The Good Mariner: Life of Paul Erling Johnson

NOTE: THE FOLLOWING IS A TEXT-ONLY EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK "The Good Mariner: Reflections on the life of Paul Erling Johnson." It is posted here to be available to Paul's friends and admirers who now may be in remote parts of the world with access to the Internet. For a printed version of the book, with photographs and full-color pictures of Venus, contact the publisher at: agpublishers@gmail.com



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The Good Mariner

Reflections on the Life of Paul Erling Johnson


... another boat joined our
small floating community, the English ketch Venus,
sailed single-handed by Paul Erling Johnson (aged 24),
a really first-class seaman who had been all around
England and to Norway in his minute boat without an
auxiliary engine. A tough mariner, whose acquaintance
was more than rewarding.

-- Bernard Moitessier
Cape Horn: The Logical Route





FOREWORD

As of this date in mid-2007, Paul Erling Johnson is alive and well and is living in the Caribbean aboard “Cherub,” his current 42-foot Venus ketch. He’s well past 60 now, with a few complaints -- he’s always had a few of those -- but astonishingly well preserved in his secret formula blend of rum and salt water. One hopes that he will live on forever; in fact, we may be able to help make that happen.
Whether one sees him as a romantic folk hero, a rugged individualist, a salty spinner of ever-enhanced sea stories, a free spirit, an outrageous egotist -- or a collection of those -- or something altogether different -- Paul has surely left an imprint on the memory, if not on the life of everyone who has met him. He has on mine.
A few of us decided to try to give structure to memory in which Johnson, the Quintessential Sailor, is preserved through the eyes of his shipmates, friends, wives, lovers and the mothers of his children. So, we have assembled a story for all to read and we have published it also as an expression of our gratitude.


-- John Frith,
Bermuda, 2007



Contents
Foreword John Frith

I - Early and After

Chapter 1 William Gilkerson

Illustrations

Chapter 2 The Larsen Family

II - On the Brink of Mirth

Chapter 3 Peter Muilenburg

Chapter 4 John Codrington

Chapter 5 Sylvia

Chapter 6 Mishka Frith

Chapter 7 Blair Dallin

III - Women and Mothers

Chapter 8 Barbara Leach

Chapter 9 Marina Salvadori

Chapter 10 Patti Spina

IV - Other Islands
Chapter 11 Ken Matthews

V - The Captain’s Wedding

Owl and the Pussycat John Frith

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Early and After - I


Chapter 1


The North Sea, 1961-62

By William Gilkerson


      In flipping through the pages of my journal, I find mostly work reports for January; by the end of the month, Cutlass was ready to go. Saying our goodbyes, we went in a space between gales, on Feb 4. It was a short-lived effort. First, the newly repaired engine failed as we were departing the harbour, although Johnson, swearing viscerally, could not be persuaded to return to our dock to make yet another repair. A month in one place was a long time for him, plus he had other things to tend at home, such as his own boat, and if we didn’t have a bloody (unmentionable) motor, we could jolly well sail, and so sail we did. There was never much doubt as to who was in charge with Johnson aboard.
      ....

