Tales from the CDCR: 1) Prologue . . . .

[Charles Brennan]

Oklahoma City, December, 1954

A young woman and her 4 year old son, walk past a department store, while doing Christmas shopping.
The small boy spies two model toy sailboats approximately 2 or 3 feet in length, in the store window Christmas display.
"WHAT are those?!?"    asked the small boy.
"WHAT" was the mother's second-most dreaded question from her precocious son; the first and more frequent one, being: WHY?
(She had a Hard Life, dealing with that boy.) 
"Those are sailboats." She replied, while bracing herself for the next obvious question.
"Can we get one? They're PRETTY!" 
"NO! We have no place to sail one!    And this is Oklahoma!!  The most water you've ever seen, was in  a GLASS!"
While undeterred, the boy knew even at that tender age, he was close to the "line" with his mother and said nothing more.
He even went along with his mother's efforts to distract him with some Hershey's kisses.
The desire for a boat like the ones in the window, never went away.
Kindly remember that, the next time you tell a small child: No.

Everyone thinks that small children are somehow an un-formed adult, like the pupae stage of an insect, or something.
Not so.
There is an adult ego inside that tiny little body, with all the desires and passions of any other adult.
They just don't have the physical size to enforce their own will, nor the judgement and self-actualization that will come in time, from experience.
And size.

Seventy years ago, and the boats are still just as vivid to me, as that blinding first impression.
The boat on the left side (apparently depicting a race between the two sailboats) was a sloop rig with a navy blue hull, red bottom paint, a fin keel, a gold boot stripe and a bright red sheer stripe, brown varnished decks and a fair amount of overhang, both fore and aft.
The boat on the right was a cutter, gaff-rigged, with self-tending club-foot jibs, with a full keel, a black hull, red bottom paint and a gold boot and sheer stripe, brown varnished decks and a more bluff bow under the bowsprit.
Both had self-tending jibs and the main sheets cross-connected to the tillers with kite string and marionette joint pins all over the deck, so that the boats could really be sailed in a pond.
If a pond could have been found.
I didn't know what any of those characteristics or labels were back then, but the mental visual image of those model boats on that day was that striking and still with me, to this very day.

A little over a dozen years later, that small boy was sailing on a self-refurbished Sailfish, a plywood pre-cursor to the venerable Sunfish.
Another dozen years and the now-married family man was sailing his family around on a 1977 Windrose, manufactured by Laguna Yachts, in California.
It had an overhang strongly reminiscent of the boats of his dreams and the same kind of Champagne glass stern and he loved her lines, every time he laid eyes on them.
Something else from that day that never went away, were the pictures on the boxes positioned behind the toys, and clearly depicting a race.
So sailing in the Columbus Day Cruising Regatta was an absolute must.
Growing up in south Florida from about age 6 on, I had seen on several occasions, Biscayne Bay completely covered by sails, all over the Bay.
I had visited Elliott Key in south Biscayne Bay on a friend's Dad's Cabin Cruiser, on a CDCR weekend.
Back then, it was a two day race: Dinner Key to near Black Ledge Reef at the south end, over-nighting near Elliott Key, then racing back on Sunday.
With hard partying overnight.
The evening television news stations on Saturday nights had coverage of the race; the Miami Herald published Saturday race results and even delivered courtesy copies via Boston Whaler on Sunday mornings, to the boats anchored in and around Elliott Key.

About the hard partying:
Wasn't there that night, or any of the other nights,  but one of the long-time CDCR regulars who favored Speedo bathing suits used to walk up to campers on Elliott Key, approach their campfires and innocently ask:
"May I use your campfire for a moment?" 
And before the confused camper could reply, he would throw down a string of firecrackers onto the fire, peel off the Speedos and do the Naked Firecracker Dance all around the campfire, then run off into the woods, cackling hysterically.   
Scenes like that, never quite made it into the Miami Herald's CDCR coverage.

Or the rafters.
Big 50-footers would have progressively smaller boaters tie off to each side of them and there would frequently be rafts of boats a dozen wide, or more.
Relying on the big boat's big anchor, the smaller boats alongside would indulge in "Spinny-dipping" from their sterns.
The idea was you got some scantily-clad and unsuspecting lass to ride on the two lines on a spinnaker tied to a bosun's seat and when a good breeze came along, the girl would be lifted high into the air.
Sometimes she would be cajoled into dropping the bathing suit and riding the spinnaker, "spinny-dipping" completely safely, in the darkness.
And as soon as the girl acquiesced and when she was at the most height above the water, spotlights from all the boats alongside, would suddenly light up, all at once.
The girl's only escape, was to drop into the water.
This was hilariously funny to guys who had been drinking all night.

