A Tribute to One Man — Hutch
“One Man” is the name given to Hutch by Papie, of Keartons Village, St. Vincent. “Nobody as free as One Man,” Papie said.
by Sally Erdle
If you’re a longtime Compass reader, Jim Hutchinson will need little introduction. If you don’t know his work yet, perusing https://caribbeancompass.com/back-issue-archive, you will find many stories. It’s a loss to all readers and all of us at Compass that he died on January 24, 2025.
Best known as Hutch, this solo sailor-philosopher wrote on topics ranging from the merits of sailing and rowing dinghies over outboard power, to hurricane preparations, to book reviews, all of which he took equally seriously. As he said, “Isolation gives pause to reflect.” His letters to the editor kept us honest. He self-published his writings considered too weird by magazine editors (even me), making little chapbooks that he’d hand out to friends. He encouraged island-based artists to illustrate his stories, and donated payments for articles published in Compass to local charities. Hutch told me, “I don’t [write articles] for the money and I don’t crank ‘em out. I do it for fun.”
Hutch was born in 1946. After serving in the US Navy, he became a light airplane pilot and flight instructor in Colorado. In 1984 he sold up and bought Ambia, a 1967 Bristol Corsair 24-foot sloop, which he lived aboard full time. “When I tout the virtues of my modest sailing yacht, minimal to some, primitive to others, people have replied, ‘You’re talking “back to the cave!”’ ‘Yes,’ I reply. ‘I recommend it!’”
Hutch cruised Ambia from the Florida Keys and the Bahamas to the Windward Islands, where, in 1994, he found his paradise in the Grenadines. In Carriacou he applied his flight instruction knowledge — the forces of lift and drag — to teaching young dinghy sailors. As his eyesight eventually failed, his friend Lorraine Seatle typed up his stories for him.
His friend Gerald “Shep” Shapiro wrote: “Hutch anchors Ambia far out in the bay to avoid the noise and lights. He has been a liveaboard for some 40 years or more…. He is way past legally blind.
“He smokes prodigiously, both ganja and tobacco…. He only uses the stove on his boat to make coffee and otherwise lives on bread and cheese. In his shorts, he has a pocket for trash and a pocket for plastic bags, and in his shirt, a pocket for cigarettes and lighter….
“He will not let any conversational generalization go unchallenged. ‘Now watch,’ he will say, “it all depends on the circumstances,” and then launch into a 20-minute exegesis. Yet he puts together all these unpromising attributes in a way so charming (he would hate that word) so almost pixie-like, that he is universally loved around the bay.
“I invited him over for dinner on Joy to get some vegetables into him and we talked of aging and mortality, opera and cosmology, far into the night. He paddled home in the dark. How he managed to find his boat, as blind as he is, is a mystery to me.”
Not too long ago, fearing that he really would someday not find his boat, Hutch moved ashore in Carriacou, setting up his airy second-floor apartment with a familiar-feeling “cockpit” area, a “galley” and a comfortable single berth. Then Hurricane Beryl, in July of 2024, wiped it out.
Compass’s Executive Editor, Tad Richards, says, “I got to know Hutch over the phone in the months after Beryl — we talked several times. He had lost his home completely to the hurricane, and was basically living in a tent on his devastated property. And I know that he was old and infirm. But you never heard a more positive, upbeat man — he was not letting anything get him down.”
Jim Hutchinson is the author of One Man’s Sampler, “a collection of favorite little adventures from a lifetime of sailing,” available on Amazon.
You can also find a collection of photos, stories and anecdotes (including a lovely “unwritten Compass story”) at https://onemanspeaks.com/.
Original Announcement from January 26th
Jim Hutchinson, lifelong sailor, longtime friend, author, and Carriacou distributor of Caribbean Compass, passed away January 24, 2025, at Grenada General Hospital. Caribbean Compass extends heartfelt sympathies to Hutch’s family and friends. Look for a tribute to Hutch in the March 2025 issue by Sally Erdle, Caribbean Compass editor emeritus.
Over the weekend, his friend Lorraine Seatle posted this to several Facebook cruiser groups:
For those who knew him.
I am sorry to inform folks that Hutch (Jim Hutchinson) passed away in Grenada General Hospital on 24 January 2025.
Hutch had a very interesting life. As a young man, he was in the US Navy. After that, he ran a flying school in Boulder, Colorado, as a flying instructor. After 20 years, he decided that he wanted to sail and bought his beloved boat Ambia.
He sailed solo for 37 years in Ambia. As far north as Cape Hatteras, south to the Bahamas and down the Caribbean Island chain. He spent a lot of time in Bequia and Carriacou. He was even an “extra” in “Pirates of the Caribbean”!
Because of his advancing age, he decided to sell Ambia and live ashore in Carriacou for the last few years.
At age 79 Hutch got an e-bike and could be seen riding around Carriacou.
Hutch was an avid writer and regularly contributed to the Caribbean Compass magazine for many years. He also has a website, https://onemanspeaks.com/, showcasing the stories of his adventures, which is well worth a look at.
No more pain now, Hutch.
We will never forget you!
Fair winds and following seas!
