Captain WAYNE CHIMENTI is a Master Mariner, Rigger, Sailmaker and Educator with 34 years in sail training. Wayne has sailed on twenty different schooners and square-riggers throughout the world. He has seen a lot of blue water and visited far-flung lands. As a rigger, he has rigged six “Tall Ships” from the deck up. With his wife and daughter they run Force 10 Sails, a family sail loft that makes sails for traditional vessels. Now settled into Marrowstone Island on Puget Sound, Wayne coordinates the Community Boat Project a program of the Boat School which teams up local mentors with teens in free, accredited high school programs.
Wayne has a passion for story telling, and draws on his deep life experiences on the sea. He also writes poetry and is a working shantyman.
“Boats are Magic Carpets for the human imagination and spirit. It is my job to make sure everyone, who has the daring to dream and step aboard, gets a ride.”
Wayne has a passion for story telling, and draws on his deep life experiences on the sea. He also writes poetry and is a working shantyman.
“Boats are Magic Carpets for the human imagination and spirit. It is my job to make sure everyone, who has the daring to dream and step aboard, gets a ride.”
VIDEO
Video courtesy of Brad Wartman, 2018
WRITINGS
To Be a Fisher Poet
You don’t have to have
a college degree in English
from Berkeley.
You don’t have to rhyme
in impentanic meter.
Or count the syllables in a haiku.
You just need to be willing
to stand up
above the crowd
open your Carhart jacket
your flannel shirt
and fillet your heart on stage.
You don’t have to have
a college degree in English from Berkeley.
You don’t have to rhyme in impentanic meter.
You do need to listen
to your brother
or sister
Fisher folk.
Hear their agony.
Sense their fear.
Feel their loneliness.
Which isn’t so hard ……..really,
since you have been there yourself.
You don’t have to have
a college degree in English from Berkeley.
You don’t need to rhyme in impentanic meter.
You do have to listen.
You do need to stand up.
Stand up and applaud.
Applaud for all those meek voices
trying to be heard.
Applaud for all those terrible poems,
because you’ve heard the story behind them.
Applaud for the good, the bad, and the ugly poets,
for maybe, just maybe, this is their only day to shine.
No you don’t have to have a college degree
in English from Berkeley.
You don’t need to rhyme in impentanic meter.
You only need to listen.
You only need to stand up and applaud.
You only need to walk from bar to bar,
In Astoria,
In the rain,
In February.
-----------------------
Last Set in Astoria
The four of us were sittin’ around at the Tide’s Inn
long necks piling up,
shouting at each other to be heard above the din.
The Set Net poet had grabbed some greasy paper
from under the fries
started scribblin’ a bulkhead ballad
bulky carpenter’s pencil
tip sharpened by a knife
in his scarred , calloused hand.
“Damn, nothin’ rhymes with ‘broke,’” he mutters.
Yakatat Black Carhart poet retorts,
“What da ya mean?
What about ‘joke’?
What about ‘choke’?
You know ‘My life is a joke.
Feel like I’m gonna choke.
Wife sez, Ya big jamoke.’” He chortles.
Big Blonde X-tra Tuff poet scoffs,
“How many times do I have to tell ya,
It don’t have to rhyme.
It’s all about empathy and ironic juxtaposition.”
“No,” insists Set Net poet, “The good ones all rhyme.”
“Yah,” bellows in Yakatat Black Carhart poet, “And another thing; it’s got to make sense.”
Big Blonde waves ‘em off.
“Come on, schooner boy, we’re out of here.”
I follow her lead.
X-tra Tuff Tango to the door.
Through the fog,
in the black drizzle of a night,
we waltzed.
To the Columbia, the Voodoo Lounge, the Wet Dog.
Madmen raved about seasons gone bad,
killer weather,
lost kin.
Kids whined about hardships,
virgin seasons,
tough old men.
Some bars were a rowdy row.
Some … quiet as a church
And sometimes, in some places, folks were stopped dead,
mug of beer half-cocked
jaw dropped open
listening on a desperate phrase.
It was getting late.
We were at the Voodoo mike,
crowded and noisy.
Our backs against the wall.
Between acts.
When Big Blonde poet leans in close
against me.
Through the stale bar scent and smell of linseed oil stains,
a faint hint of perfume.
She whispers, in my ear softly.
“Would you bait….for me.”
“Would you slit bellies, spill guts, take of heads… for me.”
“Could you handle me being up top,
and you being aft.”
She eases back,
just a little.
And I look into those deep,
and for this instant
not so blurry pools.
She says, “Trouble with you rag boat guys is you smell more sweet pine tar
and high school kids cologne,
than blood.
“You don’t know the smell of blood
the feel of slime,
the look of death.”
And I knew it was over.
Dream gone.
Like last day of a bust season.
Hope
That elusive glimmer
that keeps us in the game.
Hope
No matter how ridiculous or fleeting for our desperate situation.
Hope gone, alas.
The last set of a weekend in Astoria.
