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 40-foot Elco power cruiser. Wind and wave were slowly but steadily pushing us towards the boulders. Ordinarily Al would have steered the boat clear of them. But right now he was unable to do it and, at least in Al's mind, it was very likely that soon the boat would be thrown onto the rocks and its hull broken open along with the skulls of its passengers. 

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 what I knew was 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 and that captain and passengers were now in mortal danger.

Fortunately, in addition to what I consider my most useful characteristic -- selective 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 one of the most impressive of the lot. The woodwork was in perfect condition, due to Al's upkeep of it and 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 small 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 first housing was another with a tiny hatch with a brass latch on it. Opening the second housing I found a tiller. I took it out. It was beautiful. "Mahogany?" I wondered to myself. The brass fittings were entrancing. After attaching it to the rudder rod to make sure of my impressions, I put the thing back and re-battened the cover. I continued to wander about until I heard the loud pop and Al's scream." 

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

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

"Go look," I muttered to myself. "Before I'd find it we'd all be dead or close to it."

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

As I steered the boat away from the pile of boulders towering above us and into their would-be accomplices, wind and wave, I thought of the many times people have nagged me about my habit of examining things with no motive but what many would call idle curiosity. "Curiosity killed the cat," has been barked at me more than once. On the other hand, one of my early mentors, a Catholic monk, encouraged my curiosity by telling me that a monk always strives to "know something about everything and everything about something." At any rate, nine lives were saved that day by what some have viewed as my vice of idle curiosity.