Look, I’m just here to help

August, 1999

By Tom Snyder

One of my greatest pleasures in boating is knowing that I bring something valuable and unique to the world of cruising. You see, I am an intellectual who has read everything available on the subject of the sea. And this past week, I was able to share my gifts with cruisers whom I met deep within the bosom of Casco Bay.

I was paying out anchor rode at the ratio of seven times depth (plus, of course, deck height off the water, which so many people choose to ignore at their own peril) when I was hailed by a nearby anchored boat. An elderly couple under a crimson bimini was apparently inviting me to dine with them. Within minutes, I was climbing aboard their gorgeous cutter and drinking their wine. I quickly learned that they had actually been just waving hello, but we agreed that since I was aboard, I might as well stay for dinner.

This couple (let’s call them the Harringtons) was exploring the coast of Maine with their 8-year-old grandson, who was below deck writing in his journal. Long story short, after dinner, when I was searching through their boat (let’s call it Winged Arrow) for a sweater, I realized that, contrary to maritime law, they had not posted a written trash plan. Knowing that I was dealing with a potentially explosive situation, my next steps were carefully chosen.

I coyly asked the Harringtons what I should do with the paper plate on which they had served my chicken. They proudly showed me a series of color-coded biodegradable trash bags hung inside the starboard lazarette. My plate, they explained, was to go into the bag marked “recyclable paper products.” All well and good, but I could play cat and mouse no longer. Where, I asked, was their written trash plan?

The Harringtons were stunned when I told them that I had no choice but to perform the functional maritime equivalent of a citizen’s arrest. Leaving them to their own recognizance in the cockpit, I went below to explain to their grandson (let’s call him Rusty) that his grandparents were very bad people and that I would have to take them away for a very long time. Rusty told me that I was an idiot, which I was prepared to ignore until I saw a corked message in a bottle, which Rusty admitted was to be thrown into the ocean within 2 miles of the shore! Now I had three volatile persons to deal with.

Because I have always had lower back issues, I made the difficult choice of asking the Harringtons to turn themselves in without me. I eased into my dinghy, pulled the ripcord, and due, perhaps, to the stress of the situation, I misjudged my course and/or speed, driving the metal prow of my dinghy into the side of Winged Arrow. (The pattern of tiny cracks that spread across her fiberglass hull was phenomenal.) Leaning over the rail, the Harringtons asked me if I was all right. I was about to tell them about my delicate lower back when I noticed that Winged Arrow was not hanging a large black anchor ball from a spreader despite a textbook daylight anchoring situation. I explained to them that I had thus been, metaphorically speaking, the stand-on vessel. Thus, their fault. They were speechless. In a moment of largess, I decided to forgive them this time with only a warning. They had enough to think about.

Look, most people can’t read every book ever written about sailing. But since I am lucky enough to have been born with an impressive, almost irritating capacity to know everything, the least I can do is give something back. So if you see me sailing your way, don’t be shy. I’m here to help.

Television producer Tom Snyder (“Dr. Katz”) lives in Cambridge, Mass. with his wife, Anne, and children. He sails his Island Packet 350, Blue Moon, out of Hingham, Mass. and Peaks Island, Maine.