When men were men

SAILING MAGAZINES have become a lot tamer than they used to be.  And their editors have become less flamboyant. I guess it's the need to avoid being sued or alienate your readers or advertisers. Whatever the reason, I can't think of a sailing magazine that stirs the blood like the old Rudder and its feisty editor, Thomas Fleming Day, used to do.

One hundred years ago, The Rudder, published in New York, was writing about pirates.  Apparently they were just as much in evidence then as they are today, but on his editorial page,  Round the Clubhouse Fire, Thomas Day was of the opinion that pirates of even older times were sailors worthy of at least some praiseworthy recognition.  He refers to "the fine old times, when jails were few and pirates plenty. Grand days those, when if you wanted anything and had the powder and ball you could go and get it . . . when people mixed Religion and Rum in equal quantities and swallowed the discourses of the pulpit and the contents of the bottle without feeling the worse for it.

"After a life of active, glorious rascality, all you had to do was to settle down in some seaside town and put a brass knocker on the door, and wear a frilled shirt, and all was forgiven, if not forgotten.

"What you did not do, and what you were not, was charitably chiseled on your gravestone, and your neighbors spoke of you as the respectable Captain Cutpurse who came from nobody knew what and went to nobody knew where."

Yes, indeed, those were the days when men were men — and editors were men, too.

Today's Thought

It's when pirates count their booty that they become mere thieves.
— Bolitho, Twelve Against the Gods

Tailpiece

No matter how much you push the envelope, it will always remain stationery.

(Drop by every Monday, Wednesday, Friday for a new Mainly about Boats column.)

When you can't beat 'em . . .

OLD WOTISNAME down the row from me was in a fine old rage yesterday. He had just heard about the cruise ship that was attacked by pirates — the cruise ship that got away.

I'm sure you remember the incident in the Gulf of Aden the other day when the 30,000-ton Oceana Nautica was fired on by Somali pirates in two speedboats. What got O.W. all riled up was the news that the Nautica actually anticipated an attack. Before she left port, passengers were informed of the ship's two secret weapons against piracy: high-pressure water hoses and a long-range acoustic device that blasts a painful wave of sound toward attackers.

Now, it's an open secret on our dock that O.W. has been working on an acoustic blaster for months. It all started when he slipped and fell on his concrete deck one day. The deck was generously spattered with guano from the seagulls, crows, and cormorants that perch in his tangled rigging. He wasn't badly hurt, but O.W. decided that the slippery poop had to go. So the birds had to go, too.

In his spare moments, when he wasn't chipping rust off his chainplates, he experimented with one of those little aerosol cans that people use for fog horns. Remembering how he could make a loud screech by blowing on a piece of grass held between his thumbs, O.W. modified his fog horn with a small piece of plastic sheeting.

To everyone's surprise, when he aimed it at a gull perched on the spreaders, and pushed the button, no noise came out. But the startled gull leaped into the air as if it had been bitten on the backside. At the same time, everyone within 50 yards experienced a sharp pain in the ear.

O.W. was beside himself with excitement. "I've invented the acoustic gun," he shouted, "I'm gonna make a fortune."

He was thinking, of course, that small cruising sailboats could use this surprise weapon to ward off pirates. But his enthusiasm grew daily as reports came in of daring attacks on big tankers, cruise ships, and freighters in the Gulf of Aden. "They all need my acoustic gun," he declared.

But yesterday he learned that the Nautica already had a long-range acoustic device. "They stole my idea," he raged. "I'm gonna sue."

I was about to tell him that the Nautica didn't escape the pirates because of their ghetto blaster. The Nautica escaped because the captain revved up the engines, and the pirates couldn't keep up. But before I could get a word out, a crafty look spread slowly over O.W's face.

"It doesn't matter," he said, grinning widely.

"What doesn't matter?" I asked.

"About the acoustic gun. I have a better idea."

"What's that?"

"I'm gonna strike a deal with the pirates. Sell them a secret counter weapon."

"What's that?"

"Earplugs," he said. "And maybe waterproof jackets also."

Today's Thought
If the thief has no opportunity, he thinks himself honorable. —The Talmud.

Tailpiece
The rain it raineth on the just
And also on the unjust fella;
But chiefly on the just, because
The unjust steals the just’s umbrella.
--Charles Synge Christopher Bowen

Yo-ho-ho! and a boatload of oil

WHEN SOMALI pirates operating from little boats seized a huge Saudi supertanker carrying $100 million in crude oil, a little light went on in my head. Those pirates were asking for $25 million in ransom money.

I have a little boat. I could do with $25 million.

Yesterday I motored out into the channel where the supertankers pass by on their way to the refinery. When a nice fat one came along I called her on Channel 13.

“My name is Abu bin Hijakka,” I said.
“Whaddya want?”
“Is this the captain?” I asked. “Avast there! Halt your ship, I’m a pirate.”
“No you’re not.”
“Yes I am.”
“Where are your buccaneers then?”
“There are two possible answers to that. (1) Under me buckin’ hat, and (2) It’s their day off.”
“I don’t believe you. You’re not a pirate, you haven’t got a wooden leg.”
“They don’t make wooden legs these days. They’re all aluminum. You don’t have to varnish them, you see.”
“And where’s your parrot?”
“He drove me mad telling the same joke over and over so I fed him to the cat.”
“What was the joke?”
“Never mind the joke, stop your ship or you’ll be sorry.”
“How sorry?”
“Very, very sorry.”
“I don’t believe you. Can you say Aaargh?”
“Aaaargh!”
“No, you said it with four As. That’s wrong. Real pirates say it with only three As.”
“All right then, Aaarg!”
“No, you left the H off. Sorry, you’re a phoney.”
“Am not.”
“Am.”
“I’m a pirate. I know all the words to Eskimo Nell and I’m wearing skull-and-crossbones underpants.”
“Let’s see.”
“No, it’s private.”
“Do you have a union card?”
“A union card?”
“The Pirates’ Union. We only stop the ship for union members. Are you a member?”
“Yes, I’ve got a card.”
“What’s it say on the front?”
“It says National Union of Pirates, Catering Branch.”
“Catering branch?”
“Well, it’s not so much catering as drinking, actually. Rum mostly. Yo–ho-ho and ...”
“Well, I’m very sorry, but we only stop for the Boarding and Fighting Branch, the ones with cutlasses in their teeth and flaming beards.”
“I’ve got a grappling iron under my shirt.”
“What for?”
“What do you mean, what for? Haven’t you ever been grappled?”
“Not really, no. Although once in a pub in Boston, this lady ...”
“Never mind that. Stop your ship immediately.”
“Won’t.”
“What if I say pretty please?”
“There, I knew you weren’t a pirate. Pirates don’t beg.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. Pirates will do anything for $25 million.”
“Twenty-five million? There’s nothing on this old bucket worth twenty-five million.”
“What about all the oil, then? You know, the light sweet crude.”
“There’s no oil here, matey. This is the ferry to Anacortes.”

Well, it was his lucky day. I gave him a severe talking-to and let him off with a warning. The next one won’t get off so easily, specially now I have discovered that you can use Canned Heat gel to set your beard on fire.

* * *

Today’s Thought
We hang little thieves and take off our hats to great ones. --German proverb.

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Tailpiece
California’s wine growers have listened to pleas from senior boatowners who have to make several trips to the head every night.

Vintners in the Napa Valley area, ordinarily producing Pinot Blanc, Pinot Noir, and Pinot Grigio wines, have now developed a new hybrid grape with anti-diuretic properties that will eliminate the need to visit the head during sleeping hours.

It will be marketed as Pinot More.

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