Leaky Tiki

By Patrick Mansell

Leaky Tiki is the history of eight different boats the author has owned or operated over sixty years of boating in the bays of New York, the Mediterranean Sea, and around South Florida and the Bahamas Islands. Leaky Tiki was a 15 foot Chris Craft kit boat with a 30 H.P. Evinrude motor. Graduating through time the author has yachted between Spain and Italy on board the 27 meter Benetti, and then owned a series of boats for different purposes. When he wanted to go fast he bought a Cigarette racing boat. When he wanted to fish he bought a series of center console sport fishermen. Rarely did the author not own some kind of boat or another throughout his life. Chris Craft, Benetti, Sea Ray, Dusky, Contender, each special in its own way. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Binimi Twist Adventures, Inc.
• Release date: Dec 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201660321

Book preview

Introduction

When we’re busy in our daily lives, working, supporting families, interacting with friends, and going about whatever it is we do, those of us who are really fortunate can afford the time for a hobby. Being able to arrange our lives in such a way as to integrate our busy schedules with leisure activities might be said to lead something of a balanced life. And for that person who has loved and enjoyed his pastime from an early age and throughout all his years, that person will have a lifetime of memories to make him smile.

My number one pastime has been boating, something that has given me sixty years of memories. I have had eight main boats to inform my overall experience. Seven of these boats I owned, and one I did not. In the overall scheme of things that number of boats isn’t really that many. But the number of boats a person had gone through is not the measure of his enthusiasm; it is the experiences that matter in the long run.

To write a story about all my boating experiences would create a volume I could never finish. I have a few logbooks that might refresh my memory to some extent, but the hours and years I have spent on the water on my boats alone would be impossible to recollect. And I have spent an equal number of days and hours on other boats, yachts, sailboats, speedboats, open fishermen, flats boats, sport fishermen, and months on cruise ships.

In writing this memoire I had to pare it down to something digestible. I chose to create a description of each of these great boats and some highlights of what they were and how they fit in. I love the boat logs and picture albums that bring back memories of a lifetime of boating. And along with those albums are pictures of the great people I have known in my life who have enjoyed my boating experiences with me.

While there is still the occasional fishing expedition or scuba trip, I am just as happy to go out on the boat and do nothing but enjoy being on the water. It calms my soul and makes me happy. Offshore my horizons are limitless. It clears my head and resets my compass.

Patrick Mansell

Leaky Tiki

Not everybody I knew when I was fifteen years old living on Peconic Bay, L.I., owned a boat. Not everybody I knew had even ever been on a boat. I had lived near the water my whole life and considered it mandatory that I get my butt out on the water as much as possible. A boat to me was the most important thing I could dream for. I hitched rides around the area looking for a boat I could buy. I had to hitch rides because I was not old enough to own or drive a car. But the rules for driving a boat were different. No license required and the only safety equipment you had to have on a boat was a PDF (Personal Flotation Device) for everybody. That meant having a couple of seat cushions on board, one for every passenger.

At a nearby boat storage facility in Southold I found and fell in love with my first boat. It was a Chris Craft kit boat. I didn’t actually know what that meant; I assumed someone bought it in parts and assembled it. I still think so. This boat was fifteen feet long, had front and back seats, was painted yellow with a black racing stripe bow to stern, and a thirty horsepower Evinrude outboard motor. It was constructed of wood.

My father lived far away from me, about 1,500 miles from Long Island in the Florida Keys. He was not wealthy, but he did what he could to make my life full. Mostly he sent my mother alimony and child support, and he paid for my Catholic School education at a staggering $200 per year.

I called Dad to take his temperature about helping me out with the boat. I think the whole deal, boat and motor, cost $150. He agreed and sent me the money. I went down to the marina and bought that little boat and loved it like you would a pet or a child. I owned a boat two years before I owned my first car.

It was the middle of winter when I did the deal, so there were no other boats out on the bay. I had no intention of keeping the boat in the water during the winter, but I didn’t have trailer and I had to get it home somehow. There was only one answer to that, launch it and drive it the ten or so miles home. Our house was only two hundred yards from the beach where I would moor it. 

My brother Paul and I brought it home. For a few minutes starting out I drove. The controls were on the motor itself, with a shift lever on the side of the cowling and the throttle in a tiller handle that stuck out from the base and could be tucked back up and out of the way.

I wanted the full experience so I let my older brother, Paul, drive while I lay up on he front deck and grooved over this awesome boat as we tooled toward home at twenty-five miles an hour. Paul, just to be a smartass as he almost always was, decided he would mess with me as I was enjoying the ride. He pulled a very sharp left turn at full speed, which caused me to go flying off the bow and halfway into the water. I caught myself in time so that I was only in the water up to my waist. I grabbed something on the bow, maybe a cleat, and kept myself from going over all the way. That water had to be forty degrees. What a wakeup! I dragged myself into the boat and told my brother to get away from the controls. I would take it from here.

We got the boat to the beach in front of our house. I do not remember how we got the boat home. We probably took the motor off and hoisted it up to the house, and then somehow he and I together carried the boat home. The boat was not that heavy because I physically moved it around a lot during the years I had it. I could turn it on its side or turn it over by myself to do maintenance. It was a one-man job.

There