      Below, I worked furiously with the charts, trying to plot us a course through the Flemish banks, starting with our assumed position. Now on a reach, we backed the jib to take some speed off, but before I could make sense of anything, I felt Cutlass soaring on the crest of a wave with a dangerous lift to it, and then another one, as we shot over one of the banks I’d been trying to avoid. I yelled that we were on the wrong course, and started to call out what buoys we should be watching for. But Johnson was on his own course, steering by whatever mystical inner compass he used, carrying us over two or three of the dread banks before stabs of light appeared ahead of us - - searchlights, as it turned out. Outside of Ostend, a handful of coastal freighters was circling in the darkness, apparently unwilling or unable to negotiate the little port’s narrow entrance in the conditions. These 300 ton ships were heaving and rolling in the seas, scooping tons of water into their well decks with every roll, then spewing it out of the freeing ports, with a monstrous clanging and shrieking of their hinged lids. All the time, they played their spotlights on each other, and us, in a hellish, lurching ballet.
      We were soon through it, and then through a pair of red and green entrance lights that Paul picked up, and next thing, we were shooting into Ostend Harbour, passing close under the peach-coloured glow of a fancy restaurant’s windows. Through the snow, I glimpsed a pair of diners in dressclothes, toasting with long-stemmed wine glasses by candlelight.
      Johnson had been in the port before, and remembered that the yacht harbour was just past this restaurant, and to starboard, meaning a very abrupt turn downwind into a harbour that he remembered as being very small. “Drop the mainsail, drop the jib!” he commanded, putting the helm up. The jib came down easily enough with the release of its halliard, but the mainsail did not budge. What to do? The line was slack in my hands, as Cutlass headed toward some kind of wall at about six knots. “Get the bloody thing down,” shrieked Johnson.
      “It won’t come,” I started to say, but before I could finish, he sprang like a chimpanzee for the luff of the sail: “take the tiller,” he ordered, climbing the sail by its track slides.
      Everything happened ever so quickly. I turned the bow back to port with about a second to spare; now we had the run of a harbour that seemed the length of a tennis court, with lines of bare pilings sticking up in black clusters. (All of the floats were removed for the winter.) Intentionally, I hit the first piling with a glancing blow, and then another couple after that, trying to take off way before we arrived at the less flexible stone wall at the end of the run. Johnson’s fast climb broke the grip of the slides, which had frozen into their tracks, and he dragged down the sail in time to ease our contact with stone. We tied up to the pilings as best we could. There was no way of getting ashore, but we were too exhausted to think about that, or reporting our presence in Belgium, or anything else except food and bunk. Sherle briefly revived, but could not yet consider food, not before a day or two of recovery.
      She wasn’t to have it. Not before we could get to England. Johnson needed to collect an important government check by March 1, or forfeit it, he said. Hence, we only slept in Belgium, never trying to get ashore, and drawing no apparent notice from any authorities. By climbing into the rigging at high tide, I could see the harbour square lined with ornate old buildings; then we were gone, at first light on Feb 27. We still had our northerly wind, stronger than ever, with full gale warnings for our sea area. The snow had stopped, however, so out we went into the channels between the Flemish Banks, sailing under their lee as the whole angry North Sea broke with underlying thunder on their other side.  Cutlass scooted through a heaving alleyway between lines of breakers bursting at heights beyond our masthead. And very close. The good visibility was a crucial blessing, although it came with a chill and cheerless gray light, and a boil of dirty yellow breakers, laden with sand.
      I could follow our position on the chart, more or less, as we made terrific speed toward the trickiest spot in our course, the Zydecoot Pass where the channel is plugged, and is escaped only by a side channel. This would not be apparent until the last moment. As we approached, Cutlass tried to yaw with a suddenness that threw her into an accidental gybe, all standing, in a gale force gust.
      All of the new rigging held, but the main boom split from one end to the other. It was held together at its ends by collars, but in the middle, the halves made a sickening smile. Again Johnson was instantly onto it. Leaving the helm in my hands, he furiously started to put a central seizing onto the boom. “If you gybe us, you’ll never see me again,” he warned. Here we had the wind dead aft, though with sudden shifts and gusts that made steering a very nervous business. I managed to not lose him from the boom during the minutes it took him to tightly bind its whole length with all available bits and pieces of line.
      I proposed that there was nothing for it but to put into the nearest port of refuge, maybe Dunkirk or Calais, to rig a new boom. With no motor, damage aloft, and the wind now blowing a steady gale, and with wilder seas than ever, getting in somewhere seemed like the obvious thing to consider. But not to Johnson. He blistered the air with curses at the notion of stopping anywhere. So on we charged, swooping and plunging, with the splintered boom holding, at least for the moment.
      As to that moment, it is very difficult to find words that can begin to carry my impressions of it, or the rest of that wild afternoon. Many, many years later, I made a picture of how I thought we might have looked out there that day, and years after that showed it to Johnson. “No, no, no,” he said, “It was ever so much worse than that.” It was true. The picture couldn’t convey any more than I can here.
      The cold and wet were no issue. We barely noticed, there being more important things. The seas we experienced were steeper for their distance than any I’ve ever seen since, and they were jumbled by cross-seas and powerful currents. Each of us was good for about half an hour on the helm, which had to be worked with incessantly.  Cutlass was knocked about like a toy. At some point, while I was laying down on my off-watch, the ship took a plunge that levitated me out of my berth and over its leeboard, then slammed me down in the opposite bunk, where I rested as best I could for a few minutes before having to go back above and relieve Johnson.
      A speed check measured between two buoys off the French coast indicated we were making some 10 knots over the ground, putting us within sight of the Dover cliffs by midafternoon, and approaching Dover itself by 4:00 pm. Our choice was whether to continue on our mad careening dash, or put into Dover Harbour to catch our breath. Even Johnson was exhausted, and persuadable thereby, although he made me promise we would be off again on the morning tide, gale or no gale. He knew Dover Harbour; under his hand we entered it at a fast clip, rounded perfectly toward the submarine pens that were there then, and tied up as neatly as if coming in from a summer regatta.
    

