Slanting sheets of rain pushed us against the dock as we tied up in front of a Hudson River hotel. Mindful of our need to make New Zealand before the cyclone season, and it being a half a world away, we welcomed aboard a new crew member and bundled him below.

That evening, in the hotel’s sports bar, we met a number of interesting characters, sailors all, on some yacht club outing. The entire increasingly rowdy lot having eventually repaired to the “main salon” of a comfortable trawler, we fell to swapping yarns, rain beating in gusts against the windows. One of them, a jovial, playful fellow with a frank, open expression, demanded silence, the better to launch a story in our direction. The wind yammering in deck ventilators, we leaned forward to hear what he had in store for us.

“Well, fellows, I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw it happen, and true, I’ve been known to tell a stretcher from time to time, but honestly, this really happened. And it happened right here, on the dock right outside, last summer.”

Pointing dramatically at the dark night beyond the window where I suppose the dock was, several heads turned in that direction, tricked by the theatrical sweep of his arm.

As an aside, may I say when someone says “honestly,” you have to wonder.

“I don’t know why this old coot had his wife, a young looker, by the way, haul him to the top of the mizzen mast, you know, the smaller one at the back of his sailboat, but he did. Clear to the top he was, up there looking around. I first noticed him when he called down in a loud voice to his wife about something. Whatever it was, she yelled up, ‘Honey, I don’t think you should be doing that.’ Someone slid a basket of pretzels across the table to me. A loose halyard slapped on a mast somewhere in the murk. ‘You take care of the galley and I’ll take care of the rigging,’ he called down.

“As I stood there watching, he unscrewed the shackle holding the triatic stay, you know, the one that goes from the top of the mizzen mast to the top of the main mast. Apparently, he forgot he had already unscrewed the forward lower shrouds, and all that was keeping that mast from falling over backward was that triatic stay, which he had just undone!”

Hoisted beer mugs froze in place.

“Yes, down she came, mast and man. He hugged that thing like his last, best friend as he rode her down, right into the river.”

A general laughter, but only tentative.

“No, no, he was alright. Not a scratch. A wet rat he was, climbing ashore a little downstream.”

I didn’t know whether to believe him or not, but it was a good story nonetheless. About two days later, I forget exactly, with a gentle, irritatingly shifting breeze, all sails flying, in almost fiord-like narrows approaching West Point, an ocean freighter overtook us, down bound on a strongly running ebb tide. The enormity of a decent-sized freighter or warship next to a puny sailboat such as our 46-footer is better experienced than described.

As the huge bulk of the black slab side of it glided past, a seeming hand’s touch away, but actually maybe 50 yards off, a swarthy sailor in a dark, hooded sweatshirt leaned over the railing far above and shouted something down in some language foreign to me. I waved.

Intending to set sail from West Point directly to the Panama Canal, we tied up alongside a steel piling wall to catch our breath, collect our thoughts, and, perhaps, steel our resolve.

Our new shipmate, Bob, a West Point graduate, had long looked forward to returning to the Academy.

From where I presently sit remembering our stop at West Point, I recall my friend the retired Army colonel as he set off on his visit. I see his purposeful stride up the hill, knowing exactly why and where he was going, not knowing exactly what he would be doing when he got there. He doubtless intended a noble work and to return when his mission was accomplished, not before, at some prearranged hour.

He was not stricken with apparent indecision. It is my fond hope that our government as it climbs the hill in Afghanistan has the same approach.

Upon Bob’s return, we cast off and set sail nonstop for Panama.

•••

Ross Pobanz can be contacted at ross.pobanz73@gmail.com. The opinions of columnists are not necessarily those of the Register-Pajaronian.



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