Cheapskates, Boat Bums, Bilge Bunnies, Waspafarians, & Other Sailing Friends

Many boats I’ve sailed on offshore won’t allow a crewmember to go on deck with bare feet—knowing how easy it is to break a toe in a gale. My fellow circumnavigator friend Bob Griffith of Awahnee, however, takes the opposite view. He prohibits his crew from wearing deck shoes—claiming that bare feet enable a sailor to sense when he’s about to slip… before he actually does slip.

Me—I couldn’t afford much foot gear other than flip-flops, so I go barefoot. (Most of my flip-flops are both different colors and sizes—but, hey, beachcombers can’t be choosers, right?)

Famed Caribbean sailor John Smith of Mermaid fame recommends using toothpaste tubes as handy, affordable toe splints… that’s the voice of experience talking! (John is a real piece of work—once I sailed by him while he was hanging upside down from a halyard in Coral Bay while painting Mermaid of Carriacou’s topsides… singing merrily, “…painting the rot, painting the rot!” at the top of his lungs.)

…a real truth-teller, John was.

John used to offer ‘no-frills’ charters out of Sint Maarten. Since Mermaid wasn’t built with, or disgraced by, an inboard engine, he’d loudly make motorboat sounds with his blubbery lips if his charter guests requested that he crank up.

No-frills meant no frills. Not all charter guests aboard the Maid understood the ramifications of this simple detail on his blurry hand-outs. I’ll never forget the time that John stood outside the door of the head and shouted at the guest inside, “…well, did you bring toilet paper?”

Once upon a time—I know this is hard for modern Caribbean cruisers to understand—not all sea gypsies were filthy rich.

…we tended to error on the side of former, not the latter.

Hey, it wasn’t easy back then, wading through the alphabet soup—PFD, LSD, USCG… how was a hip sailor supposed to keep track? And why was Coca-Cola always capitalized—but coke only sometimes?

…confusing!

…I mean, WTH?

…and why did the backs of so many crew tee shirts at ASW (Antigua Sailing Week) read, “A Drinking Crew with a Sailing Problem.”

Why were aging sailors of a certain gender referred to disparagingly as dock boxes or sailbags—while their younger counterparts were merely referred to as rail-riders or racer chasers?

Why, pray tell, did the Caribbean saying of, “Rehab is for quitters!” go out of style?

In the ‘60s Don Street on the engineless Iolaire would crank up his tiny Stuart Turner gen/set if requested by charter guests to power through a calm. Don was notoriously cheap. I, personally, never saw a bar tab arrive until Don was safely and securely ensconced in the men’s room.

…even stranger, he always had a young, impressionable Irish lass living under the deck aft of his cockpit… in that tiny, putrid space with his fenders. “…Fatty, have you met my executive assistant?”

Yes, even racial characteristics have evolved—black ivory aboard ain’t what it used to be.

…just ask any Waspafarian today.

Author Fritz Seyfarth used to have one good shirt aboard Tumbleweed—a shirt that, if he sniffed it, he didn’t throw up… or, more accurately, didn’t throw up much.

Fritz, once his publishing company was up and running, wanted to hire an executive assistant as well. He asked around Marina Cay—no luck. On Tortola, however, there was a smart young lady who’d been at the top of her class—so Fritz offered her the job.

She was interested, but…”

“How many days a week?” she asked.

“Five,” said Fritz, “forty hours a week.”

I can’t do dat on Wednesdays ‘cause I take me grandmudder to de hairdresser—and Friday’s no good either—I help out at the church, getting it ready for de Sunday services.”

“Okay,” said the easy-going Fritz, no stranger to the local culture, “Monday, Tuesday, and Thursday then.”

“Tuesday and Thursday I tutor one of my cousins—how about Monday?”

Fritz Seyfarth sighed. His dream of full-time assistance was fading. “Okay, Monday then.”

On Monday, the young girl arrived. Fritz started right in on all the ‘tings’ he wanted her to do.

“Wait, wait, wait,” she said. “Before we begin, I have a question.”

