On the Water

Featured: On His Level

It's generally true that "champagne tastes and caviar dreams" involve a yacht somewhere. Today most of them are fibreglass creations, but as soon as he could see his way clear, my father got us into the era of "iron men and wooden ships." Well, at least the wooden ships... Above: our last yacht leaving the Palm Beach Inlet, with Singer Island in the background. Attractive and comfortable, it nevertheless wasn't the best craft for a storm, as we found out the hard way. Note that the sea just in front of the beach is a different (brown) colour from what our craft is going through. This is because Lake Worth was badly polluted at that time; when the tide went out, the foul water went with it. The line between the lake effluent and the ocean was usually very crisp, as one can see above. (Photo by Bernice Ransom Studios, Palm Beach.) Below: stormy weather coming up on the stern. One of our more memorable cruises took us across the Little Bahama Bank from West End to Abaco (click here for a video summary of that), complete with some nasty weather.
	After we almost went to the bottom off of Spanish Wells on the same cruise, we felt it wise to have our boat checked out "stateside" to make sure everything was all right under the water line. This video shows the boat at drydock at Rybovich and Sons Boat Works in West Palm Beach, Florida, along with its relaunching. View the video with the player
Below: my grandparents' yacht Courier, a Grebe, at the West Palm Beach Marina during the Christmas of 1948. Their trips to Florida and Palm Beach started in the 1930's with my grandfather's aviation activities; they eventually moved to Palm Beach in 1957, with us following seven years later. In the background of the left photo is the Flager (Royal Ponciana) Bridge, which is still there; behind it (rather washed out) is the Biltmore Hotel.

A fine crew: the larger the yacht, the larger the crew; our last one usually required two. Elmer "Bud" Curless (left) and Captain James North pose in their dress uniforms. True to form, we had khaki ones for normal duty. It's fair to say that many people who go into yachting do so to create their own "navy" (or in our case our own coast guard.) Such a pose gives an HMS Pinafore aspect to the whole thing, with one notable exception: both the crew and their employer were not shy about using a "big, big D." (Photo by Bernice Ransom Studios) (Click here for another view of our bridge, albeit in a "working" mode.)
	Slightly overloaded: on our last yacht, we had two dinghys. The smaller of the two is shown at the left. Called a "Dilly Boat," it was an 8' long, cathedral hull fibreglass boat, not really suitable for all of the three people occupying it in this photo, taken at the Ocean Reef Resort on Key Largo. One of the things that has changed dramatically since our years on the water is the engine horsepower that propel ships of all sizes in the water. For me, it's still hard to believe the power that's put into boats now, large and small, and the speeds they routinely achieve. For example, our second yacht cruised at 10 knots, and frequently less. This made for a very "leisurely" cruise. However, the outboard motor driving this small craft was only a 3 hp Johnson with a self-contained fuel tank. This made for even slower going, especially in the open ocean.
Right: our cat Buff, a faithful companion on the water, acting as a welcoming committee of one for our second yacht. Domestic cats have a reputation for hating the water, but as long as he didn't actually end up in it (and the seas weren't too rough) Buff loved a good cruise. As long as his final destination wasn't the vet, travel was definitely his "bag," as they said in that day.