Sprit from Hell

To reset the scene, My yacht is resting on the hard, while a crew of painters work on the bottom paint and a crew varnishes the top sides. Sitting on four horses is my great log waiting to be fashioned into a beautiful new bow sprit when a message came to me that I received a wonderful three week charter in Turkey for top dollar! The problem was I had to be in Rhodes Greece to pick them him in 33 days. A quick calculation if I may. I had roughly 6000 nm to cover. My vessel covered approximately 350 nm in 24 hours making a straight trip 18 days. That is if everything including the weather was perfect. However, I would have to make a couple of stops. 2 days in Antigua to pick up my crew and supplies, 2 days in the Azores to resupply and rest, 2 days in Gibraltar at the mouth of the Med, then 2 days in Palermo Italy for fuel and supplies leaving me four days of leeway before the guests stepped on board to begin a three week cruising vacation. I'm tired just thinking about it! First I had to get the old bow sprit off the boat, fashion the new one then replace it and tune the rig! I had just three days to do it before the window closed and I would be late and anger the guests and the broker. Ouch!
This was a time before cellphones and the internet so we relied on a message board system. I called the crew agency in Antigua and had them post a notice for my crew that I would be arriving a couple days late but not to worry. I had also arranged for two new crew members/Charterers actually to join me on the crossing. I always booked a no frills adventure charter for sailors wishing to get a crossing under their belt so they could brag to their yacht club members that had crossed the Atlantic. They paid to be crew and were treated as such. The money covered my expenses for the crossing. Smart? Yes and no.
I employed a forklift to take down the old bow sprit. I idea was in spite of my extensive measurements I would have the original as a template to copy, but when the forklift went to turn the old bow sprit fell off nearly killing the bottom painters and shattered into three large pieces. All the king's men couldn't but this rotten stick together again! Undeterred and feeling reinforced in my decision to change the bow sprit, imagine if this broke in the middle of a storm in the Atlantic and my rig came tumbling down, I forged ahead still confident I could make my deadline.
With every bargain comes some kind of problem. Those of you that have worked with teak know it is a very hard and oily wood, but what I didn't know was green teak was nearly impossible to work. Armed with a chainsaw, circular saw, a full compliment of awls, scrappers, chisels, drills and 1.5 hp router I was impotent in the face of green teak! With the clock ticking and my window closing I cut, chipped, scrapped and cursed my way to fashioning a workable sprit for two and half days. I fore swore rum and lived on coffee, roti chicken, fried plantains and candy yams while I worked into the wee hours of the morning.
Finally on the third day, I had reassembled the bow sprit onto my yacht, even adding a couple of extra turns on the port spider stay to compensate for sun coming from the South as the next month sailing would be east and I didn't want the sprit to look south. Rushing around like a mad chicken, which I might add roam the shipyard with impunity, the lift dropped my baby into the water. It was time to leave Trinidad. I only wished I could have spent more leisure hours on the island. I thanked the guys in the shipyard, who were wonderful and set off for the fuel dock to top off with some cheap diesel fuel before making the run to Antigua, but the fuel dock was closed for repairs! I would make a quick stop in Grenada for fuel and be on my way!
Tomorrow White Squall and greasing the wheels.

Good Friday, or any Friday is a great time to tell a sailing story. Easter always marked the end of the Caribbean chartering season. The season runs from Thanksgiving to Easter. I was based for many years with my CT72 in the British Virgin Islands, I eventually moved to Saint Martin because of the incredible hassel from the US Coast Guard. (More on that in other posts.) After completing a mind boggling 12 to 15 week long charters, (More on chartering in other posts) it was time to prepare my yacht for the Atlantic crossing to Europe, sort of my vacation time since when I would arrive I would do the summer charter season in the Med, primarily Greece and Turkey. Although there are many fine fine shipyards (Tortola) and Chandeliers (Saint Maartin) and skilled craftsman in the Caribbean I was driven because of cost to curiosity to sail to Trinidad. Trinidad provided low cost labor, inexpensive parts and expert craftsman. I'm sure it has changed but a day laborer cost twenty dollars a day, a whole chicken 27 cents and a full glass of rum for the cost of a coke. However the year I'm thinking about I had a very good reason to go to Trinidad, Teak! For sometime I had been watching my bow sprit deterorate. On the CTs the bow sprit is a solid twenty feet long and a foot square. It is made of furniture grade Mahagony. It was painted so I couldn't see the extent of the dry rot. I checked the prices in Miami usually the cheapest place to buy lumber and discovered to my chagrin a piece of lumber that large would cost me $15,000 to buy and ship. Ouch! So after waving bye to my new best friends after giving them the vacation of their life and the scattering of most of my crew I set off for Trinidad with at least one loyal crew member. I always enjoyed the trip of roughly 550 nm. The boat was quiet. It is an easy reach. Set the sails turn on the autopilot and sit back and enjoy the journey. Usually I was under a bit of a time constraint so stopping was out of the question. If you want to have fun you need to get your work done first.

Being Easter, the shipyard wasn't fully staffed. I got the boat on the hard took a deep breath and caught a taxi to the Teak Mill in the mountains. I'll write more about Trinidad, but if you want a facinating and beautiful vacation don't hesitate. After about an hour ride into the mountains I came to the largest teak forest in the western hemisphere. With the blistering hot South American sun beating down I talked the forman into letting me buy my log. I searched through piles of cut logs and finally found the perfect one fro my bow sprit. We stepped behind a shack and began negotiations. It would be a cash transaction with the proceeds going into the forman's pocket. I was reminded this was illegal several times as he furitivily looked over his shoulder. He agreed to mill the log into a one foot square and arrange for a truck to bring it to the shipyard later that afternoon. The cost $600 dollars and $25 for shipping. Beautiful!

Tomorrow I'll continue with the story.