“Yes?” said Fritz.

“…every Monday?” asked the girl.

That’s right—workers used to know how to stand up for their rights!

Oh, and Fritz proved that karma is true—while waiting for Tumbleweed to sink after having his bow smashed off by hit-and-run freighter… he and Tumbleweed were rescued by the USCG vessel Sagebrush.

Yes, it was a different world back in the 1970s when we first sailed into the Virgins.

For one thing, a 12-ounce can of Coke was ‘one dolla’ and a fifth of Cruzan Gold was 82 cents at Woolworth in Lockhart Gardens. Ice was scarce too.

Thus, if you ordered a Rum and Coke in any of the local rum shops, they’d make it for you with the proper proportions and a decent amount of ice IF you made a point of watching. If you didn’t watch, they’d just fill your glass with Cruzan Gold (happily, same shade as the Coke), stir it with the pop-top of the Coke can, and toss in a single ice cube…

…ah, capitalism and opportunism, West Indian style!

One Frenchman, small in stature, showed up in the Lesser Antilles with a miniature girlfriend—aboard an 18-footer he planned to charter. (I kid you not.) He’d just sailed across the Atlantic with a seven gallon ‘pressurized’ water system.

“My vee-shaped in-the-bilge water tank doesn’t have a pump,” he explained, “just a tiny hose with a cigar mouthpiece. My chick blows into it to pressurize the system, and, after half an hour or so, has enough water for my cup of tea. The beauty is, however, that the emptier the tank is, the more time and lung capacity it takes to pressurize the system… a totally passive but oh-so-effective water conservation technique!”

Yes, sailors were smart back then—if often lonely.

When I broke the news to him that I thought, perhaps, that an 18-footer was a tad small for a fully crewed charter boat aimed at the American market—he asked worriedly, “…you think I should build a 22-footer?”

Once, his Auschwitz-thin wife loudly complained to us about their fish-fish-and-more-fish diet while having dinner aboard our 36-foot ketch Carlotta, the Frenchmen huffily shut her up with, “…I promised to take you sailing, not eating!”

Me? I kinda liked him.

My wife… not so much.

But every dark cloud has a silver lining. When he was around, my wife Carolyn would often brightly tell me,  (re: our marriage,) “…could be worse!”

Ah, damned by faint praise.

Once in the Panama Canal Zone during our third circ, I came across what appeared to be a mound of coconuts with a mast sticking up out of it. And the sound of a crying baby being read to.

The vessel under the coconuts (I couldn’t get a good look at it) was headed for Tahiti where its skipper had a job offer.

“We’ll eat fish and drink coconuts—a balanced, traditional seafaring diet—the whole way,” he said.

Too chancy?

“…what if the fish don’t bite?” I asked the Argentine sailor.

“Oh, Fatty,” he said, “when you’re truly hungry, the fish will bite!”

Oh, I love sea gypsies and their inspiring philosophies!

On our first circ, we had enough charts to get to Tahiti—after that, we had to borrow charts and hand copy them on butcher paper!

…in the Indian Ocean we used graph paper—and just marked the obstructions to avoid. Easy-peasy, and cheap too!

…but we were so broke in the South Atlantic, heading northward for St. John and home, that we had to borrow 1.) the charts to copy, 2.) the paper to copy them onto, and 3.) even the freak’n pencil!

Artist Les Anderson of the schooner Penelope taught me a lot about cruising the Lesser Antilles on the pennies that Scotsmen threw away.

Once someone tossed him down onto the deck of his boat. This wouldn’t normally have been a problem for the super-flexible Les—only they tossed him from the rail of the Bilge, the rowdy second story bar at Yacht Haven.

Ouch!

Going to the nearby hospital was out of the question. Every doctor on St. Thomas would tell you the de same damm ting… dat “…if you get run over by a truck in the parking lot of the St. Thomas Hospital, immediately take two aspirins and a taxi to the airport.”

Good advice.

Les made a full-body cast out of duct tape and old sail battens, while solemnly telling me, “It’s all about the ventilation and elimination holes, Fatty.”

