Irish Hurricane is a 1998 Carver “aft cabin motor yacht,” a model series that belies our actual vessel, hard-pressed to be considered a yacht. Yacht comes from the Dutch verb jachten, meaning to hurry, hustle, or flutter. We cruise at eight miles an hour. You decide. Though this year we’re making a point to travel slowly and enjoy more as we go.
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Last night we ate the rare meal out at Joseph’s Italian Bistro, steps from our dock. Everyone says it’s a must-experience. In this case, everyone was right. Even I knew the food was exceptional. Tender, lightly breaded calamari. Eggplant rollatini stuffed with ricotta, mozzarella, Parmesan, and herbs.
Bread nuggets so soft and light I wanted to cry. Fist-sized meatballs. Veal drifting in lemony sauce and capers. Desserts so rich they’re in our refrigerator until our food comas subside.
But like yacht, Italian carries its own images. I say, “We had Italian,” you get the idea. Not specifics – the devil’s always in the details – but the general idea.
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When I hear yacht, I think of 1959’s Some Like It Hot starring Marilyn Monroe, Jack Lemmon, Tony Curtis, and the 121-foot luxury motor yacht Lovely Lady, built in 1930. She had classic wooden-boat yachty-sleek lines.
Her first owner was Townsend Irvin (ADM, USN, Retired), then-Commodore of the New York Yacht Club. Her last mooring was in the Miami River where she sank in 2009. Not yacht-like, but still.
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Yacht makes me think of the schooner America, winner of the 1851 Isle of Wight competition. She sailed away with the Royal Yacht Squadron 100-Guinea Cup.
The British, whose yachts she’d beaten, claimed she cheated by shortcutting a corner, which she did. A court later ruled in her favor, because the existing rules didn’t say she couldn’t cut. I’m not sure that’s how I define not cheating.
She never competed in the race again. Her syndicate deeded the RYS Cup to the New York Yacht Club in 1857 (when it was renamed America’s Cup). NYYC syndicates went on to hold the Cup for 132 years. When they finally lost it in 1983, it felt like America had been cheated out of something.
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America eventually served the Confederate States Navy, the Union Navy, and the U.S. Navy — her final caretaker, who let her rot at the dock until they scrapped her in 1945. She is one of only four U.S, vessels that were in commission during both the Civil War and WWII.
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Carver originally advertised their Aft Cabin Motor Yacht with bikini’d girls standing on the flybridge, long hair streaming in the wind while the hull cuts a brilliant wake through cobalt water.
IH still bears her design marks. She has mauve laminate in the aft head, a pop-up jewelry drawer under lighted mirrors, and pleathery ruched dinette cushions. I like to Google yacht interior design and dream. I never see rouched pleather or mauve-and-turquoise color schemes.
Nor would I consider Pete, Katie, and me to be playboys.
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To me, yacht suggests billionaires tossing money around while peons keep their vessels shipshape. Aboard IH, it often feels like the boat is the billionaire, immune to our budget, and the two of us her underpaid workers. Today, Pete broke out his heavy Sailrite machine and sewed awesome sun deck curtains standing at the pleather-seated dinette. It’s a heavy, sweaty job.
I cannot thank him enough. They will keep out blinding sun and heat, and afford privacy in crowded marinas. The curtains are Ikea hacks, which does not scream yacht.
Ikea call curtains lill, which means lily, and curtain systems Vidga, which means widen. Designs have feminine names.
Like most Americans, I am confused and blinded by Ikea’s gibberish. Using doublespeak is manipulative. It is done to make you think something is more then what it is, of obfuscating the truth. It’s a way of talking down to people. As though I should thank Ikea for the honor of purchasing lilies for my widened sun deck with a design that evokes waves named for the exalted Henny Rand, whoever she is.
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So, when I say we live on a yacht, understand that’s not exactly the truth. It’s a word someone tossed out to make ordinary playboys look like billionaires.
IH is not wooden, has little luxury, is more big-boned than sleek, lacks sails of any kind, and, other than flying the stars and stripes, bears no resemblance at all to the schooner America which, I note, won a cup that did not bear its actual name.
Irish Hurricane 