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Please allow me to set
the stage for a little maritime tragedy I got tangled up in about a week
ago. Imagine a couple of brand-new 60-some-foot motoryachts—each
as shiny and bright as a fresh-minted penny—ensconced in adjoining
slips in a pricey, palm-fringed marina in South Florida. Make ‘em
a couple of ultra-expensive, extra-outfitted beauties, too: sisterships
with price tags nudging the net worth of Dick Cheney. Crew ‘em with
a passel of seemingly intelligent guys, each togged out in trendy yacht
wear. Then, finally and regretfully, toss a subtle but powerful wrench
into the works: a liberal dosage of plain, old-fashioned arrogance.
“Come on aboard,”
said the captain of the yacht nearest the dockmaster’s office, a
big guy with pricey, reflector-type shades. From the lofty grandeur of
an immense flying bridge, he bade a grand welcome to my photographer and
me. The two of us jumped from the dock onto the yacht’s big swim
platform, traversed the teak-paved cockpit, and then climbed up the sculpted,
stainless steel ladder to the bridge.
Politely rising from
his seat at the upper-helm station to a height of well over six feet,
the captain introduced himself and the captain of the other motoryacht.
The two skippers then proceeded to introduce their respective crews, a
sizable group of young guys who were lounging around the bridge with a
wholly nautical flair. The photographer and I greeted the assemblage and
then began explaining how the upcoming photo shoot needed to go. What
we wanted to do, we said, was capture an exciting image of the two motoryachts
running across a nearby bay, more or less side-by-side. We cautioned the
two skippers about not looking toward the helicopter while the shoot was
in progress—smiling directly at the camera gives a stagy, unnatural
quality to the resulting photography. We cautioned them about keeping
the two yachts close together—allowing photographic subjects to get
too far apart interferes with the immediacy of the resulting images, we
said. And we cautioned them about paying attention to buoys and day marks—even
wide channels are often skirted by skinny water in Florida, we warned.
“So the helicopter
will be running in this direction,” concluded the photographer, making
motions with his hands in the air to show the orchestration of the shoot,
“and you guys’ll be running in this direction.”
A long, uneasy silence
ensued. Sensing trouble perhaps, the photographer attempted to clarify
things by making a perfectly logical request.
“You guys got a
chart?” he asked. “A chart would help us show you what we’re
talkin’ about.”
“No,” came
the curt, dismissive reply from the big guy with pricey, reflector-type
shades.
Next
page > Part 2: The specifics of the
story unfolded to a rapt audience. > Page 1, 2
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