40-footer, crewed by a bunch of scared kids my age, arrived on the scene with a pump like an elephant nose. They would drop that into a Snipe cockpit, a burst of smoke would come from their diesel engine, and the water would be sucked out of the Snipe faster than you read this line. Of course, it also sucked out everything else: mainsheet cleat, jib sheets, hiking straps … all gone. When we finally headed back to the club after dark, wet and bone-weary, we had a long line of Snipes in tow like ducklings.
A few years ago, I returned to my old yacht club and there at the dock was that same Boston Whaler four decades later. It was kind of beat-up but, hey, so am I. I went down and sat in it, remembering a long summer behind that chipped metal wheel. The interior had been repainted about the same blue with a 49-cent brush, and the rubber rail had been replaced by padded canvas.
But when I ran my hand down the gunwale, I could still feel the dents, five, ten, more, from where we’d pulled the Snipes out until their daggerboards hit the rail as we emptied them. They were still there, like notches on a gunslinger’s pistol.
This may seem a non-sailing column but, in fact, it’s really about the essence of sailing. Not to mention a lot of great memories.
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I have a modest proposal to make. I was in the Pacific Northwest recently to look at some boats, and I found myself on Bainbridge Island in a sweet little harbor called Port Madison. It’s a world apart from Florida, and I was reveling in the cool weather and gorgeous scenery. As I poked through Port Madison aboard a friend’s Whaler, I realized the cove was sort of a time warp: there were lovely clas-sic sailboats tied to piers and on moorings everywhere I looked. But here’s the zinger: they all looked brand new. Though more than four decades old, a Countess 44 ketch from Pearson seemed like it had just been launched, a Westsail 32 was as perfect as it had been in 1972 and, of all things, there were several immaculate 6-Meters to be seen as well. Judging by the homes on the waterfront, this isn’t exactly a ghetto and the owners can clearly afford to keep their boats in Bristol condition, but there was something more: they were all sea-manlike.
The halyards were neatly coiled, fenders were properly adjusted, and even the dock lines were flemished in coils. That isn’t about money, it’s about tradition and good seamanship. Bear with me here for a mo-mentary digression. I realized that, having switched to digital cameras, I’ve become a sloppy photogra-pher. Where I once took great care with lens settings and composi-tion, I now bang off several shots. I no longer have to wait a week to see the results and, because I’m not limited to just 36 photos on a roll, I can immediately discard bad shots and correct my settings accordingly. Ansel Adams, who spent hours setting up a single photograph, must be whirling in his grave. As I looked around Port Madi-son, I noticed there were newer boats coming into the harbor on this warm summer day and, unlike the boats that were permanent residents, these were uniformly sloppy. Fenders dragged in the water, lines hung over the rails, sails were crunched in lumps on the booms. And I realized that somewhere, somehow, many modern skippers have become sloppy. Sure, they can punch in waypoints on their GPS and get to where they want, but they no longer bother with paper charts or penciled fixes. They no longer calculate the effect of wind and current on their course. And that’s part of the fun of being on the water.
Anchoring, for example, is becoming a lost art and, though many skippers alibi that they have a “floating anchor,” they just don’t know how to anchor properly. On any weekend, you see them toss-ing anchors over the bow like dis-cus throwers, letting out a fraction of the rode necessary, and then rushing to crank up the stereo. No wonder so many boats drag their hooks. I once heard from a BVI check-out skipper about the charter crew that requested a replacement anchor on their second day. Why? Because they simply cut the first one away, not knowing they had to raise it each day. Perhaps apocry-phal. Maybe not. Fenders are being left in place while underway rather than being used just when docking, and it should be no surprise that these skippers also refer to them as “bumpers.” The art of neatly furling a mainsail to the boom has been replaced by self-furling mains and by sails that disappear into the mast itself. Many skippers have never actually hanked on a head-sail, and simply assume that every boat has roller furling.
