by David Vann
To mark the waterline of a hull and its boot-stripes, long pieces of tape are pulled. A man stands on scaffolding and brings his hand across sideways, keeping it level, so that the tape naturally conforms to the curve of the hull at the same height. Nigel claimed to be a master at drawing a waterline, and he had a guy named Michael working for him who was also supposed to be a master, but when I looked at the bow from a hundred yards away, I could see clearly that the line on the starboard side had a long dip to it, about twenty feet long.
I pointed this out to Nigel, and he ignored me, so I pointed it out to Michael, then Davey, then went to KNJ. It was very frustrating. I remember standing out in the yard with Nigel, showing it to him. The sag so obviously there, and Nigel beside me telling me I’m seeing things, that it’s just a trick of light on the curve of the hull. He held up his two hands, one of them the smooth side of my boat, the other feeling this surface. “The hull come out, but your eye get tricked. Your eye think the hull go in.”
Under pressure from KNJ he was forced to redraw the line, but he drew it again with the same sag. I was forced to accept it because I had no more time.
Then the blasting company came to finish painting the bulwarks and forward seating area, but the crew was young and didn’t tape properly. They left drops of paint all over the teak deck.
My friend Galen was much calmer about all of this than I was, until one day he felt I was ordering him around too much. He finally blew up, basically telling me that our friendship was more important than this paint job and I needed to work on how I was addressing him.
“No,” I told him. “You’re wrong. You don’t get to feel upset. You don’t get the luxury of yelling at me or making me think about your feelings. You haven’t been working all day every fucking day for months to get this boat ready. You haven’t invested $100,000 this year. You didn’t sail across the ocean. You’re not responsible for anything. It’s not your neck if this boat doesn’t arrive in the Virgin Islands on time. And I don’t have time to deal with your feelings. I have too much other shit to deal with. If you don’t like it, fly home.”
I was losing it, obviously. Galen and I had grown up together. He was the first person to whom I had been able to tell the truth about my father (I told everyone at school he’d died of cancer). But now I had to get the boat done, and I just didn’t have even five minutes to discuss Galen’s feelings. I felt completely overwhelmed and incapable of being a good person.
Later that day, Galen actually apologized to me, which was amazing. Most people would have called me an asshole and left.
It’s difficult to express the chaos of the last days in the yard. It just went on and on.
We went back in the water on a Friday afternoon so we could spend the weekend in the “well,” as they call the water underneath the travelift. We were still bolting the rails, stanchions, and other fittings, and we still had a lot of work to do on the varnish.
The teak rails were actually iroko, similar to teak, and it turns out I’m extremely allergic to iroko dust. My eyes and lips puffed up from the sanding and I had red rashes all over my chest and neck, which was a nice addition to how I felt about everything.
The next morning, I went to customs and immigration to clear us out. We were going to sail the following day, Sunday, July 15. That would get us to the Virgin Islands by the eighteenth, a day before my flight home to get married. But when the large man at the immigration counter looked over my paperwork, he said I needed my former crew to appear in person to be removed from the boat’s entrance papers.
“They’re gone,” I said. “I apologize, but I didn’t know they had to come here before they left the country. They cleared immigration and customs at the airport.”
“Every crew member need to clear out before the vessel can leave.”
“They did clear out, but at the airport.”
“They need to clear out here first, to be removed from your paperwork.”
“I didn’t know this,” I said.
“You know this. We tellin’ everyone when they clears in.”
“But I wasn’t told. I really wasn’t. I’m very careful about these things.”
“You cannot clear out until all of these crew members present themselves.”
“But they’re all in the U.S. now.”
The man paused. He was a very large black man with glasses. He looked hassled. I was trying to be polite, but I needed him to let me leave. “You can pay the fine that’s $2,500 U.S. per person,” he said. “Or you can provide proof that they left the country, by givin’ me their flight numbers and dates, then I need to confirm those clearances with the central office.”
“But I need to leave tomorrow,” I told him. “I’m getting married. I’ll miss my own wedding if I can’t leave.”
“I tellin’ you the two options, sir. Your crew need to clear out before they leave.”
“But no one told me. Are you really going to make me do this?”
“I tellin’ you already.”
“I can’t pay the fines,” I said. “I honestly don’t have the money. I really don’t. I spent everything here getting work done. And now I need to leave.”
He just looked at me, unwilling to budge.
“Okay,” I said. “If I make calls right now and get you the flight numbers, how long will it take to verify with the central office?”
“They not open ’til Monday, and then it take three or four hours.”
“Monday!” I said. “I can’t leave Monday. I’ll miss my own wedding. And I came in here yesterday to clear, on a weekday, a Friday, just in case there were any problems, and I was told to come back today, Saturday, because a clearance can’t be done more than twenty-four hours in advance.”
“That’s correct.”
“But don’t you see, I’ve been caught in a trap. No one told me about the regulation when I cleared in. Then, when I tried to clear out early, on a weekday, I wasn’t allowed to clear. Now, it’s a weekend, and the office isn’t open. So I need you to help me find a solution. I need to leave tomorrow.”
