This Side Up

Vagabond of the waves back in these parts

John Howell
Posted 5/19/15

The boat appeared Thursday. With its high freeboard and bubble-like cabin, it was instantly recognizable as a Columbia 26, which were built in the ’70s before it was understood fiberglass is a …

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This Side Up

Vagabond of the waves back in these parts

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The boat appeared Thursday. With its high freeboard and bubble-like cabin, it was instantly recognizable as a Columbia 26, which were built in the ’70s before it was understood fiberglass is a pretty durable material and you didn’t needs tons of it to make a seaworthy craft. In fact, it made for some relatively heavy boats. A Columbia 26 displaced 5,900 pounds when it came off the production line. The Columbia 26 is no longer made, but as a basis of comparison, a J-80 that is the same length is less than half that. Granted, there’s a big difference – the J is a race boat, and the Columbia was designed as a cruiser.

The Columbia has another distinguishing feature: a rounded, bubble-like bow that makes it look like it should be in a bathtub, not the open ocean.

This boat, however, was different. The bow had been altered. It was more traditional and, as I learned from its creator, “aerodynamic,” although I can’t believe she flies.

I wondered whose boat it might be. The mooring belongs to a neighbor, but they don’t have a Columbia.

That night I detected a glow, the kind of light that comes from those solar-powered lanterns used on garden paths. It didn’t seem strong enough to read by but bright enough, I suppose, to warn an approaching craft at night. Maybe someone was aboard. Friday morning the boat was still there, and I figured on my morning row I would check it out.

I didn’t reach the boat before spotting a man seated in a pram paddling toward shore. It was Captain Freddy, and he knew I would be out on the water before 6.

“Hey John,” he yelled, “how you been?”

I rowed over. He was older, but I’d recognize him anywhere. A cap was pulled down over his wavy hair. He wore blue jeans and heavy black boots that looked to be of military issue, and a faded blue and yellow lifejacket. He held a paddle made from a two-by-three and squares of plywood screwed to either end. The pram was small, not more than seven feet, and wedged between him and the stern was a five-gallon water jug and a smaller one-gallon plastic water bottle.

I knew he would be looking to fill the jugs, but his immediate concern was the mooring. Would he be all right staying there? Could he rent it for maybe a month while he worked on his son’s house?

“I tried to anchor. Must have caught seaweed, just dragged so I picked it up.”

Freddy first arrived in these parts about eight years ago. He owned another boat then, an Irwin that was about the same size. A bicycle was tied to the lifelines along with an assortment of laundry, water jugs, fishing gear and loose lines. As I was doing this past Thursday, I was on an early morning row when I spotted the cabin hatch open. I suspected someone was aboard.

“Anyone home?” I shouted.

Freddy’s head emerged from the hatch. “How’d you know my name?” he yelled back. I didn’t attempt answering. His story unfolded. This was not his first boat. The first was smaller and he had turned to the sea with his cat when things at home hadn’t worked out. He didn’t have sails, so he bought a couple of tarps at Job Lot and set off for Florida. Using the tarps, no engine, no sailing experience and no plan for when he got there, Freddy set sail. It took him months, but that really didn’t matter.

Since then, Freddy has drifted back this way on several occasions, so I was interested in catching up and learning of his latest escapades.

“Isn’t she beautiful?’ he said, gesturing toward the Columbia. “You know, she couldn’t cut through the waves, just came to a stop.”

I waited to get the story that I knew he was anxious to tell.

Freddy reconfigured the bow, extending it to create the angled entry replacing the Columbia’s once bulbous nose.

The job took gallons of resin that he acquired with his Social Security payments and the sale of a truck that, as he said, “put a lot of bennies [$100 bills with Ben Franklin] in his pocket.

Freddy loves fiberglass. On his last visit, he proudly pulled a tooth out of his mouth he had made from the plastic.

“She cuts through the water now.”

Freddy spent the winter on the boat at a Somerset boatyard. In exchange for dockage, he served as security. It wasn’t an easy winter for Freddy on the water. The blizzard battered his home at the dock, and soon everything iced over with the exception of a narrow perimeter around the hull that remained open from the warmth generated by two electric heaters aboard. Those waters were an oasis for ducks and other fowl that were frozen out of their habitats.

“The birds were starving,” he said.

Freddy couldn’t let that happen. Through an acquaintance at the yard, he connected with someone who had access to dated bread that would have otherwise been thrown out. This wasn’t just a few loaves, but carloads of bread. It wasn’t long before hundreds of birds were hunkered down, either sitting on the ice or floating in the water next to the boat. They would peck on the hull when they thought it was time for more bread.

“I don’t fight with my neighbors, I feed them,” he said.

Since the winter, Freddy has bounced around that bay. He spent a week or two off Fogland Point in the Sakonnet River, then with a jib only – he doesn’t own a main sail – he cruised over to Potters Cove on Prudence Island before taking a hitch down to Jamestown.

“Got a great deal on an engine…$200, starts right up, purrs. Know where I can find a prop?”

I couldn’t be any help, but I knew where he could fill the water jugs, get a cup of coffee and bagels. First, he wanted a lift to the convenience store. He came out with a single cigarette.

“Now I’m ready for that coffee,” he said.

We sat on the porch. I heard about his travels and we admired the transformation of an ugly boat into a thing of beauty to Freddy and his friends.

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