Nautically Improper Behavior - Sinks a Boat - Crew Has to Swim for it...

by Sam Low

Kids were not allowed at the clambake in the early days. You couldn't get in until you were eighteen, so it became a rite of passage. I was twelve when I learned why. That was about 1954, when the bake was held on the beach across the harbor from my grandparents' house (The Walter Harts). To get there, the adults were rowed across in skiffs by us kids. I had my Delano Sea Skiff, Ronnie Moore had his Skimmar and Pete Basset had a wonderfully strange craft fashioned cunningly by his father from strips of wood and tarpaper. I swear! His dad had made a framework of pine which he sheathed in tarpaper (of the kind shacks are made of). He gooped up the seams with more tar so they held out the water. Pete's boat had the advantage of being light and easy to row, but it looked god-awful.

Getting the guests over to the clambake went without incident. Then we waited to ferry them back. We waited for about four hours.

When our elders finally appeared on the dunes, the sun had begun to address the horizon. There was much laughter and merriment. There was singing and shouting. There was also a great deal of nautically improper behavior. Some adults would NOT SIT DOWN as we had all been taught to do in boats since babes. They stood up and waved and carried on. We took them across anyway.

As the afternoon lurched toward evening, the process became more perilous. One gentleman who insisted on standing toppled overboard, upsetting the boat which went down stern first amidst - and this was even more horrifying - gales of laughter. For a time we were able to reestablish a semblance of discipline by reminding our riders of the fate which had befallen their comrades.

It was near six o'clock when a particularly unruly lot called for a boat. It was Peter's turn. In retrospect, we should have known what was about to happen. From a near vantage point, I watched as Peter loaded.

"Step carefully, " he ordered, "do not step on the tar paper, only on the wooden framework. NOT ON THE TARPAPER, YOU WILL GO RIGHT THROUGH!"

They obeyed.

Peter shoved off and stroked for the opposing shore with an energy inspired by premonitions of disaster. Half-way across, a gentleman stood up to hail his wife.

"NOT ON THE TARPAPER," screamed Peter.

The man took a step toward the bow.

As in all disasters, what happened next seemed to occur in slow motion. The gentleman descended through the tarpaper, still standing, until all I could see above the gunwale was his head and shoulders, arms flailing.

"JEESSUUSS CHRIST!" he yelled.

I imagined that his feet must now be touching the bottom of the harbor and he might simply walk the boat to the opposing shore. But, unfortunately, the watertight integrity of Peter's craft had been broached catastrophically. Within seconds, all that remained were swimmers and floating pocket books.

A few days later we hauled Peter's craft out to deep water, filled it with stones, and buried it at sea. For a few years, I could find the outline of it on clear days but then, finally, it disappeared.