Cold souls among the jackstands
Issue 93 : Nov/Dec 2013
Winter has closed in. Boats are hauled out in northern climes. Their once-sweet lines are swaddled in shrink-wrap or tarps. The boatyard, which used to hum with activity, has gone quiet and lonesome . . . almost.
Snowflakes spin themselves into eddies among the jackstands and keel blocks. If the yard is inland, all the masts are down on trestles, looking forlorn. If the yard’s at the water’s edge, the wind is moaning through standing rigging and halyards are slapping. It’s strange. Halyard slap is a summer sound — a sound associated with sundowners and gas grills mounted on the stern rail. Your neighbors in an anchorage might not appreciate halyard slap in the middle of the night, but on the whole, it’s a warm and happy sound. Move the slapping of halyards into a boatyard in winter, though, and somehow the sound turns cold and sad. It’s all so lonely.
But wander around and you will find them: the boatyard ghosts. Like restless spirits of the dead, they never quite go away. As long as the weather isn’t downright extreme — and sometimes even then — you will hear one clanking and bumping around beneath a cockpit sole. Maybe you’ll even see one up on a stepladder doggedly fairing dings and dents out of a hull. Usually, it’s one sailor, all alone. You might find two in the same boatyard at the same time, but they don’t talk. Like old Ebenezer Scrooge, they are closed up “solitary as an oyster.” It’s tempting to think they must be haunting these desolate places as penance. Why else would they be out in the cold and the wet, tearing up their frostbitten knuckles, mining the gloomy bowels of lockers, and barking their shins on slippery bridge decks rendered even harder and more unyielding by the cold?
To the casual observer driving by, they look listless, shapeless, and lost — wretched shadows drifting among the hulls. But it isn’t so. They are surprisingly energetic, in obedience to the Law of the Boatyard in Winter: work hard, keep moving, or freeze. If they see you, these boatyard ghosts might tip you a perfunctory wave, but don’t expect much in the way of conversation. That’s just as well. All ghosts are reputed to mutter and gibber to themselves, but it’s best to let the wind carry their grumblings away. Some people think Halloween-type ghosts offer deep insights into hidden worlds. Maybe so, but anything a boatyard ghost says while struggling with stiff fingers and stiffer fittings is hardly insightful and probably should never find its way into print.
Besides, they just don’t have the time to be sociable. Days are short, winter clothing is bulky and awkward, fingers can tolerate the cold for only so long, and stuff must be done before spring returns. The boatyard ghosts are goaded and driven by demons of their own making. Work! Work! They have to finish whatever they’re doing before the weather warms up. After that, time spent in a boatyard is time wasted.
And so they’ll be out there, off and on, all winter, alone and cold. Boatyard ghosts might look like wisps or wraiths, but they’re as substantial and ordinary as can be. They hustle to keep warm. They’re self-absorbed because they’re in a hurry. And — depend on it — next season, we boatyard ghosts will be out on the water long before the rest of you slackers.
Robert Hlady has enjoyed a checkered career as a journalist, lawyer, and stay-at-home dad. He started out as a desert rat, but became a passionate sailor later in life. A member of the Beverly Yacht Club in Marion, Massachusetts, he single- hands a 1979 O’Day sloop on Buzzards Bay, races on other people’s boats, and will do just about anything to get out on salt water — including winter maintenance projects.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
