Earning the Captain’s Chair
ONE weekend in Hingham, Massachusetts, while I was conversing with some salty dogs in their cockpits, an ancient fellow came wavering down the floating docks carting a pile of provisions. We gave him a hard time, as dock etiquette required, and he informed us that “She’s ready! Two years with a wrench and a brush, and by God, she’s finally ready! I told you I would do it! I’m off to South America, boys!”
“Well, you just give me a holler on channel 71 when you break down at marker number two, and I’ll tow ya back,” a fisherman said while hosing down his skiff.
We all chuckled as the old fellow kept on down the dock. “What’s that all about?” I asked the guys. “Is he crazy or just joking around?”
I was a young family man at the time, too busy and stretched to afford more than an old skiff to poke around the harbor in.
“Oh, no, he’s not crazy or joking,” one of them answered. “He patched up a big old trawler. Been at it for a while. I guess he’s ready to hoist his anchor.”
“To South America?” I asked in disbelief.
“Well, somewhere down there. It’ll take him a year, going about seven knots, but he’s got a right good little diesel that’ll get him there, if he feeds her oil.”
Not wanting to reveal my ignorance before those guys—most of them divorced from wives grown sick of playing second fiddle to a boat—I wandered off down the dock and spied on that ancient mariner to see what he was about. He was crabbing up and down a ladder, loading up the round-bellied boat with a high freeboard and a big wheelhouse. She was as pretty as a toy boat, and named Driftwood. She looked like a safe haven on the sea, as salty as a shaker, built to go more than 3,000 miles at a fast sailboat’s pace on a single tank of fuel. She also looked roomy and seaworthy.
The prospect of
