A reminiscence with original paintings by Chris Doyle
Author’s note: I made up the names Matthew, Ken, and Scully. This is not to protect the innocent. I cannot remember their real names, though I remember the events vividly.
These small histories are set in the Grenada Yacht Club in the early 1970s. Things were quieter then. The much smaller Grenada Yacht Services stood where Port Louis is today, and the lagoon was the most popular anchorage for passing yachts and liveaboards. The port docks were still at some distance from the Lagoon and the yacht club stood on a headland called “The Spout.”
The Time Lord Jim Won the Schooner Cup
One of the liveaboards was an American called Banana Bill. It was said that if plywood was not available, he could build a small pram out of hardboard for EC$100 that would last a month or two. He lived on a small black schooner, maybe 30-35 foot long. He did not normally sail, but one year he loaded up with rum and entered the Round Grenada Race. This major event attracted some notable entrants, including the famous Antigua yachtsman Joel Byerly, who entered his magnificent classic 78-foot Alden-designed schooner Lord Jim. There were roughly 30 entries, and it was a great race.
One of those missing from the prize giving was Banana Bill, who had been seen somewhere in the north of the island at sunset and eventually made it back the next day. The prize giving was of course in the yacht club and well attended, as prizes in those days tended to be very generous. I was sitting with my friend John Hazlehurst, owner of Paisano, one of the Grenada charter yachts. There were lots of prizes and lots of clapping. The prestigious Schooner Cup went to Lord Jim. Joel Byerly strode up and gracefully accepted this magnificent cup amid much cheering and applause. It was then John leaned over to me and said: “You know he just won that cup for beating Banana Bill.”
I realized he was right: there were only two schooners in the race.
The Time Scully Went Missing
In those days I often hung out with my friend Peter Stransky, a visiting Australian who sailed in on his 35-foot steel yacht Yanda. He was living ashore and working as the government dentist. We both had a third share in a proa, Freedom’s Child (See October 2025 issue of Caribbean Compass). I added Yanda to my bareboat fleet of one (Rustler of Arne), to make it a little more like a business. Peter and I were in the club and another member, Peter Poland, was at the bar. Peter was trim, blond, with a precise, somewhat military bearing and a crisp British accent. If the yacht club phone rang, he would normally be the one to pick it up. Into this quiet scene came a stranger who clearly wanted to talk to someone, so Peter and I invited him to sit with us.
His name was Matthew and he was English. He was medium build, and told us, in his quiet manner, that he had come to Grenada to have a local sloop built. We asked him how it was going. “Well, it has started,” he said. “It was a little strange. I did not know how to begin, but I managed to meet one of the government ministers (This was in Eric Gairy’s day). He told me he was a boatbuilder and offered me his card, which said Government Minister, and included real estate agent, taxi tours and other things, but had nothing about boat building. Anyway, he took me to Grenville to meet a guy who was going to build the boat, and they have started.” Peter and I exchanged glances. Both Carriacou and Petite Martinique were well-known boat building areas, Grenville, not so much.
For most of the next year we saw Matthew from time to time. He was married and sometimes his wife came to visit for a week or two and sometimes he went back to England for a while.
Eventually it was finished. Matthew came to the club. “You know the builder told me that they were ready to launch and I would need to buy the launch party 50 gallons of white rum. I said ‘no way’ and bought five gallons. They had a great party, got the boat on the rollers, and moving towards the sea, but they got so drunk they rolled her into a wreck on the beach and put a hole in her. She is being fixed now. It should not be long.”
A few days later she was at anchor, a couple of hundred feet off the yacht club dock. She was a little boxy-looking and painted white, but something was amiss at the bow. The forestay was hanging loose, and the cap rail was splintered. Not too long after, Matthew came ashore in its tender, a substantial local rowing boat. When he sat down, we congratulated him on his success and asked about the forestay. “Well,” he said, “the builder told me to go to Ross (an ironworking shop in the lagoon) and get him to build a massive iron ring, as the forestay took a lot of strain. So I took it back to them and noticed they installed it by cutting a slot in the bulwarks close to the bow, dropping the ring in and then nailing the cap rail down on top. There was good breeze, we motored out of the channel with the main up, and when we got clear we hoisted the jib. Almost immediately the forward part of the cap rail lifted and cracked, releasing the forestay with this heavy ring attached which was flying around. We managed to tie it down and we motor-sailed the rest of the way.”
The boat certainly gave Matthew problems, mainly the badly leaking decks. Eventually he decided he had patched it up enough that it was time to invite his wife to live on board with him. She flew in and braved it for a fortnight, whereupon she left and told him she was never coming back. I idly speculated that perhaps the whole boat episode was a devious way of getting his wife to leave. In any case, not long after, he also left, never to return. But he left Ken, a pleasant, quiet, athletic looking guy who was hanging out in Grenada, to keep an eye on it and pump the bilges. I occasionally lent Ken a hand pulling the heavy dinghy up or down the beach. At some point he flew back to England for a couple of weeks, and when I next met him near the yacht club dock, he looked bemused.
“Hi Ken,” I said. “Happy to see you back!”
He turned and replied, “You won’t believe what happened this morning.”
“Try me,” I said.
“Well, I came down to check on Matthew’s boat, and I found this stranger with a big hand saw cutting the dinghy in two. I was so shocked I had to sit down and watch for a while. Eventually I gathered myself and asked: ‘Why are you doing that?’ He replied: ‘Because it is too big.’ ”
After a little more discussion, Ken ascertained that while he was away, Matthew had given this fellow Scully permission to live on board and keep an eye on the boat, though he had failed to tell Ken, maybe because he did not know his whereabouts. This was not surprising — it was years before the internet and cell phones. After that, Ken no longer came to the yacht club, and Scully settled in on board with the reduced dinghy. My memory of Scully was that he was old, medium build and usually dressed in black. He shuffled around and his most beloved companion appeared to be a bottle of rum. He spent most of his time alone and did not seem to have many friends. I understood why he wanted a lighter dinghy. There were no cheap rum shops in the lagoon so that meant rowing over to town daily. Banana Bill also rowed over there. I don’t think anyone round the yacht club got to know Scully very well, even though he was living on board for many months. But one day he went missing. The boat was there, but there was no dinghy and no Scully. Someone duly reported it to the authorities, and we speculated that he had fallen asleep rowing back from town and was blown out to sea and unable to row back against the prevailing winds. There was no organized coast guard and communication was much more restricted, so little was done.
I was in the yacht club with Peter Stransky, a week or so after Scully went missing. It was quiet and the yacht club phone rang. Peter Poland picked it up and we listened. What we heard was very emphatic: “No … Absolutely not … Don’t consider it … No way … England.” Then he put the phone down. We looked at him quizzically. “That,” he said, “was the police in Venezuela. Scully was found drifting at sea and asked to be repatriated to Grenada. I told them no, repatriate him to England from whence he came.”
