A tribute to Truman...and recollections of Florida's sailing past
By Gary Stephens
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As I passed through Fort Myers, FL, recentlyon a late-night trip back from Miami, the monotony of interstate driving let my mind wander back more than twenty years to earlier capers and encounters in the region of Caloosahatchee.
It was a blustery spring Saturday in 1978 when I first stepped aboard the sailing vessel TNT and met her inimitable skipper, Truman Morris. It was to be just a little club race, he said, around a couple of buoys a mile or two south of Sanibel. TNT was a yellow Irwin 38 that had seen many miles of ocean pass beneath her keel. So had Truman, for that matter, but it was less evident that first day. He brought such gusto and good humor to the outing that both vessel and master seemed ageless. We didn't win that day--I think we came in second--mainly because a jib sheet parted in mid-race. There we were with the 150 flapping like everything and Truman making gentle suggestions as to what corrective actions might be takenS That was just the first of many days on the water with Truman--upwind and down, spinnaker and non--doing the racing thing. I thought the whole thing was magic. Nothing like the power of a big sailboat in a breeze to clear your head, and nothing like winning a sailboat race outright to confirm your manhood, inherent smarts and whatever else was needing support. But losing could be tolerated too, mainly by indulging your built-in suspicion that the universe (and if not in its entirety, certainly the sailboat portion of it) was intrinsically unjust. Besides, look how many college degrees we have on board; no wonder we're slow--everybody has a separate opinion, and no one will take orders! But Truman's was a tolerant and indulgent style even though he hated to lose. That's why so many of us were able to cut our teeth on the backstays of Truman's vessels and go on to crew or captain other ships. Lawyers, accountants, bankers and dentists all took a turn sheeting in the jib or hoisting the spinnaker. What gave us a common identity and a basis for treating each other cordially was that we were all Truman's guests and that we had all bumped into, done business with, or more likely been befriended, if not outright adopted, by the Irish captain with the twinkle. Having this bond made the sailing a richer experience over time as we became acquainted with Truman, the boat, the bay, and each other. Which is not to say that we didn't recognize talent when we saw it. We were especially happy when circumstances--like Truman's buying a new number one--would throw a sailmaker or one of his lithe young associates into our midst. These teenagers, who knew more about sailing than we knew about law or medicine, would glide effortlessly about the deck with the eyes of craftsmen--adjusting, tweaking, and making sure everything was in working order before it actually had to work. It broke all the laws of seniority and orderly progression for these child-men to move so nimbly among us, working wonders without benefit of degree or certificate. They would call a layline or sniff out a wind shift while we were settling into a cold one. Stay down, Truman, they'd say, stay down. And when we managed ourselves to change a sail, gibe a chute or perform some other hotshot task without falling down or screwing up, the satisfaction was that much greater. Wanting to have it all--good friends, good company, good sailors--is what keeps bringing us back to the dock. The venue for most of Truman's sailing was the nearshore waters from Naples to Tampa Bay although he was fond of the offshore jaunts to Isla Mujeres or Montego Bay. But when Truman travelled, he always made friends doing it. I found him going around the dock one day raising money to send to the yacht club at Isla Mujeres so they could rebuild their storm-ravaged dock and clubhouse. And he was so welcomed in Cuba--when poor Hooligan wandered onto a reef--that he and his party were given an official escort all the way to Havana. Indeed, Truman never met a stranger. I remember participating in the ill-fated Passport Race, a 350-mile trek across the Gulf of Mexico early one scorching summer. The Scotch-sponsored inspiration for the race apparently sprang from the cutesy combination of Pass-A-Grille, FL, and Gulfport, MS--hence Passport. The only problems with the race (which proved fatal for the race but not necessarily for its participants) were that winds were fluky at best, and no one wanted to end up in Gulfport, MS during a June heat wave. But that's exactly what happened to us.  Despite Truman's wisdom in keeping the big, green bimini fully deployed, it took us three days of tacking, bobbing and weaving. We had time to adopt a weary cattle egret, who had taken a wrong turn somewhere, before deciding to homestead the Hooligan to get to Gulfport. |
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 Truman Morris I am sure Truman also remembers the return trip back across the Gulf for the permanent mark it was to leave upon his person. Sometime during the second day of sweating and working and trying to stay out of the sun, we decided it was time to freshen up. Normally this could be done one at a time in the cockpit or by standing beneath that dangling shower bladder contraption up by the mast. Strip down, soap down, wash down. Not pretty; just effective. But we needed a volume bathing operation before we could contemplate a meal together or resume our homeward journey. The Hooligan's engine went to idle, then to off, and after endless coasting the sleek Morgan-designed hull finally showed no perceptible movement through the clear blue, bottomless waters of this mid-gulf oasis. The ladder went over the side as Joy-laced bodies hurdled the lifelines toward a refreshing splash. Most of the gang was already doing backstrokes or shallow dives to inspect the keel before I cannonballed my way overboard. Even Truman was working his way down the ladder for a dip. But the party was almost over before it got started. Downward visibility, except where the dish soap generously applied to hot, sweaty bodies made bubbly clouds in the water, was virtually unlimited. On my one and only eyes-open flip, I was able to spot dorsal fins and the menacing movements of the big S-word creatures circling a hundred feet below us. If this had been the Discovery show on PBS, I might have tarried to take some notes on their feeding habits, but my immediate desire was simply to levitate myself back into the cockpit while encouraging my colleagues to follow my example. I am HERE (in the water). Now I should like to be THERE (on the boat). Seemed simple enough in concept, but it didn't work. The only other chance was the ladder, which, unfortunately, still had Truman holding to its bottom rung with one hand, Joy soap bottle in the other. No problem, just turn Truman toward the boat, create artificial steps and footholds up his back, and proceed on deck as normal. Elapsed time to cockpit: 1.4 seconds. The others--Truman included--somehow made it aboard without any evidence of the violent and bloody dismemberment I had sensed was inevitable. Guess our number just wasn't up. But I don't look back on these thingsSI had done what I felt was the right thing at the time. And the emergency rungs, which I had installed temporarily up Truman's back, are mostly gone unless you get the angle and the light just right. Then you can still see the faint outline of the footprints that were left from that brief pit stop on the way back from Gulfport. Most of our sailing was done in and out of Tampa Bay, which still hosted the SORC and a versatile, all-around racing program. If you won in Tampa Bay, whether it was the Boca Grande race, the Kahlua Cup, or just around Egmont Key, you knew you had done it against good competition. Not only were the locals very good, but you might also have a chance to sail against the Big Boys, who would start showing up in January and February as their grand prix boats were ferried around the Keys or off-loaded from humongous trucks as support vehicles (I have always wanted a van with my boat name on the side), and technicians stood around waiting to do their thing. Most of these people, mind you, flew in from places where snow and ice covered the ground. For us, it was good to mingle with the sailing legends and wanna-bes. It gave us something extra to look forward to on the drive down. Ted Turner, Lowell North, Ann Gardner, Truman Morris--whoever. I remember one SORC tune-up race out of Clearwater when TNT, with several Tallahassee pals of mine aboard, rounded a leeward mark with Invader, Myton Ireland's Frers 45, and Williwaw, with Dennis Conner and some guy named Cronkite, calling for buoy room. Go ahead, Truman chided, just don't take more than you need... |
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