-----------------------
The Worst Trip
Part II - the bad part May 13th – 20th, 1984
Lord Howe Island is a desolate place in the middle of a desolate sea. That is the Tasman Sea -1,500 miles of grey, stormy southern ocean that stretches between Australia and New Zealand.
We were in a sickenly rolly anchorage. The trip out from Sydney had been a bitch. Four days of pitch black, raining Southerly Buster. All of the “trainee” crew were sick in their bunks, so I stood my watches alone – steering four hours at a time through the muck. Then to top it all off we just missed getting run over by a Japanese trawler by 100 feet.
Though things had settled down, there was still a sloppy storm swell. All we wanted was a good night sleep in a quiet anchorage. But that was not to be had. So we dreamed of the next leg, bound north for the SE trades and legendary Norfolk Island.
I was on the Eye of the Wind a 140’ Brigantine, veteran of three circumnavigations. She was built for the Baltic Trade in 1911 of riveted iron. She was a solid, no-nonsense workhorse, now in the “Adventure Sail” business. Sail training, adventure, and vacation all rolled into three week trips. Needless to say, this had its pluses and minuses for us the professional crew.
We left Lord Howe Island after a four day visit. The conditions had finally settled down. We had a day of fine light winds sailing. The next day the wind veered easterly, right on the nose and piped up to 20 – 30 knots. This was rather odd since blows, like the one that gave us a spanking on the last leg, usually come up from the Southern Ocean with winds from the SW. Our latitude now was about 30* S, typical “Horse Latitudes” usually the light winds belt known for inconsistent westerlies. Further north we would find the South East Trades – as sweet as it gets.
Now, I’m a self-professed weather geek. I love listening to forecasts, looking at weather charts, studying systems, etc.. Our skipper Tiger Timbs was not. He was an experienced seaman through and through. He was the owner of the Eye and had rebuilt her from derelict. He had been aboard everyday of those three circumnavigations. We had an ancient SSB radio. Tiger almost never tuned up the forecast. His attitude, “We are a bluewater, ocean-going vessel. Who cares? There is nowhere to hide. It comes. You deal with it. Period.”
It blew all night. During Day Four the sky lowered, darkened, and the wind notched up to a steady 25 – 35 still out of the East. As I said – a very strange direction. We were hard on the wind beating into a building sea. Eye of the Wind was a “bluewater vessel”. She was built to handle gales and most anything the sea throws at you – almost anything. Our last 3 months we worked out of Tasmania, an island in the roaring 40’s. We knew bad weather. Bad weather had been just another day down there.
We struck all squares except for the lower topsail which rarely came in. Yet under the fore and aft rig we still weren’t making course. We were forced North. It was getting nasty.
Around dusk a squall came in blowing 35 plus. The Main Peak Halyard parted leaving the heavy, wooden gaff swinging wildly above us aloft. We called All-Hands – at least the few who were still able, which included the 3 mates, skipper, engineer, and a couple of the cooks. Tiger ran the boat off, to ease the motion and we wrestled down the sail and gaff.
That parting halyard was a blessing in disguise because a half hour later it was blowing 60. Thank God the main was down and the crew up. We turned to top strike the lower topsail, the last remaining square. Still running off Tim, the Aussie mate, and I scrambled aloft to stow the lower topsail and add extra gaskets all around.
By now, night was upon us. Picture us there. Blowing a steady 40 – 50, higher in the gusts. Rain flying sideways like darts. The screaming of the rigging. Picture us there; hanging on aloft with the boat rolling heavily. With our wet, cold hands; one minute we hung on for dear life, the next we scurried to pass gaskets. What was typically a pleasant 20 minute task became two hours of purgatory.
When we finally came down to deck, water was coming over the lee rail on the rolls. It was blacker than black. We made our way carefully back to the helm where the third mate was steering. Then Tim and I went down the hatch to the chartroom.
Tiger was tight-lipped and stern. His face was illuminated by the small red chart light. He was listening to the off shore weather – very unlike him. He was straining for every word that came out of the rusty old SSB radio. It spat and sputtered. It was barely recognizable, I couldn’t understand a thing. Finally it went staccato. Tiger reached up and turned it off.
“Cyclone out of Queensland. We’re on its leading edge. It’s tracking right on our course.”
The silence between us said it all.
Downunder they are called “Cyclones”. In the North Pacific – “Typhoons”. Stateside – “Hurricanes”. It is all the same – nature gone wild. Mayhem on the water. Howling winds, monstrous seas. Tops blow off waves. Rain like a fire hose. Wind and water blend. The interface of sea and sky gone – all just sideways water.
To make a course for Norfolk was hopeless, but neither did we want to run with it or we would be driven rapidly in the exact opposite way that we wanted to go. So we laided her to on a close reach under storm canvas. That way she took the seas on the front quarter for the least rolling and we were pointed as close as we reasonably could.
