by Captain Lee
My job was in the wheelhouse, driving the boat. The captain would often oversee leaving the dock and bringing it back to the pier, but he’d rarely drive once we were under way. It was a voyage to nowhere, so there wasn’t a ton of cutting-edge navigation and seamanship one would have to display. The biggest challenge at sea was making sure that we didn’t run into a fishing boat or a shrimping boat, which were lit up like Christmas trees anyway, so we’d watch our radars and scopes and make sure we didn’t plow through someone’s gunwale.
It was reliable work, but I was looking for something more interesting. Dodging shrimp boats for six hours a day is like dying a slow, painful, agonizing death, one six-hour shift at a time. That, compounded with the fact that the captain and I didn’t quite see eye-to-eye, made me think my future might be elsewhere.
He was a necessary evil, as far as I was concerned. He did his job, and I did mine, but we weren’t Butch and Sundance. He needed me because I was dependable, I showed up on time, and I did my job well in an area where the labor pool was severely challenged. I needed him to hire me in the first place. But there were some personality problems between us, most notably that he was having an affair with the chief stewardess. Not smart as a boss, and not smart as a married man. And not something I approved of. But hey, I didn’t have to like him, and we didn’t hang out together—his business, not mine. But especially in a small town where everyone knew each other, taking a dump where you eat is probably not the brightest move you could make.
It was bad enough that he was doing it, but he made it worse by trying to pull me into his shit sandwich. His wife had suspicions, and it didn’t take a genius for those suspicions to take root. Hell, when the boat’s supposed to dock at midnight, and the captain doesn’t come home until four in the morning smelling like the chief stew’s perfume, you can’t always try to blame it on paperwork and traffic. Eventually, he could see that wasn’t working anymore, so he tried to get me to cover for him in front of his wife.
“Lee, do me a favor. When my wife comes on board, just tell her you were with me when we had to work late last week.”
“Which day?”
“Every day.”
“I don’t think so,” I said.
“What are you talking about?” he asked, angry.
“Hey, just because you’ve compromised your morals doesn’t mean I have to compromise mine. Hell, you stand a better chance of seeing God twice than that happening. I’m not going to let the cat out of the bag, but I’m sure as hell not going to lie for you.”
“You’re really putting me in a tough position here.”
“You put yourself there. If you don’t want to worry about the lie, then don’t do the deed. But if she asks when we pull into the dock, I’m going to tell her.”
That’s what put an end to my chances of becoming captain on that boat. The man in the chair wasn’t going to recommend me, and I wasn’t going to stick around getting bored out of my gourd with no future. Time to look for something new. I lost track of that guy the moment my feet left the gangplank.
We had decided to move to Fort Lauderdale, where there was more opportunity for me and my newfound career. Fort Lauderdale, the yachting capital of the world. That’s where I found a great owner. Though, when looking for something interesting, you have to beware what you wish for.
There are lots of things that can make a great owner, but it’s not really rocket science. Being a good owner is like being any kind of good boss. You pay your staff on time. You understand that you’re paying for someone’s time, you’re not renting a person. You don’t have to treat people like dogs in order for them to understand that you’re an authority figure. You pay people for their skills and expertise, and don’t second-guess them when they utilize those skills and expertise. If you possess those basic qualities, then you stand to make a good owner.
Pauly was a good owner. He was a real estate guy, a deal maker from Atlanta who owned a lot of property and a few bars and restaurants. He wasn’t the kind of guy who would leave any stone unturned. Even when he owned a building and had every square foot of livable or workable space rented out or sold, he’d find ways to make a dollar or two on top of that. Literally, he would rent out space on his rooftops to cell towers. He owned a couple of private planes, and he made his home in Atlanta, where he lived in a huge mansion. Despite his money, he’d treat people like family.
This isn’t to say that Pauly was a pushover. I worked hard when I was the captain of his boat, the Pauly D. No matter what model or size of boat he’d get, or what he’d upgrade to, it always remained the Pauly D. The man knew his brand, I suppose. That first boat was a 55-foot Sea Ray. Pretty well-built boat for what it was. I went into it with a bit of a negative bias against that particular model, since I’d seen a lot of Sea Rays cruising up and down the intercoastal, throwing a wall of water that would just rock the hell out of anybody nearby. Those boats were typically owner operated, which meant idiots were out there driving big boats when they had no business doing it. I used to say, “I’d rather have a sister in a whorehouse than a brother that owned a Sea Ray.” It just seemed like kind of a douche magnet. But there I was—running one.
When Pauly first hired me, I was a bit worried that it was going to be a job with a very limited longevity. In those early days, he loved to party. When I started working for him on that Sea Ray (before he upgraded to a 65-foot Intermarine, a nice fast boat, pretty roomy, though not particularly attractive), I wondered if I should be getting hazard pay. Pauly was just the kind of guy who didn’t spend a lot of time idling in neutral.
