The Boating Barrister

© Rick Bannerot, Ontheflyphoto.net I was once in a low-slung car in Miami with a client under one of those tall, blue skies. He was telling me about how he got started in the eighties as a dishwasher. We pulled into the pocked parking lot of the eatery where he’d slathered plates in a back sink. We sat looking at the corroded rotary vents and faded lacquer. His colleagues were idling behind us in a Rover. He…

Long before any of you readers of this fine font were born, the Amaryllis II was whipping around Narraganset Bay on two pontoons because she was a sailing catamaran. She was experimental, elegant and I’d say completely outrageous for her time. Hunt up the video (there’s one in color!) and watch her pontoons go in different directions at plus twenty knots. She was speedy and that’s what this column is about: how this desk-slung gunslinger would propose…

If you linger late in the living room, that big flat screen will take you places. Johnny and I like to explore YouTube is how it starts and next thing you know we’re watching BBC’s 1970s mini-documentary about Big Jim Collie. This Big Jim fellow makes my drinking look like I’m learning. The film’s modest run time follows Big Jim from his awakening to a 22-mile bike ride through Scotland’s toughest highlands on an unannounced visit with…

There are things in life I still haven’t figured out, which – for a late middle-aged guy – speeds past embarrassment into the badlands of WTF-is-wrong-with-you. I still can’t get sports conferences right and too many terms remain muddled. Why can’t Duke play Kansas in the regular season? And what the hell is a pick and roll? Maybe I’m less so encumbered when it comes to sailing, boating and the salty ennui that follows time on the…

There are things that bother me and they should bother you, too. As my tide ebbs, the list grows longer. Here are some things (including some nautical knots) that chafe. Unkindness. For those of you that read, there’s something called the Great Filter theory – why we look into the night sky and, as yet, nothing winks back. The theory goes: there’s a barrier preventing life from evolving into space-sailing civilizations. Some argue we’re past the filter…

It’s been a week. Pleasant enough under tall skies braced with rippled water and stretches of pink sand, but the sort of foreign travel burdened with too many gatherings. How much small (or big) talk can you ask of someone? And loafing is not my strong suit because, days in, and the Kalik gets thick on the tongue, the Dewar’s bitter on the lips and the scenery sore to the eyes. I like earning life’s pleasures. I…

Nothing rhymes with “orange.” I’ll leave America’s choice at that and encourage you to watch comedian John Mulaney’s stand-up, where he describes President Trump’s (you salute the rank, not the man) first term as a horse loose in a hospital. Alright, I’m sorry, I can’t leave at that . . . Boats are expensive. Dockage and moorage fees (always padded with local municipality charges), haul-outs and launches, seasonal prep – new zincs, bottom paint – not to…

Bercy Arena, Paris. Depeche Mode’s Exciter Tour. Leagues later, it’s the imagery of the backup singers banging out the rhythm that sticks. Their primal enthusiasm for the tracks was nitrous oxide redlining the ennui of a youthful age into wild energy. If you were there, you’d remember even if you were mainlining pharmaceuticals and pawing your partner. You surely would. Whether aboard the yacht or in the witness stand, backup singers bring the juice. It’s the nonparty…

  There are two things that matter in life: hope and fear. That’s what 53 years of living has taught me and I’m right as rain. You’re a time traveler of sorts in that when you read these words, you’ll know the outcome of this 2024 presidential election and yet as I type, I don’t. I’m not here to pummel political positions because the outcome is fated, but that ‘hope and fear’ bit – that’s determinative. On…

March 2021 – While John Fulweiler claims his close friend collaborated with him on various projects including content for this column, it appears Johnny Walker is the brand name of a blended Scotch Whiskey and not an actual person. We have asked John to refrain from referring to Johnny Walker, Jim Beam, Captain Morgan, Jack Daniel, Jose Cuervo and Sam Adams as his friends or writing partners. January 2022 – Reference was made by John to a…