INSIGHTS TELLTA LES By Jay Coyle1 22 YACHTING JANUARY 2018steve haefeleYachting magazine Volume 223, No. 1 (ISSN 0043-9940, USPS 504-830) is published monthly by Bonnier Corp., 460 N. Orlando Ave., Suite 200, Winter Park, FL 32789. Copyright
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I
caught a whiff of
her as they dragged her
remains to the dock,” Bill
said as he revealed — with
reverence — the name of the
recently departed sport-fi sh-
erman. She had been a legend,
and I had known her well. The
wooden warhorse had boat-
ed more fi sh than a Japanese
factory ship. Bill, who has a
nose for boats, had made an
off er on the old girl.
Oh no, I thought. It ’s alive!
How could this be?
Bill is a marine-industry
veteran and a connoisseur
of fine rides. With a single
inhalation of a vessel’s odeur,
he can usually determine the
yacht’s pedigree, age and con-
dition. Febreze as you please,
but he’ll still sniff out sep-
tic-saturated, diesel-soaked
bilges and worm-eaten wood.
And if man’s best friend has
shipped aboard, he can tell
you its size, if not its breed.
In the case of the sport-fi sher-
man, the bouquet had arrived
at the dock before the vessel.
She’s a goner, I’d thought. Cer-
tainly, Bill knew he couldn’t
cheat the Grim Reaper.
“Is the seawater above or be-
low her boot stripe?” I asked
suspiciously.
“Below it at the moment,”
Bill said. “She’s on the hard.
They just burped 5 yards of
river bottom and a school of
snapper from her gut.”
termites hadn’t been holding
hands,” admitted Bill.
At his insistence, I inspected
the boat’s remains the follow-
ing day. “It’s a sad thing to see
a girl that was once a knockout
wither and succumb to the
harsh hand of time,” I off ered
thoughtfully. “It’s a shame
she couldn’t have settled to“Is she holed?” I asked.
“Times three, actually,” he
replied. “Did I mention that
her back is broken?”
Apparently, she’d recently
had a bumpy ride during a
blow and ended up snorkel-
ing across the bottom.
“The truth is she’d have
passed on years ago if thethe bottom peacefully.”
“You might be surprised to
know that there’s still life left
in those old bones,” Bill said.
The situation was just as I
had feared. Bill was intending
to resuscitate her.
I’d seen this before: Fran-
kenstein Syndrome. Grave
robbers collect the patient’s
remains from backwaters
up and down the East Coast.
Against all odds, these mis-
guided souls open their hearts
and wallets, trying to breathe
life into dry, rotting corpses.
In most cases, they fail. Any-
thing of value is shipped off to
nautical fl ea markets, where
it’s peddled as a body part or a
decorative tchotchke for some
seaside pub.
I was concerned for Bill and
his state of mind. I thought it
best to be gentle.
“This old gal doesn’t need a
ventilator,” I said. “She needs
the services of Dr. Kevorkian,
for God’s sake. She’s had it.”
Bill rattled off the names of
several well-known classics
brought back from the grave.
“You know as well as I do that
not one of those boats has a
splinter of original wood,” I
said. “They’re a hodgepodge.
They’re Frankensteins!”
Bill laughed loudly. “Tell the
villagers to put down their
torches,” he said. “I only of-
fered to buy her transom. ... It
would make a hell of a desk.”FRANKENSTEIN
SYNDROME
On breathing new life into a worm-eaten corpse.“THE TRUTH IS SHE’D HAVE
PASSED ON YEARS AGO
IF THE TERMITES HADN’T BEEN
HOLDING HANDS.”