Pauly really liked to get a head start on the weekend. He’d come in on a Thursday—that was ladies’ night. He’d pick up some friends, sometimes up to forty people, which included more than a few beautiful women, and he’d be up until four in the morning, traveling from Fort Lauderdale to their docks. He’d bring on a bunch of his friends, then motor over to the Diplomat Hotel, dock the boat, and invite a ton of people from the hotel over to come join the party. Once, he’d brought in so many people that the boat literally started listing to one side at the dock. I had to kick some people off, just so the boat would level out. That would be a tough one to put on the résumé—being the captain of a boat that sunk while tied to the dock!
Then we’d go out for a cruise, and it would be a challenge. The music would be blaring, there’d be tons of people milling around, and parties were something that worked better at night, so I’d be driving blind, moving around in pitch black, running the boat entirely by instruments, just trying to get everyone from point A to point B safely.
On more than one occasion, I’d be there with Pauly, watching the sun come up. Four hours later, he’d have some rest while I took the boat back to our docks in Lauderdale, and then he’d be raring to do it all over again. So, we’d head down to Miami Beach and party on South Beach until the wee small hours of the morning. Pauly would head to his cabin to recharge, and I’d take the boat back to our dock. Saturday night, we’d head over to Riverwalk, have some fun. Sunday was a recovery day. We’d just take a nice easy cruise, since everyone was pretty spent from burning the candle at both ends.
Come Monday, Pauly would jump on his jet and head back to Atlanta. You might think that this would be my time to finally recover a bit myself. That would be my weekend, right? But there just wasn’t any time, because I only had basically Tuesday and Wednesday to get the boat cleaned up and our stores replenished before Pauly came back down on Thursday to start it up again. Week after week, like clockwork! For months on end. Finally, after about three months of this, of nonstop partying followed by nonstop prep followed by more partying, I had to have a come-to-Jesus talk.
“Pauly, I have to talk to you about something.”
“What’s up?”
“We can’t keep running this hard. We go like madmen for four days straight, then I take two days to clean and fix everything that gets pulled apart, then we start it all over again.”
“
But everyone seems to be having a good time,” he said.
“No one’s saying they’re not. But the crew just can’t take it. You’re burning them out. Pretty soon, we’re going to start losing people. Good people. They’ll sign on somewhere else for better hours and the same pay.”
“So, what do you think I should do? Pay them more?”
“It’s not about the money. But it’s like lifting. You can’t move a quarter ton of iron every day and do the same thing the next day. You need to put a rest day in there. And the same goes for the crew. We can do this, but it needs to be every other week, at the most.”
“It’s my boat.”
“And I’m just trying to tell you how to make your boat work the best way.”
He agreed. He didn’t fire me or tell me, “My way or the highway.” He knew I wasn’t soft, knew I wasn’t asking him just to make a power play. He treated me like a professional, and we scaled things back.
This isn’t to say that he couldn’t fly off the handle every now and then.
Once, we were in the middle of one of our recovery cycles. Me and the stew were loading up supplies, and Pauly arrived early and wanted to take a shower on the boat. But we hadn’t finished replenishing our stores, and one of the things we were low on was fresh water for the showers and the taps. We were close to being dry as a bone, which was one of the reasons we’d brought the party to a close.
He rang me up on my cell. “Lee, I’m in the middle of my shower, but there’s no more water!”
“Relax, Pauly. Nothing’s broken. We just need to refill the water tanks. I’ll be back to the docks in five minutes and get everything squared away. Just relax.”
Relaxing just wasn’t the way Pauly liked to have fun. He had to be in constant motion, even if he wasn’t entirely sure what he was doing.
Filling up the boat’s water supplies wasn’t a complicated operation. You just had to go to the dock, grab the hose, stick it in the fill tank, and fill it up. But since Pauly had showed up early, and unannounced, I had no idea that I’d need to have the boat ready for him. He didn’t want to wait for me to finish the supply run and figured that he’d be able to fill those water tanks by himself. He was right that he knew where the hose was to the fresh water, and he knew the water tanks were in the back of the boat. But he wasn’t quite so on-the-mark about where to fill it. He found an opening about the right size for a hose, opened it up, the hose fit in pretty well, and he started filling it. But the thing is, there’s lots of things that go into a boat using a hose.
And one of them is fuel.
He stuck the hose in and filled the not-quite-empty fuel tanks full of water.
Not a good move.
The boat wasn’t made with some kind of automatic shutoff when water gets pumped into the fuel tanks. So, when he started pumping, the water just filled up and eventually overflowed.
When I came back, I knew immediately that something was wrong.
“What’s that fuel smell?” I asked the stew. She shook her head. It didn’t take long to find the answer.
There was fuel all over the decks, just a huge mess. I found Pauly pretty quick, and we diagnosed the problem in two seconds.
“When can we head out?” he asked.
“Pauly, this boat ain’t going anywhere. I got to get the deck cleaned up, I got to pump out all the fuel tanks and get them polished. Then we have to get it refueled.”
“How long’s that going to take? An hour?”
“Pauly, your lack of patience just killed the entire weekend. Don’t stay here. Get a hotel room in town. It’s going to take a while to clean up this mess.”
Pauly had fucked up. But he knew that he had fucked up. The lost fuel and the cleanup ended up costing him about $8,000. And that’s not $8,000 he was spending on a nice watch or a couple of slick suits or a first-class flight to Rome. This was an $8,000 fuckup that didn’t buy any fun.
