A STEADFAST LIFE Part II of III
From Her Point of View
In June of 1934 a strong character and his beautiful companion looked at the Playmate Motorboat in the construction bay next to me at Wheeler Shipyard in Brooklyn, New York. Mr. Hemingway, they called him, was a avid fisherman and needed a vessel to take him across the Gulf Stream between Key West, Florida and Havana, Cuba. I was half completed when they gilded her transom with the now-famous name PILAR. I bet she’s got some stories to tell! Whew. I’ve become rather fond of brushing with fame; my shelves now hold his books.
Somehow, when wooden yachts are built, our souls develop far prior to launch, prior to completion, probably because there are so many intricate, interdependent layers. I can only speak for myself, and if you’ve been on a classic wooden boat, you probably understand. My wild-haired caretaker tried to explain it here:
Week after week, month after month, dedicated men spent hours of both back-breaking exterior and meticulous interior work to make me balanced, buoyant and strong as well as what they called ‘well-appointed’. I never really did understand that particular terminology, but I think it meant all the fancy wood and shiny bronze along with lace curtains, cabinets, bunks and lighting. I always thought the lace curtains were a bit much.
Before my build began, I had been commissioned (pre-ordered) by a prominent resident of Brooklyn, New York who decided on the name RESTLESS. Even though it was the Great Depression the wealthy still came and went as they pleased, I guess. Stuyvesant Fish was the descendant of a war hero turned businessman and reportedly had long fingers in local and national governments as well as the railroad. According to American Aristocracy, the family showed me off all down Long Island Sound and in front of their impressive mansion in Newport, Rhode Island.
After World War II began and US vessels were being sunk offshore by largely undetectable German Submarines, I was called into service to patrol the coasts of Long Island and New Jersey. I cannot tell you how proud it made me to have a gun (yes! A big one, too!) mounted on my bow, doing my duty. Wish I had a photo of that gun. You can read more about The Hooligan's Navy in Christine Kling’s current project.
One enemy Sub (U-869) was sunk only sixty miles off the coast of New Jersey; history didn’t even know she was there until a couple of determined divers found her in 1991. Crazy stuff! That might have been me and my brave warriors down there in the belly of the deep but we got away pretty much unscathed. Interestingly, we ran into PILAR and Mr. Hemingway along with a few other famous patriots. I’m not sure how effective we were and it’s a little unclear who my crew actually was but I did get rid of my lace curtains, thank goodness.
In my late 20s I stayed in New York with a caretaker who renamed me ISHTAR. Those folks had a business building things out of a new product called plastic. They went ahead and replaced a tremendous amount of my original bronze parts(!) with that material including the vents and a lot of galley equipment. Innovations aren’t for everybody and none of those changes remain.
I remember being purchased in the mid-1950s because shortly thereafter we headed south (a very long way south) and I experienced the Caribbean for the first time. There was lots of warm, clear water and sunshine with a few surprisingly strong storms (with reversing winds!) but I was built to SPAR WITH MOTHER NATURE as a swordfishing boat.
They changed my name to SIXPENCE after a wedding charter; a whole lot of folks married on and consummated under my teak deck. Oh, the things I’ve seen. Some very sexy stuff. Anyway, a sixpence from that British wedding is tucked under the main mast. My current people added the traditional Silver Dollar with the year of my build, no small task and no small expense; a true friend found one in Vermont, of all places. We had the Mizzen mast out too, so we placed a 1934 half dollar underneath it in order to keep all of us safe. That maritime tradition is quite interesting and has been with humankind for millennium, to ensure one of two things: either safe passage or that the souls of the crew on unsafe passages are assured their place in the afterlife. Most Sailors prefer the former, as do I.
A bronze spicket for Captain John Mason’s favorite beverage, Cruzan Rum, was added to my helm (right?! fun folks!); I thought they were associated with the distillery somehow but that information can get lost. Details are a bit fuzzy as I get older; I’m ninety now, and time does go by faster and faster. The spigot itself is in a box with lots of other spare and original parts, somewhere in one of my lockers, along with a couple of extra anchors and who knows what else. The people who love me now just repaired that spigot hole, after all these years.
After the Masons had me for a couple of decades I was showing my age, to say the least, wood being the biodegradable resource that it is. I was lucky to have been saved by a resourceful, skin-diving boat-loving hippie and I’ll tell you all about those years next week. Thanks for your interest, I’m truly flattered! ~STEADFAST
~J
Feel like I am actually listening to "her" tell her beautiful story of her life and the hope you are giving her....
Appreciating learning more about you and your heritage, Steadfast. How 'bout that Hemingway connection!
We humans tend to stick with the names we are given at birth. More or less. It's complicated. But in at least one instance, the owner claimed the original name for himself and his future vessels. Once the renaming starts, I suppose it's all just a matter of preference rather than a preservation of history. Glad the lace curtains are gone, and the gun, too, though I'm sure both felt important at the time.
A rum spigot, eh? Now that's something!