Like my photography, it’s easy to become complacent in an era of digital navigation, electric anchor windlasses and self-furling sails. Who cares if the fenders are dragging in the water or the jib sheets lie in piles? No one ap-parently, although these are the same skippers who have their cars washed regularly so they always look perfect. Years ago, a Southern California sailing club had an annual “sea-manship race” that was not only great fun, but a learning experience as well. In this race, all the yachts start-ed out at anchor, with the mainsail furled on the boom and the jib in a sailbag on the bow. At the gun, the crews not only had to hoist the main and jib, but they had to raise the anchor. Remember that this was long before boats had electric windlasses: at best, they might have a lever-actuated windlass that wasn’t much of an advantage. The boats then sailed a triangu-lar course and returned to the fin-ish line, where they had to anchor and drop their sails. The event was not just a race, but an exercise in seamanship and boathandling. Knowing how to sail on and off your anchor was just as important as understanding the racing rules. Having a well-trained crew that could hank on a jib quickly or throw a smooth harbor furl into a mainsail was as critical as proper sail trim. I’d like to inspire some sail-ing clubs to resurrect such a seamanship event. It would be a delightful antidote to the usual around-the-marks daisy chain ev-ery weekend. It would be a fresh challenge. And it would carry great bragging rights.
Of course, in this era, you’d probably need separate classes for boats with electric windlasses, self-furling mainsails and roller-furling jibs. Since this is about seamanship, the race might require a man-overboard event during the race: on one leg, the crew has to toss a life cushion overboard and then retrieve it. Seems to me it would be a way of testing (and honing) some boating skills that don’t get used during normal racing. The results might be surprising, too, because it wasn’t necessarily the fastest yachts that won. Often it was a cruising boat with a well-trained crew and seamanlike rigging that was able to embarrass those yachts that usually took home the silverware. Speaking of silver, if you’re wondering about a suitable trophy, I’d be happy (and She Who Must Be Obeyed would be ecstatic) to donate a pair of my worn Topsid-ers, complete with duct tape and salt stains, to be bronzed as the “Seamanship Perpetual Trophy.” Any takers?
As a journalist, my e-mail is always overflowing with news releases and announcements of new products, most of which are excruciatingly boring. Some company has changed the color on the handle of its paint brush. Riveting. Another company is now offering sailing gloves in mauve as well as puce. Riveting. Another manufacturer now accepts Paypal. Sigh.
Occasionally, however, something comes along that is so bizarre that even I, hardened journalist that I am, have to stop in my tracks. Right now, Boom Boom Cards have me frozen like a deer in headlights.
For ten bucks, you buy a set of 26 cards that promote, according to the press release, “an uprising of guerilla goodness.” The size of playing cards, each one encourages participants to perform some altruistic good deed. As the release says, “Keep boredom at bay this summer by leaving a trail of good.”
That’s appealing, but wait until you hear what they consider to be “good” deeds. For example, Card 2 suggests: “For one day, hold the door for others every time you have the opportunity.” It goes on to suggest that you “Revolutionize it!” by making it your “newest habit.” Emily Post must be writhing in her grave.
What has happened to this world? In the rush to be all-about-me, has everyone lost their common decency? Were the people who created these cards raised by wolves? No, wait, wolves actually have manners and share their food. If I had ever blown through a door and not held it open for someone following, my mother would have skinned me.
How about Card 6: “For one day, say please and thank you in all interactions (even the smallest ones). Revolutionize it! Do it every day.” Holy Crap! Do people really have to pay 10 bucks for a card to keep in their pocket to remind them to say please? Shame on their mothers!
If you liked those, you’ll love Card 9: “For one day, whenever your cell phone rings or vibrates in the middle of a conversation, ignore it. Revolutionize it! Don’t even check to see who it is.” I’m sorry, I can’t even think of a comment for that one.
But you’ve just got to love Card 24: “Apologize (you know to who). Revolutionize it! Really mean it.” Oh, puh-leeze. Really mean it? No, wait, this is the perfect reminder card for those who can’t remember to say thank you or have the common courtesy to hold a door. It would probably be a good idea if they held the card in their hand as they apologize, so they can remember to mean it.
I’ve been so horrified by this clear evidence of the total absence of manners in our society that I couldn’t leave it alone, and then I had a thought. Maybe there’s a place for Boom Boom cards, not to teach basic good manners, but in sailing. And so I’ve come up with my own set of Caswell’s Boom Boom Cards For Sailing.
No. 1: If you see someone docking nearby, go over and help them with their lines. Revolutionize it! Help them leave the dock, too!
