Mamari
Kenneth Court wrote the following. Bruzz (Jory) - Happy birthday old man. I'll embark on my 70th the 14th of October. That sure was ancient when I was at SAS and Webb. All our classmates probably thought the same. Happy birthday to all of you. May you continue healthy, alert and active with all your faculties intact. My vow is to do so as well. - Ken
P.S. On a sad note in July I found that "Mamari," my old boat, a 28' -10" ketch, 51 years old last year and very sick with worm, died a horrible death in August of 2007. She sank at the dock and then was raised by a salvage company and removed from the slip basically intact. They removed the masts, properly unrigging them rather than using a chain saw. Unfortunately they then cut her into small pieces and loaded her into a dumpster. Her main mast and lead keel survived the indignity and will live another day. The keel most likely in a new form and probably on another boat. The mast is now the flag pole for a restaurant, or so I've been told. That and her table and two gimbaled lamps and a few other mementos are all that remain.
Thus she died of terminal cancer and did not have a proper burial. "Mamari" is one of my great loves, and site of my first courtship (no pun intended) of Maria my Greek and only other wife, another of my great loves. This trip in addition to our Barbados wedding in February 1968 included a honeymoon of 7 months thru the West Indies and home to the Chesapeake. To "Mamari" and Maria I owe my two daughters and two grandchildren. May "Mamari" rest in peace. She and I had wonderful times together. She kept me safe and only grounded five times on the long voyage from New Zealand always in safe conditions.
Safe except at the entrance to the Gulf of Suez in 1967, where she and I had a close call. The light breeze from the South changed to Northerly of 40-50 knots. Never mind the high island, Shadwan, buffering the wind and the flat water around us. Her trusty plow dragged. The only time it ever did so. Sand bottom, and it did not hold on the 180 degree turn and freshening wind. At midnight we dragged onto the coral and after striking the rudder (which woke me) she lay broadside to. Fortunately I had Michel my French crew aboard. Two tries later we were off the reef although we barely missed the coral at the entrance (a matter of inches). Here the water (I mean the coral) was sawing up and down ready to chew at her bottom. A very close call.
This July I was told of "Mamari's" demise. Maggie, my wife and best love yet, shared my grief and comforted me. The next two days I called "Mamari's" old friends and most of her former owners except for Jim Oliphant, a lawyer in Auckland, her amateur builder. Jim a New Zealander, (who I never was able to track down), built her after completing law school. He started with $500 and Kauri log (a magnificent boat building wood only existing there. Export of the wood and classic boats is now forbidden by law). A surveyor friend in Auckland told me in 1965 that "Mamari" was one of the best built boats in New Zealand. I also did not tell John Bracegirdle, an Englishman, her second owner, from whom I bought her. John regretted having sold her, and as a farewell gesture sailed with me to Tonga, He has long since been dead although he was only a few years older than I am. I am also trying to contact a few other owners who have been with her since 1973 when I sold her.
I did celebrate her passing for two days with a bottle of Cordon Noir champagne which sat for years in my icebox, while I called all close friends and former crew. It was an important period of mourning and a real catharsis. Please say a prayer for her. - Ken
P.P.S. Tom, Bill and Rod perhaps you could print this in entirety in the next Alumni news. Tom & Bill the number of letters you published this fall were magnificent in content and more importantly in quantity. kec