Les was a very practical fellow. After one waterfront fist fight in the Grenadines, Les carved a bunch of his teeth in Lignum Vitae.

…actually, he didn’t look half-bad (unless he opened his mouth).

I was a friend of Les—meaning that I’d often anchor my Carlotta downwind of his Penelope—that way, as whatever woman he’d lured out to his boat would come on deck and throw all his personal belonging overboard to port… and he’d do the same to hers on the starboard side…

…I’d be able to collect the more important bits from the harbor waters to return to them when they sobered up.

I had to be quick because, often, their windows of sobriety would be narrow.

…clever, Les was—in his own perverted way.

At some point he owned a bar on Saint Tee that specifically aimed at degenerate alcoholics that had no money. He wired a dead pelican’s jaw to move in time to the reggae while broadcasting his voice via a tiny, tinny, concealed speaker…

…that pelican on St. Thomas was reported to have ‘scared straight’ more sailors than the local AA meetings!

Never a dull moment with Les and his famed macaroni-rigged schooner… a true rule-beater at the St. Barts Regatta and at the center of thousands of racing controversies back in the day.

But the most famous story about Les Anderson was about Penelope (the boat) being showered with thousands of roses from a helicopter owned by a spurned billionaire) as Les and Penelope (the girl) made love belowdecks.

…which is, perhaps, how the important maritime rule of the marine community started, “…if she’s rock’n, don’t bother knock’n!”

I used to race with Les in the late ‘70s and early ‘80s.

He’d often drunkenly pole-axe face down during sail changes—but, being a sailor, no matter where on the vessel he’d regain consciousness…. he’d snake out a palsied hand and… using only his sense of touch… would reach into a Dorade box or under the anchor locker or behind a coil of line hanging from a belaying pin… and come up with a bottle of his ‘medicine.’ (80-proof rum for inshore races—151 proof for the Around the Island race during ASW).

I know, I know… some people reading this will frown… but those frowners never had the honor of racing aboard with Living Legends like Don Street, Les Anderson, John Smith, Randy Wasted, or Mad Dog—let alone with the infamous Monkey Crew aboard Stormy Weather.

Oh, and I can’t leave out suave, sophisticated, and diabolical Randy Wasted.

Randy’s catamarans were wrecked in so many hurricanes that it was hard to keep up on which major damage was done where, during which storm.  

Despite this, Randy was always smiling and always ready to spin another yard—not easy for the skipper of a 60+ foot cattlemaran famous for cartwheeling across all the trendy harbors of the eastern Caribbean.

Reports are that, in the main cabin, Randy had a gimbaled kerosene lamp mounted on a long piece of varnished mahogany… with smoke bells on top and bottom… for use ‘either way.’

“Hey, Randy,” I once asked him, “when you gonna rename her “This Side Up?”

Randy always brought beautiful arm-candy to any party. He’d troll the mega-yachts stern-to Gustavia for disillusioned wanna-bes with phenolic tophampers and curvaceous transoms—and Randy could slur/flirt in French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, and a dozen other languages.

…a true cosmopolitan seducer. Then again, his extremely-accurate name says it all, doesn’t it?

Justifiably notorious, Randy was. (Just ask the hard drinking Harken Brothers who hired him to skipper their experimental bi-polar sloop Procyon.)

Mad Dog was one of Randy’s sidekicks. His boat’s name was Details and, after getting run over (sans lights) crossing Simpson Bay Lagoon at night, he named his dinghy Gory Details.

And, no, I’m not even going to mention the Pirate Queen—the most erotic female skipper in the Caribbean for two decades running (mostly from the law). If questioned, she’d claim to be in the Caribbean doing whale research… looking for local sailors with 50-foot tongues who could breathe through the tops of their head.

…no, the Pirate Queen wasn’t shy.

Her boat was named Life’s a Beach and she didn’t allow clothes aboard.

She honestly believed that reality was for people who couldn’t handle drugs.

Once, in Bequia, I passed the PQ on the street wearing a blouse—didn’t recognize her!