No. 2: Be a good neighbor by keeping the stereo down so others can enjoy peace and quiet. Revolutionize it! Use your generator sparingly too.
No. 3: Watch your wake, not just in harbors and anchorages, but when passing other boats on the water. Revolutionize it! Go slow all the time.
No. 4: Keep the area around your dock clean and tidy. Revolutionize it! Coil up your neighbor’s hose when he leaves it a mess.
No. 5: Watch your language, especially in front of kids. Revolutionize it! Clean up your language in general.
No. 6: Always help other skippers when they are having a problem. Revolutionize it! Volunteer to teach at a local sailing program.
No. 7: Don’t pump your head out in a marina or anchorage. Revolutionize it! Install a holding tank large enough for the weekend.
No. 8: If you see another skipper struggling to load boxes of provisions aboard, offer to give a hand. Revolutionize it! Return his dock cart to the storage area.
No. 9: If you see a skipper unsure about a good spot to anchor, share the benefit of your local knowledge. Revolutionize it! Jump in your dinghy and give him a hand.
No. 10: When you leave your boat, always tie the halyards so they don’t machine-gun in a breeze. Revolutionize it! When your neighbor leaves his halyards banging, don’t pull them to the top of the mast, just tie them off!
No. 11: Curb thy children if they want to run and shriek on the docks, because not everyone loves kids. Revolutionize it! Don’t have kids.
No. 12: If you see a dock neighbor struggling with a project, offer to give him a hand. Revolutionize it! Take a beer along with you.
No. 13: Don’t throw your trash overboard. Revolutionize it! If you see plastic or Styrofoam floating in the marina, put it in a trash can.
No. 14: Don’t drop your anchor right next to another boat but, instead, give everyone some space. Revolutionize it! If an anchorage is crowded, find another.
Those are 14 of Caswell’s Boom Boom Cards of Sailing, and I’ve saved one for the last. There’s a lot of discussion right now about why sailing seems to be losing participants. That’s surprising to me, because it’s been such a major part of my life for decades and I couldn’t possibly think about not sailing.
Besides, sailing is a wonderful activity, whether you want to do it alone or with your family. It’s beautiful, it’s healthy, and here’s the zinger: it sells itself. So I offer you my last Boom Boom Card of Sailing:
No. 15: Take someone sailing that has never been sailing. Revolutionize it! Take someone you don’t even know, but just met at a cocktail party or a barbecue.
I assume you can remember to say “thank you” and “please” by yourself.
Sailing has always been a dream. A dream of warm winds and sun and spray and freedom. It’s a dream that gets us through the work week, that teases us through the coldest winters.
But sailing can be more than a dream: it can be salvation. Two men showed me how it can provide a rescue, a deliverance for those in need.
We were on a charter in the British Virgin Islands, sitting at anchor late in the day, with the sun setting in a reddish glow. It was time for the day’s special libation—a piña colada, a planter’s punch or perhaps a lethal brain dead.
We were sprawled in the cockpit in that bonelessly limp posture of total repose that we had assumed about 10 seconds after we’d cleared through immigration into the islands. To say we were relaxed is like saying Everest is just a mountain.
So it was with interest that we watched a fairly good-sized sailing yacht come around the point under mainsail alone. It was clear she was going to anchor, and you could almost imagine the skipper looking at his choices.
Hmmm, nice spot next to that powerboat, but his generator is going to run all night. Next best is alongside that bareboat with people lying all over the cockpit. Hopefully they’ll pass out early.
He was, of course, looking at us.
Anchoring in a bareboat paradise like the BVI is a spectator sport for those already anchored, and so we watched to see how this latecomer would fare. But it was a textbook example.
The sloop rounded up neatly in the fairway and we could see there was just a single man aboard. The main came down quickly and, with the easy grace of experience, it was quickly secured as the boat made a wide circle with the diesel just
ticking over.
He put the bow where he wanted his anchor, strolled forward to release it with a clatter of chain, and let the boat drift back to where he wanted to stay. He sauntered aft, gave a short burst of reverse to set the hook, and shut the engine down. No muss, no fuss. It was so boringly perfect that I was even more intrigued.
And so it was that I found myself in our inflatable tender the next morning. I’m an inveterate dinghy-hopper, and can amuse myself for hours in a busy anchorage, just moseying around and looking at boats. Some great friendships have been formed with two sentences: “Great looking boat. What is she?”
