June 2008

By Tom Snyder

Replacing William F. Buckley, Jr.America has recently lost one of its most famous sailors, William F. Buckley, Jr. Since I was a kid, I have heard stories of his extraordinary experiences on the water. This is the end of an era, which has led me to the following thought. After decades of the many blessings of an outspoken, extremist sailing conservative, don’t we deserve comparable time with an extreme, outspoken, sloppy liberal sailor? I would like to propose myself for this position, and if chosen I will not disappoint.

(Incidentally, for those of you who argue that WFB was not an extremist but a brilliant political thinker, I would agree about the brilliant part, but it’s only fair to mention his support of apartheid in South Africa, his advocacy of the nonprovision of U.S. voting rights to African-Americans, and his wacky, if not altogether good-hearted, notions about tattooing folks with AIDS.)

Anyhoo, I would love your support in my attempt to become America’s beloved sloppy liberal celebrity sailor. It is true that I have no celebrity, but I hope to more than make up for that on the sloppy end. My six-point platform is delineated below:

1. I propose an immediate end to the paternalistic and heavy-handed rules of the road. Far more important than further empowering the Coast Guard would be to give victims of near-collisions a sense of closure and a chance to share their feelings in a cooperative sort of go-round. Instead of promoting language of “burdened Vessels,” why can’t we just love one another?

2. Isn’t it time that we emerged from the Stone-Aged culture of sailing races that must always end with winners and the inevitable losers. Sailing in a race should be more about alternative “ways of knowing.” If some white man on a committee boat privileges one and only one boat as the winner, how is everyone else meant to feel about themselves? It’s time we took a page out of the book of progressive education and instituted the racing equivalent of invented spelling. There are no wrong answers. Why should one man’s hegemonic view of victory disempower another’s?

3. No one should have to pay for emergency towing charges. It is our natural right, owed to us by the government (“of the people, for the people“) for any citizen to purchase a boat, to sail anywhere he or she wishes, and to be given free passage (towage) should this citizen have understandably forgotten to consult a chart, a weather forecast, or the surrounding water. What if an economically disenfranchised person buys a 60-foot yacht, and then, through no fault of his or her own, runs out of fuel on the way to, say, Bermuda, and then can’t afford return towing? Do we leave him or her stranded? That’s not what we’re about. As Karl Marx said, although not in these exact words, “From each according to his or her ability, to each, free towing.”

4. We should immediately remove any reference aboard any boat to the “bow pulpit.” As everybody knows, the word “pulpit” comes from the Middle English, Anglo-French, and Latin pulpitum, a staging platform or high reading desk used in preaching. Since when does a sailor have to be a Christian? The last time I checked, sailing has no official religion. Imagine a Unitarian child on a boat, forced to endure references that only serve to highlight his or her difference. Pretty scary isn’t it? Well, not on my watch.

5. Until the French, all of Southeast Asia, and Canada agree that we are a marvelous county, we should not be required to fly the American flag on our boats. I’m not saying I am ashamed of the most incredible and successful political experiment the world has ever known, but we should all care when we hear that the French don’t love us.

6. Can we please stop, once and for all, referring to vessels as “she?” That is just so sexist and probably racist. Look, I’m not saying that the luscious curves of a well-built boat don’t call to mind an achingly erotic vision of a woman, but I think it is time to leave behind the phallo-centric longing, this almost sublime conjuring of the female form. By the way, I’m also not crazy about referring to a vessel as “he,” what with all of the power and privilege that implies. Let us in the future only refer to a boat by her name.

Tom Snyder sails Blue Moon out of Peaks Island, Maine.