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Blogs by Robert A. Mills
BOATS 5/11/2013 7:24:35 AM
Late last summer I learned that one of my nephews-in-law had sold his boat, and I did not know if it was a sailboat or, as my dear, departed friend Gordon Elliot called it, a stinkpot, which was his synonym for a motor boat.
I think it was a stinkpot, as I somehow cannot see my nephew-in-law relating to sloops, masts, sheets, lines, spinnakers, jibs, wenches — or even parking hooks.
In any event, I understand his dilemma. I once owned not one but two seaworthy vessels, and, as the old bromide goes, the happiest day of my life was when I acquired them. The second happiest was the day I sold them.
Actually, I did not sell the second one: I gave it away. To my son, a fanatical water-skier. C’est la vie.
Now that I am plagued with Primary Lateral Sclerosis, I would not otherwise have a soul mate to help me get dressed, open the mail, drive me to and fro, or cut up the food on my plate. Or do the hundred and one things I once considered routine.
My next boat experience came on a cabin cruiser owned by a Scotsman. On any given Sunday we cruised about with a host of friends, and one Sabbath I was frolicking in an upper bunk with the fat wife of another drunken buddy, when the captain interrupted. Hold on there, laddie, he said, we’ll have none o’ that aboard me Jolly Roger! Lub off at the nex landing, if ye will, or I will have ye tossed off!
Then came the weekend my brother invited his own two sons-in-law and me to accompany them on a sailing adventure aboard his sloop from Braddock’s Bay to Sodus Bay via Lake Ontario, an overnight at a marina on Sodus, and then the return sail back to Braddock’s the following day.
We had no clue, of course, but the first day’s journey took ten hours — interrupted only by the least likely son-in-law puking thirty times over the side. Seasick, he was,
There was no way I would stay onboard that evening, so I telephoned a friend who had a nearby cottage, and he put me up overnight. The return trip to Braddock’s Bay the next day took only seven hours (we motored most of the way), and the seasick son-in-law upchucked a scant nineteen more times.
Another time, a former boss had a meeting with the president of Carnival Cruise Lines (I should have known my luck was running out) and we stayed aboard the boss’s yacht, which he kept in Miami. One night he said we would cruise to Ft. Lauderdale and dine at Pier 23. On the way back, after luscious seafood and many drinks, we ran aground in front of Liz Taylor and Dick Burton’s formidable estate on the Inland Waterway.
My boss commanded, Go bang on her door and tell them we are stuck out here! I refused.
The Coast Guard rescued us at 2 AM. When my boss found out a new pair of shafts and props would run him five grand, he fired his captain on the spot.
Then, there was a radio personality in Rochester who had a 45-foot cabin cruiser; his expertise was little more than that of a deft dinghy driver, and his greatest claim to fame was doing Lazy 8’s on Irondequoit Bay while revving the engines wide open: he loved drenching unsuspecting sunbathers on shoreline decks with waves as big as Sherman tanks.
Let’s take her over to Toronto! he said, one day. I’m full up and bored! (Marine fuel was only about 50˘ a gallon back them.)
Toronto is on the north side of Lake Ontario, 53 miles or so north of Irondequoit Bay. So, off we went.
We were no more than a few hundred yards from the inlet, when we struck a submerged log (the log turned out to be a giant oak tree that had been uprooted and blown away in a storm in Oswego three weeks earlier).
A deep-sea fishing yacht from the Rochester Yacht Club had been suspiciously trailing us, and they took us all on board
Again, the Coast Guard saved us, as the disc jockey and I watched from the flying bridge of the deep-sea fishing yacht as the humongous but ill-fated cruiser disappeared beneath the lake’s waves.
Thank God for insurance! my colleague muttered, with no visible tremors of concern.
Other incidents involved my boats #1 and #2. Boat #1 was caught one day in rough seas near the rocky pier at Fairhaven Bay, not far from the lighthouse. Waves were crashing over the gunwales and we were forced into the rocks when I considered abandoning ship.
My ten-year-old son was with me, and having only one ratty life preserver on board, I gave it to him. When I go over the side, you go with me! I shouted. And tell your mother I did the best I could!
We jumped over together — and found ourselves on a sandbar in knee-deep water. We waded a shore and retrieved the boat when the storm subsided.
Boat #2 was a different matter. I recall staying one vodka too long at my friend’s cottage on Port Bay, and the boy (now 14) and I tried to make it back (in the dark) to Fairhaven (a mere 9 miles); all we had to do was follow the shoreline and head for the lighthouse. Right.
Fortunately, I had a good, lighted compass and a manual windshield wiper. The lighthouse was nine miles due east of Port Bay’s inlet. Old salt that I am, a little rain did not deter me.
But a sudden Lake Ontario storm did, with gale-force winds and battering waves that pushed us farther from shore than I knew was safe. For every foot my Mercury 75 gained, we lost a yard to the raging torrent. It took us almost all night to go the nine miles.
Then suddenly, a deck of Salem’s and two 6-packs of Old Milwaukee later, we pulled into Fairhaven — frazzled and bedraggled but breathing. I knew only three things that night: 1.) my son was now a man, 2.) we had not drowned, and 3.) the boat and I were about to part company. Forever.
The next summer, however, I did not sell the boat. I gave it away.
I gave it to my son, Bobby. As mentioned, he was a water-skiing fanatic, and the boat was now his. Sadly, he had four friends who were also water-skiers, and Bobby thought nothing of towing all five behind as my eldest daughter drove the boat.
One day they ripped out the transom; the boat sank while the five of them floundered about until they were picked up. By the Coast Guard, of course.
If I am ever foolish enough (I am not) to want another boat, have me keel hauled immediately.
I was in the nephew-in-law’s office one day last spring when he casually asked if I would like a ride on his boat. No way! I responded.
He sold the craft shortly thereafter. Apparently, his wife refused him also.
