The Joys of Being a Marine Marauder

There comes a time in every aging sailor’s life when he realizes that, if he’s going to ruin the existence of more happy, well-adjusted landlubbers, he better get his butt in gear now. Thus, I’ve recently been wandering outside our yacht club, offering sage advice in the guise of selecting new victims. 

Let’s face it—if you believe, as I do, that you’re gonna end up somewhere warmer & lower than heaven, then it would be nice to deserve your eternal damnation. 

Is this any way to start a marine column? Probably not. 

I soldier on regardless. 

What do we really know about boaters—other than that they’re masochistic? 

Let’s put it another way—what is a modern yacht other than an expensive floating bedevilment device for folks in possession of 1.) too much money and 2.) not enough commonsense? That’s right! Wanna feel stupid? Buy a boat. Wanna feel stupider… then buy a cattlemaran that looks like a layer cake and has oxygen masks hanging from the lofty boom in case you need to reef the mainsail. Still game for more abuse? Then a trimaran might just be the ticket! Why not buy same design as the famous Teignmouth Electron aboard which you can play out all your offshore Donald Crowhurst fantasies? 

People constantly ask me what I think of multi-hulls. I think of them as Donald’s Choice. I’m serious! How many times did Donald unsuccessfully attempt suicide before buying a multihull? 

Dozens? How many times after—just once!

…see how efficient yachts that the builders have to label ‘this side up’ are?

Want to calculate a boater’s intelligence? Just take his IQ and divide it by the number of hulls he sails on. Simple!

…not that monomaran owners are any smarter. 

I mean, the only thing intentionally made heavier besides sailboats are steam rollers—and most monohulls sail like steamrollers, truth be known. 

Allow me to be blunt: boats are the demonic souls of shore-hugging narcissists seeking salt-stained revenge. Boats want to sink. Really! They need to sink—it’s their prime directive. Forgot all these lying yacht brochures that claim they will ‘carry you and your family in comfort and safety across an ocean…” 

Negative! Not a chance! Don’t be hoodwinked!

A monohull will be constructed just seaworthy enough to lure you and your family far, far from shore—then sink like a stone when she believes enough Great Whites have gathered in the surrounding waters to devote the evidence.

Don’t believe me? Then you’ve never ocean-sailed. 

A boat is, at its most elemental, a container of air. As long as the air is inside and the seaward is outside, she’s in what is known as ‘a seaworthy condition.’ However, boats don’t like to be in that condition once an ‘agreement to buy’ contract has been signed. 

Thus, they team up with gravity and begin to bedevil you before the ink is dry on your ‘irritate-me-to-death’ agreement. 

That’s right, we’re talking about deck leaks!

Decks don’t leak precisely over the fat, round fingerholes of floorboards—no, never! However, they will often leak into an almost invisible crack of a radar case IF that crack is direct over a critical, moisture-sensitive, no-longer-manufactured-and-outrageously-expensive component. 

That’s right—boats love to leak directly over bunks, pillows, and inside hanging lockers. That’s right—they have titillating dreams about such guilty pleasures!

I’ve trained myself to sleep on wet pillows and soggy mattresses—but that’s not good enough. I’ll be dozing off, and a leak will develop overhead that precisely leaks into my upturned ear. Or up my nose. Or onto my… er, soft bits. 

Lubbers often ask me why sailboats heel—and I always tell them the truth; so that their leaks can bedevil their skipper and his crew regardless of where he or she attempts to hide within a 90-degree angle of sleeplessness.

I’m serious! This isn’t paranoia talking, this is hard-won, authentic, ocean-going experience. I’ve crossed the Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian Oceans many times—and never found a dry spot below once. 

Remember when I mentioned that a boat was a container of air—with no more of a chance to leak than a bottle with a cork in it?

Well, the minute one group of concerned shipwrights create such a hull—another group of shipwrights, far more sadistic and cruel, gets ahold of it and starts drilling holes. Holes for what? Well, ultimately, to allow seawater in. They drill holes for its keel, its prop and rudder shafts, raw water intake, sink drains, watermaker, toilets, transducers, deckwash, sumlog, depthmeter transducer, zinc, grounding plates, saltwater sink pumps, and exhaust system. 

…and that’s just below the waterline, where leaks are the most dangerous!

Here’s another truth—a modern yacht has a million electro gizmos inside and a nearly equal number outside—and of which are interconnected by a maze of wires. Why? To facilitate leaking! Have you ever—even once, observed a naval architect out recreationally sailing? No? Why is that? 

…that’s because they know what they’ve done by peppering flexible plastic hulls with more holes than a spaghetti colander!

…that right, they’d created sailboats with more leaks than the White House. 

And we haven’t even mentioned marriage. Want to buy a boat and stay married to your spouse? Really? Wow, you really are a risk-taker! 

If so, your spouse better be so ugly that no one this side of Helen Keller or Stevie Wonder will have them. I’m not kidding—so ugly that he or she has to sneak up on a glass of water to get a drink!

