Open Writing

If you’re a regular reader of my columns, you’ll know that for many years I sailed my 30ft sloop in New England coastal waters. During those twenty plus years , in common with many sailors, I had nothing but friendly disdain for power boaters.

Polluters of the water, the air and the peacefulness of the waterways, as we saw them, the philosophical gulf between “us” and “them” was as wide as it could be. The power boaters for their part considered we sailors to be “Too cheap to buy gas,” and always looking for a free ride from the wind. Also they couldn’t understand why we did not sail in a straight line, as did they, and just stay out of their way.

But, as Mr. Micawber might have said, but apparently didn’t, “Circumstances alters cases Mr. Copperfield.” Prior to selling my sailboat last summer, I reluctantly had purchased a small powerboat. My rationale was that, since I was moving permanently to Florida, I needed a boat that did not require a minimum of 4ft of water under it, as did my sailboat.

In the coastal waters off Ft. Myers, where I live, even 3ft of water is a luxury, and that’s at high tide! Tides, currents and storm surges move the sand bars around, so boaters are restricted pretty much to dredged channels of sometimes only 20ft in width, which limits a sailboat when you need to tack against the wind. So, all in all, sailing didn’t seem an option.

My early experiences with the Sandra Fey were all quite as bad as I had anticipated. The smell of gasoline and exhaust fumes nauseated me, and the noise at anything other than idle speed drowned all conversation. My power plant is a 70hp, two-stroke outboard motor, and such devices need to be operated at full throttle most of the time, otherwise the spark plugs get coated with carbon.

With the throttle wide open, the boat does around 45mph, which doesn’t sound fast, but it’s damned fast if you’re used to sailing, or even motoring at only 6 to 8mph. At 45mph, things happen in a hurry, especially if you have nothing in your peripheral vision with which to gauge your speed. Before you know it you’ve passed a critical buoy where you should have made a turn, and you’re on your way to a place you never intended to go.

It’s a well-known fact, even among professional merchant mariners that, unless you’re a critical observer, it’s possible to hit an oncoming boat, even in the middle of an otherwise empty ocean, if each boat is on the same course. At first sight, in the distance, it’s not possible to see whether you are on a collision course or not, so the prudent skipper changes course slightly.

Simultaneously, the other skipper makes an identical decision and turns in the same direction. When this becomes clear, both skippers repeat the maneuver. They then continue to zig-zag towards each other, and many times collide. When I am sailing, I have plenty of time to decide what the other guy is doing, and to take avoiding action. Not so in the Sandra Fey.

My first venture under power was a miserable experience. It involved transiting a short canal behind my house to get to a channel that, in turn, led to a large bay, Port Charlotte Harbor. Outboard motors can be quirky in the hands of the uninitiated, but this time the engine started first time. I motored cautiously down the canal, then slowed to a crawl to negotiate a lump of coral.

At that point the motor died, and nothing would persuade it to start. It then dawned on me for the first time that the only means of propulsion available to me were the motor or a paddle. Where were the sails I needed so badly? Paddling the hundred or so yards back to my house took an age, and exhausted me in the process.

Being a power boater has only one dubious advantage as far as I’m concerned; you’re automatically part of a fraternity of know-it-alls who willingly dispense mostly erroneous advice by the wheelbarrow full. After enduring this avalanche of useless information, it was off to the boatyard to get the experts on the job.

I was not encouraged by the puzzled frown the mechanic displayed when I explained the symptoms, put nevertheless put my faith in his supposed expertise. After all, in the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king. A week later, a phone call told me my boat was fit and ready for me to pick up.

A couple of days after that found me hurling curses into the wind as I tried fruitlessly to start the engine. A few hundred dollars later and two more trips to the boat yard, and the real problem was found, a frayed wire!

Now that I’m a year-round Florida resident, my attempts to have fun with this malodorous, noisy, recalcitrant beast will be more frequent, but as yet the fish needn’t worry.

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