…speaking of sailing the Caribbean on the pennies that Scotsmen threw away…

Personal hygiene products can be expensive. Consider using a handful of beach sand and a semi-clean finger to replace toothpaste and brush. Need floss? Pacific sailors use kelp but I have no personal experience with it. (Spit out the sand after—only barbarians swallow it!)

As long ocean passages draw to an end, often taking a sponge bath upon hearing ‘land-ho’ isn’t quite enough. I use industrial bilge cleaner (with a splash of Ospho) and a wire brush—even a grinder on stubborn areas.

And the rather chancy practice of hand-sewing toy balloons to repurpose is, rightfully, fading—I mean, Trojans aren’t that expensive. (If interested in this subject, check out how the nautical term ‘son of a gun’ came about.)

Female hygiene products? Why waste money on store-brought with all the old, easily-chopped manila hawsers rotting on every commercial dock?

Perfume? Ha! One drop of vanilla extract is plenty to excite a Cape Horner—a sailor who was so passionate that he could observe a fat, bewhiskered manatee and invent vivid tales of seductive mermaids.

…hey, if the clew pulled out of one of our headsails back-in-the-day, we’d just crumble and bunch-up a tennis ball into the torn fabric left—then tie a cinching rolling hitch just ahead of it… good for another ocean or two!

…why buy catsup while circumnavigating when Mickey D’s gave it away free on an international basis?

…in France, they often offer free samples in their hyper marts… hell, I’d wear a bib and a happy smile while grocery shopping!

…bent boom? Triple-lash (and Spanish windlass) your spin pole alongside it and keep circing, dude!

…crossing oceans isn’t, like, the America’s Cup!

I never used Boat Life on my first yacht—just smeared its seams with toilet wax!

On my exterior A/B plywood (salvaged from outdoor billboards) cabin top I couldn’t afford fiberglass, so I used fabric soaked in thick paint… hillbilly fiberglass we used to call it.

…can’t afford the thick electrical cable to install an anchor windlass dat somebody gave you—have you considered spending ten bucks or so for a used welding cable? Yes, that works… but only for a year, month, or week.

I used so much free, unguarded exterior A/B fir plywood (signs) while building Carlotta that, towards the end, I stopped painting it… and, inside our galley cabinets, you could see the Marlboro Man, the Winston Man, the Budweiser Man peering out…

…when A Frig’n Queen broke her aluminum mast, skipper and circumnavigator David Wegman smeared the remaining stub with goo and a wooden plug—then boldly inserted a smaller, through-bolted mast on top of that. Sail on, David! (No, he didn’t use a crane to step it—just emptied all the wobbly drunks out of Redbeard’s in Coral Bay.)

…why not carry U-clamps and use ‘em side by side to replace parted stays and shrouds… what’s the big deal?

…it’s expensive to be too yachty-snotty.

On my first circ, I salvaged the wire from an unguarded… knocked down electric sign… and used its wire for my SSB antenna. Two and a half decades later, I’ve still got the most powerful signal in the Indian (thanks, of course, to my barnacle-encrusted SWL meter.)

How to tell the best marine paints from average industrial epoxies? Same-same, just the ones aimed at yachtsmen are labeled with a 300% higher price tag.

…grappling hooks are handy to have aboard—but marine galvy ones are expensive and rust all over your deck… so I use stainless steel ones that Chinese restaurants use to display their dead roast ducks on… about a tenth of the price and with zero corrosion.

Sometimes, life is unexplainable. For instance, long ago the National Park Service replaced all the Nylon lines holding their park buoys in place with high-quality, expensive galvy chain… and, lo and behold, all the local fishing boats in the Virgins stopped dragging that year… yet all the NPS buoys broke loose and ended up drifting around Puerto Rico.

Go figure!

Ah, the good ole days! 

Editor’s Note: The 73-year-old Cap’n Fatty is utterly unrepentant—and absolutely delighted to have outlived all his Puritanical friends!

Cap'n Fatty Goodlander has written for ALL AT SEA since 2005.