Idle Curiosity Saves Nine Lives

There are few rocks in the Chesapeake Bay, at least in the northern part. But just south of Annapolis, at the mouth of the South River, sits Thomas Point Lighthouse on a huge pile of granite boulders, towards which we were headed. It was Al Riggs, the owner of our boat, who was at the helm of it, a 36-foot Elco power cruiser. The wind was not strong, but it was steadily pushing us into the rocks. Ordinarily Al would have steered the boat clear of them. But he was unable to steer the boat. 

At that time of my life, the skill saws I used working as a carpenter had not yet damaged my hearing, and I was the first to hear the pop of the cable which connected the wheel to the rudder of the boat. Immediately after the pop came Al's voice. "Fuck! She won't answer!" meaning that the wheel was now no longer connected to the rudder.

Fortunately, in addition to perhaps my best characteristic -- laziness -- I am also gifted with idle curiosity. As we putt-putted out of the West River and then headed north -- with Al, myself, and seven others aboard -- I wandered around the boat examining whatever seemed interesting. The Elco boats are a kind of ancient tradition on the East Coast. Once a year many of them and their owners meet somewhere in New England waters for a weekend convention. The internet is still filled with pages about them. Find one here: https://classicyacht.org/research/classic-boat-builders-elco.

Al's boat was about 50 years old and made entirely of wood. I much prefer wooden boats to the plastic junk which now fills our rivers and bays, unless I have to do the upkeep, in which case I satisfy myself with the junk. Although I disliked the boat for its lack of stability (it was quite narrow and so was prone to rolling), it was very comfortable sitting at the dock on the West River where Al kept it. In that condition, the two of us spent many an evening in its main cabin sipping Al's Cointreau from pricey snifters and swapping tales of adventure. Though not yet 30, I had had many. Al had had many more, and I usually kept him doing most of the talking about his work as an Air Force Intelligence officer during WW II.

I had been on Al's boat in that capacity many times. This was the first time I had been on it while it was in putt-putt mode. It was also the first time I had been free to ramble about it with nothing to guide me but curiosity. From childhood, I had been exploring boats of all sorts and therefore knew much about them. Al's boat was a delight. The woodwork was in perfect condition, due not so much to Al's upkeep of it as to the quality of the wood and the working of it by its builders. 

There was very little metal in the boat and no plastic. All of the metal was brass, mostly in the form of screws and other devices for keeping the wooden structures together. The combination of the dense-textured, dark brown wood and the brass accompaniments was mesmerizing. After a half hour or so of my exploration, I noticed a little vertical housing towards the stern of the boat. On the top of it there was what at first glance seemed a brass cube about an inch on each edge. Looking more closely at it, I saw that the cube was the top of a rod. "That is about the rudder," I thought to myself and started looking for a tiller. Sure enough, next to the little vertical housing was a tiny hatch with a brass latch on it. Opening the housing I found a tiller. I took it out. It was beautiful. "Mahogany?" I wondered to myself. The brass fittings were entrancing. I put the thing back and re-battened the cover. I continued to wander about until I heard Al's scream of "She won't answer!"

To which my evil twin calmly answered, "Where's the emergency tiller?" 

"Emergency tiller? What's that?" responded Al. Then recovering himself he said, "Damned if I know! Do we have one? Go look."

In ten seconds I had the tiller in place and yelled, "Keep the boat going at about four knots. I'll do the rest."

As I carefully steered the boat in a curve away from the granite boulders, I thought of the many times people have nagged me about my habit of examining things with no particular idea of profiting from my examination. "Curiosity killed the cat," has been barked at me more than once. On the other hand, my novice director once told me that a monk should always strive to "know something about everything and everything about something." At any rate, there are a few people still alive today who perhaps wouldn't be except for what some have viewed as my vice of idle curiosity.