Here is a very humorous story I had published in Northwest Yachting about my Privateer ownership. Furl all Scupperlips and Haul up the Anchor By Carole A. Borges I guess you could say I bought the Ms. Bligh as a kind of revenge. After spending my whole life living aboard an old Alden schooner my father was eternally restoring, and then helping my first husband Joe spend a decade building a fleet of ferro-cement boats in Boston, I wanted to know what it felt like to be a captain. With her clipper bow, raised taff-rail, and black hull, my 27 foot Kenner ketch looked like a small pirate ship. Because I’d been dry-docked for so long, I thought it wise to get a second opinion, so I called my brother, Capt. Fatty Goodlander, a world famous sailor who writes for Cruising World magazine. “I think I got a real bargain,” I boasted. When he first saw the Ms. Bligh, Fatty gave an appreciative smile. ”It is kind of odd though,” he giggled, “how much she resembles you. She’s sagging a bit in the transom, a little too wide amidships, and she probably has a leaky bottom.” See what I mean? I was a woman desperate for empowerment. * * * “Well, she’s built strong,” Fatty said after the survey. “However the previous owner, obviously a landlubber, filled the whole transom with blown-in foam. It’s saturated with water. You’ll have to dig it all out and rebuild the box.” Disappointed to hear labor was involved, I watched my brother draw up a schematic showing me exactly what I’d have to do. The next morning when I saw Fatty off at the airport, waves of insecurity washed over me. I couldn’t remember half the terms he’d used, and his drawing, which had looked so simple the night before, suddenly seemed as complicated as a manual on spaceship construction. * * * When I saw Greg and this other guy coming down the dock, my heart sank. What had I expected? Robert Redford? Rubbing his gnarled fingers against a scratchy grey beard, the old man rolled a fish-like eye along the length of Ms. Bligh. “Well, I’ve gone farther with less,” he croaked. The day we left, Capt. Andy showed up with a huge fishing chair on a high pedestal. As he began wrestling it into the cockpit, lashing it down with bungee cords and duct tape, I protested. “You can’t bring that,” I told him. “It’s way too big. It looks ridiculous.” “Well, I ain’t going without it,” Andy growled. “My back’s bad. I can’t do this without a good chair.” * * * The Ms. Bligh heeled over as the sea darkened and the wind picked up. Water shot up through the half-dismantled motor well, and the sea swirled around my ankles. I’d yelled for Andy to take the sail down, so he was crabbing his way back along the deck when the big wave hit, and it knocked him right into his fishing chair. Wobbling from the impact, it swiveled first right then left. Then the bungee cords snapped, and the flat steel base came buzz-sawing across the cockpit. “I told you that thing was a menace,” I snarled. Andy tossed me a dark look, mumbling something about women only being allowed in galleys. * * * On the morning of the last day of our cruise, I sat sipping my second cup of coffee when Andy finally poked his head out of the hatch. A bit wall-eyed and smelling suspiciously of rum, he clambered into the cockpit beside me. I pointed to a line of buoys on the chart. “Here’s the channel under the bridge,” I said. “We ought to be in Key West by dark.” As he hobbled to the bow to raise the anchor, I yanked the cord on the outboard and started the boat moving slowly forward. “A little more. A little more,” he was saying. Then, I heard a big PLOP. It took me awhile to register the fact that he had gone overboard. Racing up to the bow, I could feel my heart rocking like a bell buoy in bad weather. “Get a rope. Get a rope.” Andy groaned. His flabby arms shook from the strain of having to hold onto the chain beneath the bowsprit. His skinny legs wrapped around the bob-stay looked like a pair of octopus tentacles. I still have no idea how I managed to get him back on board. “I’m going to go below for a few minutes,” he said. It took me a long time to feel brave enough to peek into the foc’sle hatch to see how Andy was doing. Already, I could imagine myself calling the Coast Guard on the radio I didn’t have. “Ahoy there, this is the captain of the Ms. Bligh. I have a dead man aboard my boat. Can you come right over?” * * * Now some people may think it wimpy of me to sell my boat after only one trip, but let me assure you, hanging that FOR SALE sign in Ms. Bligh’s rigging gave me an enormous sense of relief. * * * After I sold the boat, I moved to Knoxville, TN, a safe distance away, I thought, from any temptation I might have to become water-borne again, but a few weeks ago, I discovered a marina down by the Gay Street Bridge. The boats were mostly runabouts and small cruisers, the kind that seldom need repair and can be driven like a car. Dazed as a drunk entering a neighborhood bar, I somehow found myself stepping inside the office, “How much do you charge for a slip?” I asked.
Posted on: Fri, 07 Mar 2014 12:35:46 +0000
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