…many loving-but-lubbing spouses keep their divorce lawyer on their speed dial just in case their sailing-sado-spouses follow through with their constant threats to buy ‘a fun sailboat for the family.’

Here’s the saddest part—male sailors don’t even realize that getting their spouse wet means something entirely different ashore! 

I mean, sailors should be honest and ask any future spouse if they… well, if they find… puking erotic. 

And as far as their spouses ‘laying there like a dead fish’—maybe they are. Dead, I mean—not a fish. 

…and while it is true that necrophilia is fading ashore—who knows what the stats are offshore, where Peeping Toms can’t see?

Seriously, how would police even know if a serial killer exists in the Indian Ocean aboard a cruising vessel surrounded by Great Whites?

I mean, why pay a divorce lawyer when having corroded lifelines offshore is such an elegant, time-tested solution? What sailor wouldn’t want to trade in a 44-year old model for two hot 22-year-olds?

True, ventilation is important, especially in the tropics. 

…which brings us to the subject of rotating Nico Fico cowls and Dorade boxes. These don’t leak even during the heaviest of rains and the highest of winds. Well, at least at the dock. 

At sea, it is a different story. 

…the boat is heeled. Waves bound aboard as the wind howls like the souls of a million drowned sailors…

…and it is during such moments when I realize why those white PVC cowls that are red on the inside rotate—so evil sailors can aim them to fire-hose their spouse’s bunk precisely!

Yes, everything gets splashed during a severe, prolonged gale—which is why most sailor wives intent on leaving their sailing hubbies do not ask for a contentious divorce but rather just say, “I’m going ashore to do the laundry!” and never return. 

Experienced sailors always check to make sure their laundry is the laundry as their spouse leaves—clean underwear means you’ll soon be checking out those Wayward Senior Sailor dating sites. (It’s amazing how many bilge bunnies you can attract with the pen name of Rich, with BumTicker.

And what divorce court judge wouldn’t immediately stipulate ‘abuse’ in a marriage conducted in mid-ocean? 

I mean, have you ever come down below and found your wife attempting to conceal something—and you, knowing that your birthday is coming up soon, think it’s a birthday present—but what she is really doing is gnawing away at your safety harness with a dull Swiss Army Knife?

Yes, my blood ran cold when, just before leaving the Panama Canal for Fatu Hiva nearly 5,000 miles away—I attempted to show my wife where the MOB button on our Garmin GPS was and she dismissively sneered, “…no need, honey!”

Damn! I once overheard her telling a girlfriend, “Our boat doesn’t go to windward well, so if he slips over the transom with his fly down… I’ll just ‘go around again’ and keep a really sharp eye out during circ #5.”

WTH?

I wanted to buy one of those tiny AIS transponders that clip to your safety harness—waterproof electro-devices that allow the sleeping off-watch to locate the MOB in pitch black…but my wife said with a sickly smile, “Don’t waste our money and my time, Fatty.” 

During another conversation I heard her mentioning that she didn’t buy lottery tickets, only Lloyd’s Life Insurance policies on yours truly, and that ‘…so far, no luck!’

The worst is when a sailor morphs from pollywig to shellback—and King Neptune comes aboard at the equator. 

Nep (we’re buddies) is always blind-drunk and openly amorous. He has a sharp eye for the ladies—well, any semi-dry gender, really. 

…and I foolishly thought that I’d be proud to be ‘nine times a shellback,’ not blushing and totally ashamed. That’s right—the #MeToo movement isn’t confined to shore, I am sorry to say.

Isn’t any aspect of yachting offshore getting better?

Yes, of course. Now, when you have a fire aboard while 2,000 miles from Fatu Hiva, at least you know it’s your Lithium batteries. 

That’s progress, of a sort. 

And if you have an Iridium sat/phone system aboard and your wife has made some pre-arrangements with her lawyer—she can have a protective order sworn out on you at any moment and you’ll have to sleep outside under the dinghy for the rest of the passage!

It happens, dude—it happens!

And once, while we were taking water (aka sinking) off Cocos Keeling I didn’t want to get into a gender debate with my spouse—but neither did I want to go against my life raft’s specific operating instructions. 

I mean, a six man raft is plain enough, isn’t it. Liferafts simply don’t have room for all the cosmetics a trophy wife will bring with her, agreed? Words do matter, right?  And it’s clearly a MOB button, not a COB (Chick OverBoard). And this explains why I wanted to send HER, my wife, to shark-wrestling class and not myself—Great Whites are man eaters, everyone knows dat, mon!

Doesn’t anyone listen anymore?

Actually, my wife accused me of not listening to her recently—luckily, I wasn’t paying attention to her babble at the time. 

I know—it’s impressive that Carolyn and I are in our 54th year of marriage, living aboard, and sailing offshore together. 

…before I married her, I never believed in reincarnation. Now I do—the only way this marriage makes sense is if she’s atoning for a sin in a previous life. 

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