As I neared the mystery sloop, I could see the man propped in the cockpit, reading a book. He looked up as I neared, and I said, “You gave a great lesson in anchoring to all the bareboaters yesterday.”
He laughed and said modestly, “Well, I’ve been doin’ it long enough.” And thus was launched a most fascinating conversation.
He looked like any other sailor—khaki cargo shorts, faded T-shirt and bare feet, although he was no spring chicken. I’d guess mid-70s, but clearly fit and tanned. Invited aboard for a glass of juice, I was intrigued as his story unfurled.
A sailor all his life, from racing dinghies through ocean racers and into some more comfortable boats, he’d looked forward to retirement when he could go cruising with his wife. It was their dream, but she died suddenly before it was fulfilled.
His kids were grown with families of their own, and he found that most of his friends were really couple-friends, with little interest in him as a single widower. He was at loose ends, and depressed.
“And then one day, I thought, what the hell. Go by yourself!” He grinned as he recalled that turning point, and the rebirth of enthusiasm that followed. He found a suitable yacht, threw himself into fitting her out, and was soon ready to cast off.
“My God,” he recalled, “there were so many naysayers. So many who went tsk-tsk, both in private and to my face. How silly of him, they’d say. How dangerous. What if something happens to him? What about his kids?
“I thought, phooey on the kids. They’ve got their own lives, they’re in the will, and now is my time.”
He’s been sailing for five years now, cruising from the Great Lakes and now lazing around the
Caribbean. Some exciting times, a few storms, but mostly just pure pleasure. His cabin was stacked with paperback books so he wouldn’t run short of reading, and he seemed a man who was supremely happy.
“If I hadn’t gone, I’d be dead by now. I would have had dry rot of the soul, and I would have let grief and loss take over my life. Yes, of course, I miss my wife. But this renewed me.”
Sailing can be salvation.
A couple of years ago, we met a young man while we were chartering in Greece. He and his father were aboard a small sloop Med-moored next to us in the harbor at Hydra. The young man was not just visiting, though, but taking his father home.
We sat one evening and listened to his plan. He was worried that his father, now well into his 70s, might hurt himself on the boat. His idea was to sell the boat and take his father back to England, where he would put him in a home for the elderly. And, of course, his father didn’t want to go.
The man’s arguments were good ones. “It’s my life, and not harming anyone. I don’t want to go to an old folks home. So what if I kill myself, I’ve got to go sometime.”
The son was torn between doing what seemed best and what his father wanted. We waited to see the outcome, and it was Mother Nature that provided the answer.
One afternoon, a Meltemi wind blew with a hot ferocity, and the boats in the harbor started to bang around. Out of nowhere, half a dozen men arrived at the old man’s boat, jumped aboard, reset the anchor, added fenders, and generally made things right.
The next day, the son stopped by our boat to say goodbye. His mind had been put at rest by his father’s many friends who were clearly looking out for him, and he had seen that taking the old man home probably would have killed him. It was a tough decision to make, and the two hugged for a long time on the quay as they parted.
Sailing can be our salvation.