      Some 20 years were to pass before I would see him again. 


Chapter 2

The Larsen family,
Kristine, Michael, Elise and Lars

In the Pacific. 1990 - 1991

Lars:

We had not been in Noumea for many days when I spotted a beautiful looking timber boat. Old fashioned in design, a Colin Archer look about her. The owner was painting the white section on an otherwise varnished spar. He was taking great care with the job; one could see that it was a labor of love. I dingied over and engaged the gentleman in talk, and it wasn't long
before I was invited onboard so that I could go over the whole ship, inside and out. Namaste belonged to a Canadian couple, and they had built her themselves using strip planking and probably the West System. The ship was immaculate and very beautifully finished inside with the hull varnished, showing the exotic timbers. When I inquired about the designer I was told it was a friend of theirs called Paul Johnson. I had never heard about the designer, but the name stuck in my mind just for future possible use.

A month or so later we arrived at Opua in New Zealand. Arriving boats were allowed to stay at the wharf for a couple of days before being moved on. When I woke the following morning, a big gaff rigged boat, Venus, came alongside and we helped the owner and his companion tie up to our boat. The owner, a big bushy haired fellow went below to sleep after the long haul, and the woman, Marina and her little daughter Elia met our family. We had two small children onboard, and especially our little daughter Kristine, then four, was interested in the baby, so it didn't take long to make friends with the newly arrived.


On the Brink of Mirth - II

Chapter 3

Peter Muilenburg:

A mix of anticipation and curiosity led me over the rise of Pinney's Beach, the miles long stretch of high-heaped sand backed by millions of coconut palms. I had just sailed in from St. John, 150 miles to the NW across the Anegada Passage. John Frith had informed me by e-mail that Paul Johnson was anchored off the grand strand at Nevis and was likely to stay awhile. Hence my pilgrimage--to see Johnson again -- he who had made such a difference in my life.
I had known the man for 33 years. Seven years older than me, he had been my mentor. Not so much by virtue of years, but by virtue of knowledge and charisma. I had, as Frith said, "taken a leaf out of Paul's book," This was in varying degree true of anyone who built one of Paul's boats and especially true of me. Having rejected "the system"because of the Vietnam War, I gravitated towards the sea as my "career" focus and Paul offered an enticing example of the possibilities of such a life.
Paul left the shade of the little beach bar and came out to envelope me in a bear hug. Despite the stoutness of his belly he was still strong.
Johnson at 67 . . . And me, certifiably 60. Unbelievable. I took a long look at Paul. There was no danger of his ever being mistaken for a lawyer a thief or a banker. A halo of curly white hair and beard stood on end, framing a face that half a century's sun and sea had beaten to a copper like patina, deeply incised by laugh lines at the corners of his eyes. The eyes were bright and blue, ever on the brink of mirth. He wore for clothing only a south seas pareu with no concern that his bollocks might be showing when he sat.. He was barrel chested and went bare chested, and bare footed on feet that had soles like horn - soles that had rarely felt a shoe. All he needed was ashes and a staff and he'd be a proper Jeremiah --until he spoke -which was all the time, -- his speech being upper class British and liberally laced with droll profanities.
* * *
Paul first came into our lives years ago in St. Barths, to which my wife, Dorothy, and I had sailed in thesummer of '71, in Venceremos, our 28' sloop.