The Eye of the Wind had a big galley/salon deckhouse which on deck divided the vessel amidships. The afterdeck was raised. The lee side was a death zone of waves storming the rail. The weather side was screaming wind and spray. We gave up trying to get to our bunks in the focsle. I just wedged myself to rest in the Galley salon. Sleep was impossible, just lay down in your gear ready to go, a little respite from nature’s direct lashing. Working, moving, standing watch we did with glazed eyes. We became a ship of zombies. We dealt with loose anchors, sails come free, slapping booms, gear gone adrift, clogged pumps and filters.
That night was endless. In a night of wild scenes, this one for some reason sticks with me most vividly. I came up the stairway from a below deck check into the galley deckhouse. The cook, an older woman I’ll call Laurie was standing by the stove drinking gin and smoking a cigarette. She had the lee door open. Laurie had been with the ship since its rebuild. She considered herself an owner and the Captain wife – she was neither. The years of hard work and unrequited love had turned her jaded, sour, and an alcoholic.
“Laurie, close that damn door!” I said. As the waves rolled down the deck. Luckily a small storm board was bolted on the bottom.
“Oh its fine. I’ve seen worse. It’s too bloody stuff in here.” She retorted with a wave of her cig and a slight sneer.
As I was about to argue, the ship took a violent roll and a wave rolled into the deckhouse. The stairway looked like Niagara Falls. We had a rack of glasses on that wall. After the boat rolled back every glass was filled with seawater. I leapt over slammed the door closed and bolted it shut. Laurie was in a corner, her eyes wide-open. Her cigarette was out, dripping water. Even today I clearly see those glasses full of seawater. It was just not right.
The grey dawn felt like a miracle. At least we could see the beast. It was not pretty, but it was better than being knocked about in the dark. We had a reading barometer, the night line was a nosedive. But this morning, it was pumping up and down like a yo-yo. The wind was blowing trumpets out of the Easterly quarter.
Then in the early afternoon it stopped. Stopped dead. The sky cleared. The sun came out. The sea went from rolling mountains to confused, like being inside God’s washing machine. Seabirds wheeled overhead. It was bizarre.
“Well what do you know,” said Tim, “maybe it’s over”.
Then it dawned on us – all at once. The Eye. We were in the Eye of the Hurricane. We’d read about it in books. It was just like they described. Except you can’t really describe it – not that energy. It was spooky. It was surreal. It was hope and foreboding rolled into one.
We made tea and sipped it on the afterdeck – wild as the motion was. It wasn’t so much wild, more confused, confounding. You never knew what side you would be hit from. We sat there for a couple of hours.
Then we saw the wall. A wall of solid grey-black. Could there be so many shades of black. Occasionally lightening would scorch the wall. The wall was a high as space and as wide as forever. It was inescapable. Was there ever anything so ominous? It moved slowly and inevitably towards us.
It hit. Suddenly we entered the portal into another world. The wind flipped 180 and took up at something over 60 knots. The rain hammered down. It all started again.
But this time we ran. We set a new course for New Caledonia. Norfolk was long gone. And we ran. Oh how we ran. Now with all those big winds and seas behind us. It was the Devil’s roller coaster. Yet we felt the first bit of hope. We slid down those big waves, watching the broaching. Oh how we watched the broaching. We worked that wheel like banshees. We steered with full attention and as lively as if our life depended on it. And of course it did.
The three mates: Steve, a nerdy Englishman, skinny with thick, black frame glasses, who could quote sea fact and sea lore on any subject; Tim, the big Aussie seadog, good humored and fearless; and myself, the only Yank, schoonerboy wandering the South Pacific. We did our job. Whatever it took. Why didn’t we just crumble in the worst of it – who knows? No, it wasn’t courage. I won’t pretend that. But there was a grit, a determined grit, and maybe a little pride. See, we were squareriggermen – and a true sailor, always does his job.
Of course, the skipper was a rock. He was our foundation. Even Laurie did her job and more. Not only did she pull up what food she could, cooking being impossible, but she made regular rounds on the trainees, bringing fluids or ship biscuits if they could hold it down. We all kept them alive, in our own way.
The next day the sky cleared and we set some sail. The wind was about 45 knots. But the old girl took the lower tops’l, staysls, and reefed main. We tried the fore course, but it blew a seam immediately. God, she was game. She was as able a vessel as you’d ever want. I still love her today.
Night came. Though stormy, a sense of normalcy returned. Stars could be seen through the scud. The fear was gone. Now it was a good ship and a good crew doing what they do best. How we continued to function I can’t say. We hadn’t really eaten or slept in days. But now it was a game we knew.
All the following day we bowled along toward New Caledonia. And in about 24 hours we were there. The wind never got below 35 knots. It was a wild shot through the northern reef entrance into Port Noumea. Damn the risk, we didn’t care. We were done. We’d had it. We were ready to get in.
On the eight day after leaving Lord Howe we dropped the hook in Noumea. We pulled off our stiff rainskins. We washed the salt off our raw faces. Then, together, we the crew, sat down to a simple, but hot meal. The first in a long, long time.