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was thrown down to us. We grabbed them, they hauled us back just in time and the tourists got a thrill. It was the beginning of me realizing my skills were minimal and boats could malfunction at any time.
All I remember now are vignettes.
The best one is when Kelly, my second wife, and I were sailing in Puget Sound in light breezes. This meant we were going about two knots and eating cheese and crackers. I have no idea what we were talking about, but somehow Kelly came out with the line, "Happy hour is the saddest part of the day". I got excited. It had to be one of the great country western song titles. I wrote some lyrics and a friend of ours, Bruce Innes, wrote the music. John Powell was my manager and he sold it to Ray Stevens, the country singer. We split the royalties three ways after a commission to John.
We all made money, but Bruce got the idea I was cheating him. He wrote me a nasty letter, claiming he wasn't getting his share of the mechanicals. I had no idea what mechanicals even were. I just got checks and split the money up. The letter really bothered me, so I loaded all my royalty records into my Austin-Healey and drove 12-hours from Portland to Ketchum, Idaho, where Bruce was living. I got there, opened the trunk filled with file folders, and told him he could go through all of them. He said he didn't think that was necessary and he was sorry about the letter. He was also upset that his name wasn't on the record credits and I agreed. He and Kelly should've been listed as co-writers. We called BMI to try to change that. We weren't successful, but I told him I'd do anything he could think of to change it. I thought we parted as friends, but something had soured our relationship. I hated that, because he was one of the most talented guys I ever knew. He played great blues guitar and piano, sang really well, wrote great songs and had a wicked sense of humor. He sang all kinds of songs but my two favorites were "Momma's in the Sky with Elvis" and "Bad Dancing, Look at them White Folks Go".
Back to the boat.
I first docked it at Shilshole Bay Marina in Seattle and Wind and I sailed it around Puget Sound. I got so I could single-hand it, but I was a bit leery about big storms. I'd started doing shows on cruise ships, and one of my first cruises was on Holland America. The ship got into a storm and I stood on the 12th deck forward watching the bow crash into 30-foot waves and feeling the spray hit me, 12 stories above the water. I tried to picture myself in my 37-foot sloop slamming into those waves and realized I was probably not an ocean sailor.
Two boats away from me in the marina was a couple who'd sailed around the world and I was in awe. I've read lots of sailing books, filled with people throwing out storm anchors and tying themselves to the boat, or rolling in giant waves and getting dismasted. I also read about one couple going around the Cape