We must fight to preserve the backwaters – or
things can get heavy, man
ILLUSTRATION CLAUDIA MYATT
BEWARE THE PLANNERS
TOM CUNLIFFE
‘M
an, this boat is so goddam strong you could sail
her round the world,” bragged Ambrosio, a
heavy-displacement hippy of my acquaintance.
As always, he delivered his message at Force 10.
Ambrosio didn’t know how to speak quietly.
For emphasis, he grabbed his rusty forestay and rattled it with
gusto. It fell apart in his hands. His girl, who had the reddest hair I
ever saw, spun on her down-at-heel sneaker and strolled off in the
direction of Blackie, a white man with an extravagant beard who
had been burning off an old Chris Craft for as long as anyone
could remember. Blackie always had a six-pack of Old Milwaukee
buried in the back of his pickup truck. The roar of his blowlamp
fell silent and I heard two pop-tops fizz. Ambrosio offered up the
ragged ends of rotten wire.
“You reckon they’d splice up?” he asked. There could be
no rational answer.
This and much more took place in the 1970s in a yard on the
eastern limb of Charleston Harbour in South Carolina. The local
creek featured tidal banks lined with tottering staging. A few
tatty yachts and motorboats floated at the wooden slips, but
most of the craft in the water were shrimp boats with long,