Desperados

 

Desperados

Living in the seaside town of Northport just naturally fostered the love of salt water. My brother Steve and I were full time summer residents of "three feet," a name we used for the three-foot wide harbor access path across from our 114 Bayview Avenue home. In 1954, we swam there, and it was where our first family boat made it's debut, a small rowboat that Dad bought from Emerson Boat Shop for fifty bucks. Being new to boating, Dad listened to Mr. Emerson's advice in his "down eastern brogue." "This is a good Stat-tah boat - just weeps a little," he told Dad. Those words stayed with our family for years afterward, with the vision of that boat sitting at anchor, swamped to the gunwales for the entire summer. The next year was no better. When we wanted to use the boat to go rowing, we had to bail out the entire contents and keep bailing as we rowed. My mother was the thrust behind those projects. Barnacles actually grew on the inside of the boat!

1956 ushered in our first power boat, a 12 foot Skimmar with a 5 1/2 horse Johnson. We were happening, now! Steve and I were taking piloting and
seamanship lessons from Dad, of all people, whose maritime resume’ included having once been a passenger on the Staten Island Ferry.  After a few weeks of watching Dad and a time or two at the tiller, he actually turned the boat over to us with the restriction of not going past the 5 mile per hour sign! I was 10! We contemplated that restriction for about 5 minutes. Nah!

Our appetite for power boating grew in leaps and bounds and in a year or so, Steve had saved enough paper route money to buy his own Skimmar, but this time with a 10 horse. Mom and Dad had no objections and, soon enough, the Bruyn Brothers were aquatic forces to be reckoned with. Our idols were Sir Malcolm Campbell, world water speed record holder and Hydroplane driver/band leader Guy Lombardo.

We would soon be in the crosshairs of Frank Farrell, the harbor cop who was the first and last word in speed enforcement and death on the “no wake” 5 M.P.H. rule. In a small town like Northport, it cannot be overstated that "everybody knew your name" and Frank Farrell was no exception. Off duty we knew him as "Uncle Frank" since he was the foster father to so many of our friends who lived with him and his sister, "Aunt Marion."

We did have respect for the law, but we also knew that the wallowy Police Boat could only go about 15 miles per hour and we could top that by at least 2 or 3 miles per hour. In reality, we were already technologically superior to Harbor Law Enforcement at the ages of 11 and 14 respectively.

Uncle Frank would wave his fist when he caught us speeding, but he never "went off on us." Probably his biggest peeve was that he knew couldn't catch us. That old Police launch plowed up way too much water with it’s stodgy bow. Off duty, there was never any conversation about our mis-behavior and we were treated as welcomed guests in his home. He seemed to compartmentalize his personal life from his professional life.

The family Skimmar now had a ten horse and my brother Steve had moved ahead by building his own ten foot "Squirt" that emulated the Chevy Corvette with the coaching and expertise of his prodigy friend on Bluff Point Road. He harnessed it up with a fifteen horse Johnson, a move that placed him firmly in front of the pack. We buzzed around the harbor that summer, but our boating would be threatened the next year by the bureaucrats in Albany.

Prior to 1958, there were no restrictions on boat operation at all. Now, we feared that minimum age requirements would be imposed. When the mandate came down, the only requirement was that all power craft be registered, regardless of size.  At Christmas of 1957, believe it or not, I acquired the family Skimmar by gift and duly registered it in my own name. I was not yet twelve and the bureaucrats already had their hooks into me!

The summer of 1958 was filled with much gasoline consumption, "reckless boating," and an abrupt end for me when I hit a Steers Sand & Gravel dredge pipe float at Sand City. I punched a hole in the bottom of the boat but managed to make it back to port by holding the bow high in a semi-plane.

The next year, 1959 would find me mostly in Woodcraft 101 with the same friend of my brother's, who had quarterbacked the building of Steve's "Squirt." He repaired the damage to the impact zone while I handed him tools and we successfully brought the boat back to seaworthiness. After about 2 weeks of running the next season, I saw the opportunity to upgrade to a "Yellow Jacket" kit by horse-trading with Vern Miller of Alvern Boat Shop. The “kit” was really just a molded plywood hull without a transom. I could see the potential in this boat with a fifteen horse and sat out most of 1959 in "sweat equity", a move that I knew would cost me a boating season.

1960 brought a new set of dynamics. The wallowy old police tub was gone and so was Uncle Frank. My newly completed Yellow Jacket was in commission and while I wasn't looking, Northport got a new “Sheriff in town" with a new lapstrake inboard. Enter Altieri (feelin' lucky punk?). The new "Yellow Jacket" performed as expected and I was back in the game and for the most part, somehow, managed to escape Altieri's sinister grip and although I probably could have outrun him, I didn't dare; he was very intimidating. The following year, I doubled the power to 30 horses and the quest for more speed and power continued.

My narrow view of the world at that time might be described as a million-dollar view, which appeared through the windshield of my boat. My older brother Steve graduated from school and went on to serve in the United States Navy, but I would enjoy the "good life" for at least four more years.

By now, I had become a "regular" at Seymour's Boatyard and our young boat-crazy crowd just couldn't go fast enough. New horizons to conquer would include navigating to Connecticut, a challenge that would test our seamanship. Norwalk was the first test for our 10- and 12-footers which would soon become high-speed express vessels on the Long Island Sound crossing into another state. Today, the thought shakes my sense of reason to the core, knowing that Long Island Sound has easily swallowed up 100-footers. Soon, trips to Rye Beach's "Playland" by dead-reckoning, a 23 mile sojourn became a favorite destination, allowing us to visit the amusement park for the whole day.

Very quickly, more friends who had their own boats joined into the fray and we formed a club called "The Cavitators". Our boats were all painted the same powder blue color with white topside trim and the "Cavitators" club emblem near the transom.

Our mission statement was to be "hot rod" boaters, making fast tight turns in and around other boats and straightening out quickly, a maneuver that would cause the propeller to "cavitate" in a pocket of air, pressing the motor into an immediate RPM spike. It was the aquatic equivalent to "leaving rubber." In truth, we were hooligans and very much impressed with ourselves.

To support our gas-guzzling habit, we dug clams. One afternoon, after a clam-digging day near the airplane hangar, we fired up our two boats and entered into a race. At full bore, loaded with clamming gear and kids, we were a half-boat length ahead and only a few feet away from our challenger when our skipper in all his wisdom made a hard left cutting off our competitor. The resulting impact severed our boat to the keel, and we sank immediately.  All gear was lost, but no one was hurt. God does watch over fools...and hooligans.

Our parents gave us miles of slack, and there were some restrictions in growing up on the harbor, but not many. We danced in defiance of the establishment in a misdemeanor sort of way. Our parents tried to discipline us, our teachers tried to teach us, the law tried to control us, but to condense it, we were after all, young teenagers. We were Hell on water, but it wouldn't be too long when we would square off with Altieri, the "low-plains drifter" in a different arena. This time, it would be concrete and asphalt.