[Public-List] A sailing story...

[Gordon Laco]

So there I was…  in the later part of a project which sent me with a colleague to a tour of seaports in Europe starting in Barcelona and ending up in Marstal Denmark.  We were examining and interviewing sailing ships for use in a film project.  What a gig.

We flew from Brest to London Heathrow, then took a train to Weymouth.  I was quite excited about this particular stop because aside from the ship there being particularly interesting, I knew squadrons of motor gun boats of the Royal Canadian Navy operated from there during World War II.   There is a video on youtube called ’Spitfires of the Sea’ which was shot in Weymouth during the war.  I was very pleased we were going to actually be there.

We arrived and saw the ship.  She seemed perfect in size, condition and especially with regard to the very professional officers and crew aboard her.  We had dinner with the Captain and a representative of her owner… then we began walking back to our hotel.   Imagine the dark narrow streets of a very old English town.  We were both pretty jolly and also pleased… we thought we’d found our ship.

As we passed a corner pub, my colleague said ‘hey Gord, let’s have a nightcap.’  We stepped in, sat down at a couple of high stools behind one of those stand up height cocktail tables and gave our order for a couple of Irish Whiskeys to the waiter.

While waiting for the drinks, we realized two things.  One was that it was pretty obvious we were the only (relatively) sober people in the place.  The other was that we seemed to be the only happy people in the place.   The drinks came, we paid, and agreed we’d knock them back and leave.

Before I raised mine to my lips, an older woman came up to me.   She was missing many teeth, had bad breath in addition to stinking of urine, and basically looked rough.  She looked at me and said ‘Wanna dance?’   I replied ‘ah, no thanks’.   

At this she turned her back on me and shouted to the room ‘I TOLD-YA DEY TINK THEY'S TOO GOOD FER US!’  There was a grumble from the crowded bar.  Everyone was looking at us.

She staggered away and was immediately replaced by a muscular young man wearing what looked like a football uniform (English football).  It was filthy and torn.  He only had one shoe on, barefoot on the other, and his face and knuckles were cut and bruised from a recent fight.  He was very drunk.  He leaned over the table and said with great menace ‘Why doncha wanna dance wit da lady?  Why doncha? Why doncha?’   He was swinging his right fist at his side…

I was just about to snatch my glasses off my face when suddenly the Sea Hag who’d first come up leapt onto his back screeching ’SO YER PIMPIN’ ME NOW ARE YA BILL!’

The two of them crashed into a table, knocked the people at it over.  In an instant there was a huge brawl started. A chair flew and other people started piling in from other parts of the room.

My colleague, the director of the upcoming show, grabbed me and said ‘LET’S GET THE F*CK OUTTA HERE!’    We jumped over the fighters rolling on the floor and ran out.

In the street we were putting on our coats and my colleague said to me ‘Hey Gord, I think that’s the REAL Coronation Street in there!’

Laughing we went back to our hotel and the next day took a train ride back to Heathrow flew to Denmark to see another ship.

We gave the Weymouth ship a glowing report and the process of engaging it started… but it transpired that her British owners were only a front for a Russian ’sports management agency’ and they were not nice people.  I felt badly for the good people who sailed her but we had to disengage.   We ended up using PICTON CASTLE based in Lunenburg… yes she was right in our back yard so to speak, and was the first ship I showed them… but that’s movie making.

I guess it’s not really a sailing story but it does have to do with sailing ships.


Gordon Laco
www.gordonlaco.com
705-527-9612