But the thing was, he didn’t fly off the handle. He didn’t blame me for not anticipating that he’d arrive early or blow his stack that I hadn’t taught him how to fill up the water tanks properly. He didn’t fire me because he’d cost himself 8K on my watch. He knew he’d screwed up, he didn’t blame anybody else, and he moved on. It was a bitter pill to swallow, but he was a stand-up guy. Sure, he made some extra work for all of us, but that’s the nature of the beast. Everyone makes mistakes, but very few will own them. Got to give credit where it’s due.
Later, Pauly added a 90-foot Johnson to his fleet. Guys who buy yachts only move up in size. They almost never make a lateral move or downsize. If they’re going to make a change, it’s going to be bigger. We had the boat shipped over to California. I had to go out and pick it up, then we had to break it in after we had it shipped to Florida from Ensenada, Mexico. People think that getting something new is the best way to get something, but there’s a lot of advantage in acquiring something used. If a boat, or a house, or anything of value, has been used for a few years, you know it’s not going to crap out on you. If you get something new, there’s a host of problems that could come up right out of the gate. For a boat, you have to break in the engine, you have to make sure you don’t have any leaks, you have to check that all the electrical components work, all the plumbing works. Hell, you have to make sure the humidity doesn’t make wooden doors swell so they don’t close right. Lots can go wrong during that break-in period.
And it did.
The manufacturer had installed the wrong-sized O-rings on the oil plugs for the mains. The O-rings are pretty small, but on a boat that size, for the amount of money it cost, it was an important little detail. We were coming back from Key West, and it just blew the O-ring out, the thing just went, and we lost all the oil in the port main with the starboard one probably right behind it. The engine room was just covered in oil. The engine room, which had been brand new, pristine, spotless, so clean they should have offered it as a color at True Value, New Engine Room White, was just coated in black, nasty-ass diesel oil from top to bottom.
When something like that happens on a boat, you don’t just say, “Shit, something’s wrong, let’s hope it works itself out.” As soon as we lost the port main, the computers shut down the engine in under a second. Alarms started blaring, making it sound like World War III had been declared. I saw that the port engine was dead, so I went to the engine room to get an assessment, saw the whole area was totally wasted. Each main took 55 gallons of oil. Imagine 55 gallons of oil exploding in a 20-by-20-foot room.
I knew how much oil had escaped the portside main, so the first thing I did was shut down our bilges so we didn’t pump all the oil overboard. Then I had to satisfy the Coast Guard that we didn’t create an ecological disaster.
The Coast Guard is pretty concerned about any potential oil spills around the Keys. Damage those reefs, and they’ll put you so far away, they’ll have to pipe sunshine to your ass. And even though it’s never a picnic when you have to call the Coast Guard, things go a lot smoother when you call as soon as a problem happens, rather than wait for them to find you. Then they’re in a bad mood, and you’re the reason for it.
There’s a lot you have to ascertain. What killed our engine? We had to make sure we didn’t hit anything, didn’t have any hull breaches, weren’t taking on any water, that we weren’t pumping any oil out, that everything was good on the starboard engine. Then I had to give the bad news to the owner.
“Pauly, we may have just puked the main.”
“Shit,” he said. It was just one word, but it was entirely on the money. Those mains were about 250K a piece. And that’s plucking one off the factory floor. Doesn’t count parts, labor, and installation. And installation of those things was a bitch. You had to cut a hole into the side of the ship just to get one of those in there. Then you had to patch the hole, which meant ripping out all the piping, all the plumbing, all the electrical, and then putting it all back in there. Even if the manufacturer was going to have to eat that cost for their fuckup, it was going to be a
hefty bill, and it was going to require a hell of a lot of work to un-fuck.
One main was down, though the generators were still running, so we had A/C and lights. The port engine was just dead, so we had to try to make way on the starboard engine, getting us maybe 7 or 8 knots. You couldn’t even go into the engine room, with all the oil still dripping down from the ceiling.
“How long will it take to get back?” Pauly asked.
“At this speed? You might want to get a sandwich from the galley, since it’s going to be a while.”
“But it doesn’t have to.”
Pauly, like most of us, didn’t want to hang around while we limped into port for repairs. But, unlike most of us, he has a big checkbook and a lot of pull. I called a friend to come pick him and his guests up, and he got to zip out of there and back home.
That left me alone with the crew, going upriver on one main, which wasn’t easy. The river was very narrow, with a lot of intricate passageways, the kind of place you really want to have all your power and maneuverability. Anything over a hundred feet I’d prefer to get towed up with tugs. Under a hundred, I’d drive it myself. It wasn’t as though you couldn’t drive the larger yachts up the river, it was out of concern for the recreational boaters if they didn’t have their radios on, or weren’t paying attention, they’d miss the fact that you were bringing a monster up the river and they had better stay clear. With tugs, they have more control over your boat and they also assume responsibility for it. If I screw up, the owner pays; if the tugs make a mistake, they pay. On big boats, it just makes sense to have that cheap insurance against the what-ifs. At any rate we made it in, eventually.