This man just looked down at his nails, which were long and painted purple. They were so long they curled. Strange with an immigration uniform. He wanted me to go away, but he wasn’t willing to sign my form.
Another customer came in then, a European man in his fifties. The guy behind the counter switched his attention to this new man and took his papers. I waited politely, and after about fifteen minutes, when they were done, I tried again.
“Please,” I said. “I’m very sorry that my former crew didn’t follow the regulations, but we honestly didn’t know. And I’m sorry if I’ve offended you in any other way. I certainly haven’t meant to. Please let me clear out. I really have to leave.”
“Eight A.M. Monday morning,” he told me.
Galen and Stephen and our other new crew member, Donna, were sitting in folding chairs behind me, listening to all of this. None of them could do anything to help. The Trinis, as Trinidadians call themselves, were of course afraid of their own immigration and customs officials.
We left and went immediately to an Internet café a few doors down. “If I can’t get this info on time,” I told Galen and Stephen and Donna, “we’re just leaving anyway. And you might as well go back to the boat now. I might be awhile.”
After I’d sent e-mails and made calls, I walked back to the boat and seriously considered just leaving. To hell with Trinidad. I would never be able to come back into this country, but maybe that was okay. By the time I reached the boat, however, I had calmed down, and I reassured the crew that I wouldn’t leave until I had clearance. Stephen and Donna looked relieved.
I tried to put the immigration fiasco behind me. We would use our extra days to good advantage, to get more work done, especially on the wood in the forward seating area and on the rails, and as long as I left by around noon on Monday, I could make it to the Virgin Islands just in time, arriving the morning of the day I would fly.
Monday m
orning, however, presented a new problem. During my entire seven weeks in Trinidad, the wind had been calm in the early morning. But not this morning. It was blowing at over thirty knots and coming from an unusual direction, which happened to be exactly the worst direction possible. I needed to back out of the well, which had high concrete dock on each side, then there were pilings on my port side extending another several hundred feet. The wind would be blowing me directly onto them.
I talked with the crane operator about this. He was not happy.
“You leavin’ now, ya. I got other boats.” He was white, with long curly blond hair, but he had grown up here.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I know there are boats waiting to be hauled out. But I can’t safely leave the dock in this wind. If I try to leave, I will most likely take out your pilings and the big motoryacht behind them. Every other early morning the wind has been low. But this morning, it’s high for some reason.”
“You leavin’,” he said. I could tell he was getting pissed off.
“Please,” I said. “As a licensed captain, I can’t do something that I know will endanger my boat and other boats. I’m really sorry, but I just can’t.”
This stand-off kept me from going to immigration and customs. We waited for the wind to die down, but it kept blowing hard. Peake’s office called me in, charged me an extra fifty bucks for my time in the well, and demanded I leave.
Finally, another captain offered to help by pushing my bow away from the pilings with his dinghy while I backed, so I agreed to try. When the captain in the dingy and the marina guys on the dock were ready, I shouted “Okay!” and put both engines in hard reverse. The heavy steel hull started sliding back right away, the engines strong, and the bow line and stern lines were loosed, but then a guy on the upwind stern line, on the dock, wrapped the end of the line around a cleat. He may have thought he was helping me swing my stern out, but what he did was disastrous.
The stern line went tight and yanked my stern upwind. My bow swung down fast, about to bash hard against the concrete dock and crush the dinghy underneath, but luckily the guys on the dock with the bow line saw what was going on and rushed to wrap the end of their line just in time to make the bow bounce. Then the stern line snapped in half and my stern was free, so I had to go. I threw the port engine in reverse again and yelled and waved for the bow to be let go. It was, just in time, and Galen and Stephen were hauling in the lines as I gunned the engines in full reverse, smoke in the air. It was my only chance, to just go as hard and fast as possible. I was also swinging the helm, trying to straighten us out. I could hear a guy on the big powerboat behind the pilings to our port side yelling, “Go! Go! Go!” If I didn’t get out of there fast, I was going to destroy his yacht.
We cleared the pilings and then I threw the engines into forward, to stop our momentum, and spun the wheel. There was a crowd of boats anchored right behind us, and I missed one by less than ten feet. I got us out of there, through the crowd to the outer harbor, then I put the engines in neutral and just shook my head. Such a brilliant decision, going back into the boating business.
Four hours later, I finally had my paperwork from immigration and customs. We raised anchor and motored toward “the mouth of the dragon,” the narrow channel where we’d leave the island and encounter the ocean. It was after 5:30 P.M., the sun low on the horizon, and we had almost nothing stowed. We weren’t ready for a passage. Stephen was putting tools away in boxes, trying to clear the pilothouse, and Galen was stowing the fenders. Donna was not really doing anything except standing around awkwardly.
We reached the mouth in about ten minutes, the big rollers coming in, spray hitting the rocks on the western side. We weren’t ready for this. So I turned around, back into calmer water, and did circles for about twenty minutes while I helped stow.
I have never left for sea so unprepared. We had our basic items stowed, and I had completed all of the maintenance and systems checks in previous days, and Donna had bought provisions, and we had enough diesel and water. So it was safe to leave, and we were seaworthy, but it was almost dark, none of my crew had ever been on a passage or at sea at night, we still had various little items inside and out that weren’t organized or stowed very well, and we were all exhausted. Not a good way to begin almost three days at sea.
