Old Fat Ass

Old Fat Ass

Many years ago I was the proud owner and skipper of a thirty foot sailboat, fondly known as ‘Fat Ass’ in honor of her broad beam. She was an experimental racing sailboat built by a young company in New Jersey to test various racing hull configurations. I sailed her for years on Long Island Sound, an experience I never forgot.

When my son sailed with me, sleeker boats would race past us, their skippers appraising Fat Ass’s broad beam with pity. He’d let them get ahead, then close haul the sails, heeling over, and laughing he’d wave as we left the other boat tasting our wake. Fat Ass was a zaftig lady, but she could take almost anything with sails on the Sound. My favorite times were sailing single handed, sublime moments of freedom. I was alone, and able to think my own thoughts, the mistress of both the wind and the sea.

Starting off from the dock on the Housatonic River in Stratford, CT, the two-stroke putt-putt engine would loudly push Fat Ass to the entrance to the Sound. Once past the last buoy, I cut the engine before hoisting the sails.

Before the sails are hoisted, there is a magic moment of silence, no coughing putt-putt, just the gentle splash of water against a drifting hull.

Then the jib is hoisted and set to get most of the luff out, then back off slightly. Next, I check the tell-tales for wind direction, lean back and hoist the main. Once the top batten is level with the boom, quickly, before the wind catches, secure the main to its cleat. Trimming to get any luff out of the sails, both jib and main are ready to fill. Pushing the tiller to harness the full thrust of wind, a loud snap declares the main billowed and holding. The jib is next to be trimmed, no spinnaker when single handing. Fat Ass jumps, as if goosed by Poseidon’s watery hand, and leaps to speed.

The silence is gone, replaced by different symphony of sounds, the gentle tic-tap of halyards rapping their melody against the mast, the susurrus of wind sliding across canvas, seagulls overhead adding their chorus to water rushing by the hull, slapping waves to slice and die against slick fiberglass.

Looking up, the sky is clean, no smog in sight, only a cerulean blue, decorated by a child’s design, a leisurely sprawl of puffy white clouds.

Weekdays are my favorite time, when I can take a day off. The Sound is void of weekend partiers, normally just a commercial fishing boat or two in the far distance, a few local fisherman trolling Plum Gut, a narrow strait of violent rushing tides, the hump of Plum Island on one side, the end of Long Island on the other. I can sail around Race Rock, its dour lighthouse perched above treacherous rocks where the fishermen troll weekends.

Tacking back and forth between Connecticut and Long Island is a lazy sailor’s paradise, and I happily take the label as my own. As the wind slides across my shoulders and caresses my neck on its way, it takes the cares of the week with it. Gone are business decisions, meetings, negotiations, deals, employees, schedules and proposed trips. I am captain of my world, my hand firmly on the tiller. All decisions are mine to make, and damn the outcome.

The scent of salt water, tinged with fish, seaweed, and rot, blends with my own scent of suntan oil cooking against bronzed skin in the relentless rays of the sun, the wax I had applied to the deck for protection, the faint scent of my Merlot in a go-cup stashed in a cup holder near my side, the chemical odor of 3M Restorer I’d used to polish the cleats and railings, still redolent on my fingers. The scents of the sea, of pleasure, of another world, another life.

Wiping my hand across the go-cup, the slight tang of salt crystals I missed merge with the soft, velvet-mellow grapes of the Merlot. I don’t drink much when I sail, but I enjoy the sybaritic scent of the wine, and the flavor it leaves on my tongue and in my mouth.

Our movement slows slightly, the tension on the main sheet lessening. I notice a slight luff in the main, check the flutter of the tell-tales. The direction of the wind has changed.

”Ready about, hard a lee.” I say to myself and move the tiller to cross the bow through the wind. The rattle of halyards and flapping of canvas, the quick crack of the main sail as its boom speeds over my head, all announce the sail adjusting in the tack to regain the wind’s full power. The mainsail fills, I secure the main sheet, and Fat Ass smoothly lifts, heeling gracefully, and flies to speed.

I’ve released the jib from its original cleat and now pull the opposing sheet to fasten. The triangle billows out, another snap as the wind balloons it, and we are bow down and cutting through the swells.

Cold spray dots my face and arms.

My reverie breaks. Reality appears. I remember living those moments in my favorite fantasy — a dream of spending eternity in the embrace of Fat Ass, the wind kissing my face in its cooling abandon, the siren that is the sea filling my heart with her bliss as she empties my mind of life’s cares.

At the very least, in those moments, I found the taste of Paradise on earth. Memories I will never forget.