Though tireless on a boat-building project, Paul loathed conventional work and did as little of it as possible. His solution to the problem of money was draconian--he rarely spent any. He claimed he lived on $200 a month, and his habits backed that seemingly impossible boast. He hated to spend any money except for absolute necessities. He built what he needed himself, generally out of scraps other people had thrown away, and he stoically did without what he couldn't improvise, He did without ice, electricity, new clothes, fresh vegetables. He once set off across the Atlantic with less than $90 and with only onions in the vegetable locker.
Time is the truly precious commodity, and Paul spent his share mindfully - on "yachting about" with friends, on rum, art, boatbuilding---and young women.


Women and Mothers - III

Chapter 8


Barbara Leach (The American)


Before I knew what had happened, I had signed on as first-mate and was on my way to England. We set sail on June 10, 1969; Paul, another couple and me. We were bound for the Azores, where we would stop for additional provisions and a little rest and relaxation, before continuing on to England.
The "time" drew near and then passed. I was going into my third week beyond the estimated delivery date. Dr. Tattersal decided that it would be better all around if the birth was induced. Early Saturday morning, November 18, 1973, to be precise, Paul and I rowed the dinghy ashore and walked up the hill to the hospital. Preparations began and after a few hours of intermittent labor pains,... A beautiful healthy boy had arrived on the shores of Roadtown, Tortola! .... I did realize raising a baby on a boat would not be an easy task. In fact, when I had first told Paul I wanted to have a child, he wanted nothing to do with it. He said having a baby will change me and that would change everything. I adamantly disagreed. He was right. It changed everything.





Other islands - IV

Chapter 11

Ken Matthews



In 1976, when the big Venus was very new, we sailed -- a bunch of us -- from Bermuda, where she was built, to Antigua for the racing week. The boat was 42-feet long, not including the bowsprit and the cat. It was a slow passage, but rough in spots, with strong women and a pukey baby aboard. A killer whale stopped by and threatened to kill us, but didn’t. He did a flip instead -- a high-wire act like the Great Wallenda -- and we applauded and he went away somewhere. A lost songbird, blown off its migratory course, took refuge in our rigging and caught its breath for a day or two before it set out again. When the weather was fair and the wind down, we had plenty of time to think. When it blew hard and it was your watch, you might wonder if was going to blow off your ears. One night, I saw a UFO clear as day, but in the morning nobody believed me.

We were glad to get to where we were going. “This was not a maiden voyage. It was an outrageous, strutting, bobbling, jiggling tart of a passage...There was no equipment failure of boat and no humor failure of crew,”

* * *
Johnson sailed back to Florida because the wife -- the young one, the lovely one, -- was divorcing him and nobody was surprised except, of course, Johnson. He didn’t think he needed divorcing.

The Florida courtroom to which he had been summoned was not a happy place. He walked in lost and despairing with borrowed shoes on his feet. He had put on a suit jacket which had been worn away during months or years of swinging in the hanging locker amidships -- swinging, swaying, lurching, rubbing. When Johnson shuffled before the bar of the court and faced the judge, the gaping rent was apparent to all of us in courtroom, but not to the defendant and not to the plaintiff and, fortunately, not to the judge.
The sailor stood before the court like a blind Lear set down in a strange land with no idea what perils might be beyond his first step. Yet he spoke eloquently and truthfully. It did him no good and the judge severed the union.



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All above text @Copyright 2007 Amalgamated General Publishers


FOR A PRINTED BOOK, CONTACT agpublishers@gmail.com




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