And the seas hit us right away, then built through the night, the wind howling. We were blasting into large waves, the spray covering the entire boat each time. Everyone except me was seasick, so I had to pull double watches at the helm and be on call the entire time. It was a long night.
The daytime was easier for the crew, and we were making almost ten knots, which is what we needed. We had to average at least 8.5 knots for me to catch my flight to California. If anything went wrong or we didn’t steer well or the seas increased, I would miss my flight and wouldn’t be able to catch another flight until the next day, so I’d miss the rehearsal dinner. But if I couldn’t get on that flight the next day, if there were no seats available through standby, I’d miss the wedding.
As soon as it was dark again, though, Stephen and Donna couldn’t steer. Donna would stand there at the helm looking calm and poised. And she’d be sixty degrees off course, taking us to Europe. Stephen was even worse. He tried hard, and I spent a lot of time tutoring him, but he kept getting disoriented. He would see the compass dial start to spin to the left, so he would turn to the right. This was backward. He did it over and over, spinning us in a circle each time.
I tried to make it simple. “Steer to our heading,” I said. “Forget about how the dial is moving. Find 250 degrees. That’s our course. Just steer toward it. Just like lining up a car on the road.”
But it didn’t work. He kept steering exactly the wrong way. Instead of making almost ten knots on course, we were now averaging only 7.5 knots, which meant I would miss my wedding.
So Galen and I took over. No more Stephen or Donna at the helm. I didn’t have an autopilot, and this meant Galen and I would have to steer around the clock for the next day and a half, alternating with ninety-minute watches. I also needed to check all the boat systems, so I wouldn’t sleep more than half an hour at a time. I had done it before, on other passages, but I hadn’t begun those trips so tired.
Everything went fine, however. The seas and wind died down, we stayed on course and made good time, and it looked like we were just going to make it.
THE DARK MASSES of the small islands around us, cut out against the stars and lights on Tortola, were a pirate’s landscape, and the night air was moist and warm, tropical but not stifling like Trinidad. It was cooler here, with a fresher breeze. I had a beautiful ninety-foot yacht, a promising business, and the freedom to cruise these islands with Nancy for as many years as we wished. It was a good feeling.
I crossed through the pass and the channel and slowly entered the bay at Roadtown. There were a lot of lights, and everything was unfamiliar. Avoiding reefs, shallow water, and boats at anchor, I found the small entrance into the marinas, but once we were in, there seemed to be almost no room, especially after being at sea.
A ninety-foot boat with a 21.5-foot beam and nine-foot draft in a small harbor at night feels very large, like a great whale come into a pond. The harbor was actually capable of accommodating larger boats, of course, but it felt like I had almost no room to maneuver. I found Village Cay Marina to my port side, made a ninety-degree turn, and proceeded cautiously into a slip on the inside of their fuel dock. It was about 4:30 A.M., and I was going to be able to attend my rehearsal dinner and wedding.
We were married by one of my lenders, a Dominican friar. I’m not Catholic, but Nancy is. The chapel was part of a monastery, rarely used for weddings, the high-backed pews facing inward toward the aisle, their dark wood ornately carved.
Dave, the friar and also my friend, was funny during the ceremony. He said he wouldn’t presume to tell us about storms at sea but carried on with his metaphor anyway. The entire event was much more emotional than I had imagined. S
omehow I had thought I would just breeze through it, but the truth is I had difficulty not sobbing at various points, especially when we left the altar to greet our parents and my mother whispered in my ear, “Your father and I are both very proud of you.” Bringing my father into this, especially with my uncle Doug standing there beside my mother, was overwhelming. One of the saddest parts of my father’s death has always been the thought of all that he has missed. Twenty-one years of experience and memories. And each time I thought of him during some important event such as this, my wedding day, his absence hurt just as much as the first day I had lost him. I was thirteen again and didn’t have a father.
In the limo, Nancy and I both admitted surprise at how emotional the ceremony had been, but then we moved on to the reception and just had fun.
The next day we opened presents at Nancy’s parents’ house, with a lot of relatives and friends in attendance. Then we were packing three seventy-pound boxes, right at the baggage size and weight limit, because I was flying back to the Virgin Islands that evening. We packed all those sheets and towels, small carpets, appliances, bar guides and cookbooks, everything we’d need for charter. Nancy would be flying a day later and also bringing three boxes.
Our guests for the first charter had written on their preference sheets from the broker, “WE ARE HEAVY DRINKERS.” They had a list of ten or fifteen special mixed drinks they wanted in quantity, so we bought liquor at four different shops (to find specialty items such as Grey Goose Orange) and groceries from more than half a dozen stores. Eleven adults plus four crew for five days. We were grateful to have charters. Most boats were having a lousy year because of the recession. We were the rising stars, the new boat with no direct competition because of the number of staterooms. It was gratifying to see all of my hassles in Turkey, Spain, Gibraltar, and Trinidad finally paying off.