Cruising World - February 2016

FEBRUARY

2016

cruisingworld.com

122

S

ometimes a note from an

old friend jars the mem-

ory, and that’s what hap-

pened recently after I received

an email from Marilyn Palley,

the widow of longtime Cruis-

ing World contributor Reese

Palley, who passed away last

June. Marilyn was still smart-

ing from the loss of her feisty

93-year-old husband, and

asked if I could dig up some

of “Reese’s pieces,” of which

there were many.

And that’s how I came

across my favorite Reese arti-

cle, from a 1988 issue, the one

with the picture of him waving

his Kalashnikov assault rifl e,

which he’d employed to blast

down the remaining rig of his

cutter Unlikely off the coast

of Ethiopia after a Red Sea

dismasting.

All true. But I’m getting

ahead of myself.

Reese had shown up at our

Rhode Island offi ce in down-

town Newport a few years

earlier, and the name of his

boat was a pretty apt summa-

tion of his life story. A New

Jersey native from Atlantic

City, he’d started off in New

York as a Soho art dealer and

later opened a very success-

ful gallery in his hometown.

But he made his real killing —

the one that got him profi led

on 60 Minutes — down the

street at the corner of Board-

walk and Park Place, where he

fl ipped a heavily mortgaged

piece of real estate to the Bally

casino developers when gam-

bling was legalized.

It made him a very, very

wealthy man. Soon after — fol-

lowing a weekend trip to Paris

with his best pals aboard two

chartered jumbo jetliners — he

purchased an Oceanic 46 to sail

around the world. Of course,

he’d never sailed before.

Unlikely? Indeed.

So when he stopped in to

visit, he had a question: Would

we be interested in some dis-

patches along the way? You

betcha, Reese.

That set the wheels in mo-

tion for yet another career,

as a writer, and a prolifi c one

at that. Along with his many

magazine articles, Reese pub-

lished eight books, including

several sailing tomes ( Unlikely

Passages, Call of the Ancient

Mariner) and, more recently, a

detailed study of his favorite

building material (Concrete: A

Seven-Thousand Year History).

But he always considered him-

self a salesman, once telling

Philadelphia magazine, “I’m a

peddler. Of ideas.”

Reese penned a few columns

for this very Off Watch page,

including a stunner after suf-

fering a post-circumnavigation

heart attack. Deeply depressed,

he purchased a decrepit Coro-

nado 27, and in putting her

back together, he discovered

something unexpected.

“A parallel soon emerged,”

he wrote, “between me and

the damaged boat, in which

each small scar corrected on

the hull or topsides erased a

small scar from my psyche. ...

As I was giving her new life,

she was returning the favor.”

Reese named that little boat

Heartfelt.

But it was aboard Unlikely

that Reese experienced his

grandest adventures, includ-

ing that dismasting in the late

1980s. Removing the remain-

ing spar proved problematic,

until he remembered the

weapon he’d borrowed for

the passage. “My crew hooted

with doubt and dismay as I

stretched out on deck, loaded

a 50-cartridge clip, took aim

and let fl y,” he wrote. “The Ka-

lashnikov worked like a pair of

giant scissors. One after the

other it snipped the off ending

stainless wires and, after only

the ninth shot, the broken sec-

tion slid quietly and obedient-

ly into the bay.” It proved to be

the least of his worries, howev-

er, as later Reese and the crew

of a buddy boat slipped away

under cover of darkness, us-

ing radar, to escape boatloads

of would-be Ethiopian cap-

tors. With Reese, it was always

something.

“Nothing ever stopped

Reese,” said his ever-support-

ive wife, Marilyn, in a follow-up

email with some images of

Unlikely and her skipper. “He

LIVED.”

And when his life was over,

hundreds gathered for his

memorial service, all wear-

ing the red beret that was his

trademark.

Smooth sailing, Reese.

Wherever you are, I have no

doubt you’re keeping everyone

entertained. And thanks for

those memories.

Herb McCormick is CW’s execu-

tive editor.

My favorite picture of old friend Reese Palley was the one of him waving his Kalashnikov,

which he’d employed to shoot down his spar after a Red Sea dismasting.

Should you ever drop your rig, Reese recommended two

tools: hydraulic cable cutters and Russian assault weapons.

PEDDLER of

IDEAS

Off Watch

COURTESY OF MARILYN PALLEY