The Wimpification of Our Boatyards
As we speak, a national treasure is being destroyed before our yes. A great part of this country's maritime heritage -- old dirty boatyards are being cast aside for that which is trendy.
Take, for example, The Ramp in San Francisco -- this was one of California's grittiest, saltiest boatyards catering to working vessels of gnarly local fisherman and knowledgeable pleasure boatmen. I've been there. This was a real boatyard, a waterman's boatyard. What happened to it is almost too horrible to relay here. A perfectly good working boatyard has been turned into a ... a … DAMNED YUPPIE BOATYARD/CAFE! Imagine! A boatyard/cafe! Yes friends, The Ramp (a strong, simple name that came from the steep concrete launch ramp at the yard) has been bought out. It's now The San Francisco Boatyard. Yes friends, the day of the yuppie boatyard has arrived and yuppies will be descending on boatyards the way a horde of cockroaches would attack a scrap of moldy food left under the sink.
We all know that Californians are trendsetters and what happens here spreads to the rest of the country and, thereafter, the world. Yes, the yuppie cockroaches are coming to a boatyard near you (if they're not already there). This is a truly nefarious development for boatsmen who have known and loved boatyards all their lives and flags the end of boatyards as we know them and the beginning of the yupyard. To quote an article in the Western Boatman (February '89) about the transformation of The Ramp: "Every Sunday, for example, hordes of young San Franciscans swarm into the cafe's outdoor patio for eggs benedict and clarinet marmalade. Boat owners in the adjacent yard are adjunct listeners to the jazz concerts that are staged amid the clattering plates and chattering customers." EGGS BENEDICT? CLARINET MARMALADE? JAZZ CONCERTS? CLATTERING PLATES? CHATTERING CUSTOMERS? IN A BOATYARD?
Old Boatyards!
I love them with a passion. Old boatyards have a friendly feeling to them that's difficult to describe. There's something about the bottom paint-spattered dirt (real boatyards are never paved), the old sheds and the rickety docks that make one feel good. There are a few left in every boating town, but they're disappearing fast. Connecticut has a good number left as does Long Island, New York. The Lakes region has some good ones and there are a very few left in Florida. South Jersey probably has some of the best old yards in the country. These great yards are fast being replaced by wimpy places called "Boating Centers" with Butler buildings and dry stack storage and, yes, cafes.
Yuppies. God I hate them and all they stand for. "Yuppie", initially referred to young urban professionals -- in other words, young people with bucks. It was originally a complimentary term. Six or seven years ago, one could be proud to be a yuppie. Now, yuppieism has turned into a fanatic cult -- a cult with its own uniforms, language and rituals. Worse are yuppie imposters who can't really qualify as yups but do their best to act like them.
The original yuppies shun all the foolishness and are doing their own thing now. Today "yuppie" is an extremely derogatory term, one which I would think twice about applying to my worst enemy. Yuppies today are phony, pompous, back stabbers to whom "getting ahead" is paramount. They accumulate things just to have things -- not because they like them. Yuppies drive, no wear BMW's and Mercedes not because they appreciate their features but because they are part of the dress code. A car is like a pair of loafers or a jacket -- simply an accessory with a three-pointed star or kidney grilles for the express purpose of impressing other yups. They don't care, nor are they aware of, the car's great heritage or their handling and brakes. What's important is image.
Look at that picture! It really says it all. One glance tells exactly what kind of people these are: investment bankers, stock analysts, doctors and, yes, worst of all, lawyers. It's all there. The Topsiders and fake bomber jackets and imported sweaters and $85.00 haircuts and gold Rolexes and $300.00 sunglasses (with unnecessary straps around their necks). If you look closely, you can almost see “Calvin Klein" written all over their damn underpants. You know, when I was in the Merchant Marines I, too, wore underwear with a name on it. It was my name stenciled on the waistband. In those days, nobody would even dream of wearing underwear with another guy's name on it -- especially a guy like Calvin Klein! What's this world coming to?
To me, boatyards were always a kind of refuge from the world -- a not quite respectable place where one could go and become part of an underground fraternity that people on the outside didn't understand. They were places where, without feeling like a criminal, you could spit and do other bad things I can't even mention here. They were places to which you wouldn't take your mother.
They were places where guys could get together, scratch, belch, say rotten things, laugh and drink beer while they worked. A boatyard was a place where you could take a pee in the woodpile. No more. How could you with hundreds of sunglassed yuppo eyes staring at your every move. Besides, these yupyards have spotless his and hers bathrooms now. What these yuppies and yuppie imposters do, see, is descend on the cafe/boatyards on the weekends, stuff eggs benedict and quiche (we all know what kind of people eat quiche) into their manicured faces and watch guys working on boats.
Did you get that folks? They watch guys working on boats. Nearly everyone seats facing the boatyard like it's a damn stage show. I can just hear one of these phonies in his affected singsong voice say to his wife "Oh look dear -- there's a man actually painting a bottom! I often wondered how bottoms got painted. BOATYARDS HAVE BECOME A YUPPIE SPECTATOR SPORT. What's his world coming to? Maybe it's a commie plot. Boatyard soda machines which once dispensed bad stuff like high octane sodas -- tough drinks that rotted your teeth on contact -- will now dispense Perrier and Evian.
Boatyard marine stores are changing too. Now they sell stuff like drain plugs and bronze wool in designer packages. Anything liquid you buy like turpentine and thinner now has a foolish safety cap on it. Guys working in the yard wear safety glasses. Half the written stuff on anything you buy is a warning label. All of this comes to you courtesy of yuppie lawyers. Yuppiers browse through marine stores like they do Bloomingdales buying stuff like designer packaged bilge cleaner (real boatmen know you just simply dump some dishwashing liquid into the bilge to do the job).
What's Next?
A boatyard/cafe ... it boggles the mind. What the hell's coming next? An engine rebuild shop/health spa? A boat supply store/deli? A carpentry shop/Mrs. Field's Cookie store? The end of an era is here folks. My advice is to pee in the woodpile while you can.
(Reprinted with permission of Regina Fexas.)
If you would like to read more of Tom's pearls of wisdom, tune in next Friday -- "Fexas Friday."
Better yet, why not get a full dose of infectious Fexas whenever you need it -- and buy one of the volumes below. Better yet, why not buy all of them -- we call them the "Fexas Five." They will provide many evenings of fun reading (better than Netflix), and you'll make the widow Regina very happy knowing that Tom will live on with you the way most of us remember him.
Order 1, 2 or "The Fexas Five" --
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Tom Fexas (1941-2006) was one of the most influential yacht designers of the last quarter of the 20th century. With the narrow Wall Street commuters that were built in the 1920s and '30s always on the back of his mind, he wanted to design boats that were at once fast, comfortable, seaworthy and economical to operate. Over the years, he and his firm designed over 1,000 yachts for some of the most prestigious boat builders in the world, including Choey Lee, Palmer Johnson, Grand Banks, Mikelson Yachts, Burger, Abeking & Rasmussen and many others.
Even though toward the end of his career he only designed megayachts and superyachts, including the remarkably influential PJ "Time" in 1987, he is best remembered for his first major vessel in 1978 -- Midnight Lace -- which became a series of 44-52-footers. They were light, narrow, and fast with relatively small engines. He was also influential in the boating community because of the monthly column he wrote for Power and Motoryacht, which began in its very first issue in January 1985.