One year, I observed someone from one of the other boats projecting movies onto the mainsail of the big boat in the middle.
After a few home-recorded sailing films, they switched suddenly to an X-Rated movie; apparently depicting five people in love.
I must say, boobs the size of a Volkswagen, are a Startling Sight.   
The projectionist's Coral Reef Yacht Club membership, was revoked after that incident.

So all the spectacle and lore surrounding the CDCR made me want to be a part of that world; all the while mentally envisioning that four year-old boy's vision of racing aboard that sloop and showing that Gaffer, what for! 

Charles Brennan

[Riley Smith]

Two sailboats are a rare occasion here, but when we first got married almost 50 years ago, we went to Maryland on vacation. My first sight of Chesapeake Bay was THOUSANDS of white sails. A breathtaking sight.

[rfrance0718]

Great narrative Charles.

[Doug SC]

Charles, have you ever considered compiling your sailing stories into a book?

[Charles Brennan]

Doug, I get that query every now and again and being a Pragmatic Realist, usually dismiss it out of hand or joke about it, but I decided you deserved a serious answer.

Market Share:
I cringe at the thought of approaching a book publisher and confidently proclaiming a devoted audience of at least 10 people.  For a subject that less than 1% of the population even knows about, much less cares about; yeah, that's a real NYT Best Seller, for sure.
Always sounded to me, like the ultimate Vanity Publishing Project.
Then there's the tough publishing market question:
"Have any of these stories in your book, ever been published before on the Internet, or anywhere else?"
Nobody wants to buy a re-run.

Writing Style:
Honed over a couple dozen years, for the vagaries of the Internet to better communicate my thoughts to other sailors nonetheless, it is too full of Improper Capitalization, run-on sentences, improper paragraph spacing, excessive use of commas and sloppy grammar.
I'm sure it would give most any editor, screaming fits. 
Especially, with the ironic result that a lot of the "feel" of my writing style, would then be diluted.
e.e. cummings got away with playing around with punctuation, spelling, form, and syntax, but I probably couldn't.

Absolute Certainty of the Future:
1) My 5th grade Science Fair Project was an Analog Computer (won for my school, BTW) and one of the judges asked me what I thought of the new digital computers just now coming out, like ENIAC and UNIVAC and a major new one proposed by IBM.
Told the judge with all the confidence of any small boy: "Nah, those things will never catch on, far too complicated to be reliable."

2) 2 dozen years later, on a construction site in the architect's office, looking at a diorama of a proposed development in northern Miami-Dade County, showing a new causeway going across the Intra Coastal Waterway.  "They'll NEVER get that thing built!! No way it can pass the Coast Guard environmental impact requirements!  And we already have a causeway at Sunny Isles, 2 miles to the south and a causeway in Hallandale Beach, 2 miles to the north!  What do we need with one in the middle?"
Yeah, it's now called the Wm. Lehman Causeway and I drove over it less than 10 years after making that confident prediction.

So if I tell you, there is no possibility of such a project ever becoming a success, brother, you can take it to the bank!!      

My Dad once told me, while I was basking in the glow of effusive praise after our rock band had just played for a charity event: "Nobody ever knocks a Free Band."
He had a point: It was far harder to get paying gigs, than it was to get free gigs.
So I ask you: Would you pay $29.99 at a Barnes & Noble, or $17.99 at a Sam's Club, or $9.99 for an Amazon download for my book, or would you rather spend the money on some boat stuff?
I know what my answer is, so I can hardly fault you, for yours.

Another Confession:
Sometimes, people compliment me and sometimes, people criticize me.
No matter which they do, I always do the same thing:
I consider the source.
(What a B@stard, Right?!?) 
Nope, just a hard-nosed, realistic, pragmatist, who sees the world as it is, not how he would wish it to be.

I appreciate the gracious compliments, but I'm more than content to write just for the few (and ever fewer, each year!)  friends and readers, on the TSBB.
I would refer you to the song: "Mr. Tanner" by Harry Chapin, if you want a more definitive answer as to how I feel.

Hope this clarifies,
Charles Brennan

[Doug SC]

I'll bet you have been right more times than wrong, but as you said you can be wrong. my wife loves going to Story Telling gatherings. What seems to make the stories all relatable is they are about the human condition. Fallibility plays a big role in many. It's not the sailing that makes your stories so relatable. Also, your humor reminds me of the ""successful" writer Pattrick McManus. Perhaps an autobiography would broaden the market potential. Anyway, I am glad to get to read your writing and if a cockroach can successfully publish, I think you might stand a chance.

[Noemi - Ensenada 20]

Charles, you're right that you will probably never take these tales to the top of the book lists.  But you might talk to Jim B. about publishing for a small audience.  I thoroughly enjoyed his book, Cat On a Leash.