I promised myself that I wouldn’t write about the most recent America’s Cup, in part because I was so livid about the attempted hijacking of the Cup by its previous holder, and in part because the legal wrangling had become so excruciating. Watching two billionaires pee on each other’s shoes, no matter who was right, lost its amusement value several years ago. The whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth, and took some of the shine off sailing for me. But I have found something that, if it could be bottled, would replace Lavoris for getting rid of that bad taste. Most of us who sail are ordinary people. Our lives are without drama, without fuss. Up in the morning, off to work, often barely able to wait for the weekend to go sailing. And that’s all well and good. But occasionally ordinary people are thrust into extraordinary situations, and the results can be heartwarming and inspiring. Otherwise average sailors can, in an instant, suddenly become heroes. This isn’t about stepping into a phone booth and putting on a superhero suit. It’s about responding in a way that upholds the oldest tradition of the sea: sailors always, always! help other sailors in distress. Aboard his 32-foot catamaran, Rainbow, Clifford Shaw was 20 miles off San Francisco near the Farallon Islands, following a double-handed multihull race. He was struggling with 12-foot seas and winds gusting to 30 knots when he saw another boat sailing erratically, with no one on deck. He spotted two swimmers in the 50-degree water. He immediately started his engine and, when he was near, threw them a Lifesling, but it fell short. He then circled the men until they could grab the towed Lifesling. With the engine off, he and his single crew wrestled the men aboard Rainbow, saving their lives. For this, the US Sailing Safety-at-Sea Committee awarded them the Arthur B. Hanson Rescue Medal for their actions. Just ordinary people. During a race off Hawaii in a 25-knot blow, skipper Joe Cochrane of the Cal-20, Ol’ Blue, went overboard. Suffering from the early stages of Lou Gehrig’s disease, he was immediately in trouble, but the two crewmembers aboard took immediate action. One grabbed the helm and turned back toward their skipper, the other went into the water to keep his head above water. Seeing the crisis, two other Cal-20s and an International 14 dropped out of their races to assist. The I-14 skipper alerted a Kaneohe Bay Yacht Club rescue boat by VHF and, when it arrived, two crewmembers from the Cal-20s boarded the powerboat and pulled the two sailors aboard and treated Cochrane, who recovered after several days in the hospital. The Hanson Rescue Medal is awarded to the yacht and inscribed with the crew names so, for their seamanship and rescue, medals were awarded for the actions of the Ol’ Blue crew, to the powerboat and its crew, including those from the Cal-20s, and a third to the International 14. All just ordinary people. After an offshore race, skipper Robert Gordenker was sailing his J/35, Time Machine, back to the club when, in 25-knot headwinds and rough seas, he spotted a paddle being waved above the water. A father and son were clinging to a capsized Flying Junior in the water. Gordenker and his crew doused their sails and executed a perfect approach alongside the small boat in spite of the seas, hauling one aboard by hand before they drifted away. On their second approach, they retrieved the other man. Both had been in the icy water for nearly an hour, and were on the edge of hypothermia, but the Time Machine crew assessed their condition and treated them properly. During the entire time, Gordenker kept the Canadian Coast Guard apprised of the situation with calm radio transmissions, which can be heard on http://tmsailing.blogspot.com. Gordenker and the crew of Time Machine received the Hanson Rescue Medal. Just ordinary people. On Long Island Sound, Michael Bruno Jr. was practicing for his club spring series aboard his 40-foot J/122, Wings, with a crew of nine aboard. In winds gusting 25 (is there a pattern here?), lumpy seas, and chill 40-degree water temperatures, a crewmember slipped overboard during a tack. Immediately one crewmember took responsibility for watching the swimmer while Wings reached away, jibed and returned. It was a textbook example of seamanship as Bruno luffed to a stop alongside the crewman in the water and he was muscled aboard just three minutes after he went over. For their exemplary recovery, Wings and her crew earned the Hanson Rescue Medal. Ordinary people. For Wally McMinn, it was just he and his wife aboard Odyssey, their Catalina 400, as they motorsailed just after sunset on Lake Erie. Somehow, they heard a faint cry from a man with a capsized kayak. McMinn deployed a Lifesling, but the man couldn’t hold onto it. He then tossed a throw rope and pulled the man to the boat, getting him aboard via the swim ladder. Facing a night in the chill water, the man survived because of McMinn’s alertness, and Odyssey was awarded the Hanson Rescue Medal. More ordinary people. My friend, nautical historian and writer John Rousmaniere, has resuscitated the Arthur Hanson Rescue Medal program this year, after it had gone unawarded for two years simply because of a lack of nominations and a lack of volunteer help at US Sailing. I know that the Hanson Rescue Medal awards I mentioned are just the tip of the iceberg, and that many other equally worthy incidents take place every time sailors are on the water. Some of those above almost went unnoticed, with the rescued sailors simply being dropped off on shore with no television crews or flashbulbs to immortalize the event." Anyone, club or individual, can make a nomination for the award, which recognizes those who rescued or endeavored to rescue others from the perils of the sea. In addition to celebrating the heroes amongst us, the nominations are also used by the Safety-at-Sea committee as case studies for US Sailing educational programs. As I said, it’s heartwarming to find that ordinary people, just sailors like you and I, can use their training, often dredged from years back, to save lives when the chips are down. Their stories are a wonderful antidote to listening to billionaires bicker over a bottomless silver mug.
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