Rain Varnish
Yan is his name. He doesn't carry much age on him. Some people who hang out at the boatyard underestimate Yan's years by at least ten-if they dabble in such intellectual pursuits. More than a few who are so inclined miss it by twenty. The surroundings have something to do with the miscalculations. Everything visible is well worn, to be charitable. Giant wooden sheds list to port or starboard, ancient boat hoists hang silent and rusted, extension cords from unknown sources snake here and there among ailing boats slumped on wood blocks, and only "FICE" is barely visible on the sign identifying the tiny office. In comparison with the background, he, or anyone, looks young.
Yan is short for Yanmar, something even his close friends have nearly forgotten. Yan can still lift the end of a half-ton Whaler off the ground, if necessary, or pull himself to the top of a mast to un-snag a halyard. There are few knots he can't tie, although the occasions to use his arsenal of knowledge grow fewer each year. Yan also knows all there is to know about sailboats and sailing; there is no story anyone can tell that he can't top. And he usually does. More than anything else, however, Yan likes to play practical jokes. He will give you the T-shirt off his back if you are in need, but if you are well off, you are fair game.
Next to the OFFICE, and three times its size, is the STORE where mariners can still buy odds and ends face-to-face with a person. Inside are open metal shelves stacked with fan belts, screws, wiring, pulleys, twine, piping, used propellers, containers of gaskets, and a small assortment of pumps for keeping heads working and bilges empty. Along the wall next to a dirty, 16-pane window is what is left of a paint department. There are still some quart cans of White on the lower shelves. Up at eye level there is a dusty, empty shelf with a yellowed, paper label clinging to its front edge. The label on the shelf reads, faintly, RAIN VARNISH, even today after all these years. Here is how it came to be.
Late every spring boats begin to stop at the yard and its small marina. Usually the visitors are heading north from points south. They arrive in all sizes and shapes-both the boats and the people aboard. From custom yachts to homemade runabouts, from trawlers to tugs, one by one each silently appears around the end of the island like an older dog looking for its dinner. The island separates the inner bay and harbor from the main channel. The yard squats at the end of the bay, sheltered from heavy winds out of every compass point but due West. This location makes the bay and the yard a favorite stopover for mariners wishing peace and quiet, especially early and late in the season when there is the prospect of heavy weather on one or both of the two nearby Straits.
Snooty was an afternoon visitor one spring a few years back. She was a sailboat-a ketch to be precise-with masts of varnished wood, loosely-coiled lines hanging everywhere like laundry, sails hidden by covers, and a diesel engine that sounded inadequate. She nosed into the bay and chug-chugged deliberately, clockwise around the perimeter in an apparent search for a place of welcome. (There was one other marina in the bay plus a nearby restaurant & pub with a dock.) Finally Snooty closed on the boatyard, and it became apparent that the crew was made up of four younger women and one middle-aged man, a rather portly fellow wearing a captain's hat complete with a profusion of gold braid,
The relationship with the boatyard started on a sour note. Gold Braid brought Snooty in too fast and pushed a pile of water into the docks, fingers, and boats that carpeted the entrance to the yard. The result was rolling vessels, clanging halyards, and the thunking of wood on wood here and there as Snooty scraped into the outer dock amidst a lot of shouting-the captain at his crew. Yan stuck his head up through a forward hatch of a boat tied inside the outer dock. "Take it easy," he requested, as he hung on and one of his tools crashed onto the sole where he was standing.
Within a short time the women had disappeared ashore. Then, as was the usual practice, a variety of yard regulars started drifting down by Snooty to look her over. They came in twos and threes throughout the mid-afternoon. Gold Braid paid little attention to the locals. He was vigorously sanding the top of a once-varnished table that occupied the center of the generous, open, cushioned cockpit. Snooty was definitely a party boat. As the afternoon wore on, Gold Braid's pace of sanding increased; it was fueled by more and more frequent glances upwards at the gathering clouds. He was down to bare wood by the time Yan crawled off the old Chris-Craft and sauntered down the dock to do his own examination of the newcomer.
"Nice boat," he lied to get the conversation started.
"Yeah. Thank you. She's my big 45," Gold Braid grunted after looking up. And he could see more was required of him. "I'm hoping it doesn't rain on my work," he continued.
Yan slowly ran his glance from stern to stem with an intermediate stop at the head of the main mast. "Yea, it would be a shame to get that surface wet before you close it up." There was a pause as Yan slid four beefy fingers along a section of the cap rail. It needed sanding, too.
"What kind of varnish do you use?" Gold Braid queried. The prospect of either wet new wood or a rain-on-varnish mess was gaining on him as the sunlight thinned. The idea of covering the table and waiting a day or so apparently never occurred to him.
"I'd consider getting rain vanish if I were you," answered Yan looking squarely at the concerned skipper. "Then you won't have to worry."
"Rain varnish? Never heard of the stuff."
"Works like a charm," Yan deadpanned. "We never use anything else here," he tossed back over his shoulder as he ambled up the main dock. By the time he got to his white truck at the back of the yard, Gold Braid was huffing into the STORE.
"May I help you?" asked Yan's niece from behind the counter. She had observed the ketch's crew traipse ashore earlier.
"Yes, well, ah, I understand you sell, ah, rain varnishand I need a quart," he finished quickly.
With instant insight she choked back a snicker and glanced out the open door into the yard. Yan was nowhere to be seen. "I am sorry to tell you that we are out at the moment," she said smoothly, "but I am expecting some to be delivered this evening after six." She could deadpan, too. "Which boat is yours?" she continued.
"Mine's the big
45 down there," he answered in a solemn voice, his confidence
rebuilding.
"So it's really 46?" she came back, innocently. The
per-foot rate for overnight moorage was posted on the wall just
behind her head, and she was the collection agency.
"No, no, it's 45 feet," he replied, trapped.
"Well, shall I reserve some rain varnish for you to pick up first thing in the morning?" she questioned as she wrote up a moorage receipt. "I'll sit it on the shelf right over there for you." She pointed to the paint department. "And I'll put it on your bill now."
By eight the next morning everyone within a mile knew about the caper, and a goodly number of the immediate community was present at the yard in various, nonchalant poses, like actors on stage behind the curtain before it opens. Inside the store, someone-exactly who has never been determined for certain-had stuck a label on the shelf, RAIN VARNISH, and there, indeed, sat a single quart of the precious fluid. But Snooty was gone. Rumor chased rumor for days. The most likely one was that during the evening, at the pub, Gold Braid's crew overheard what had happened and the ladies carried the word home to the big 45.
The quart of Rain Varnish rested on the shelf for years, unclaimed.
Copyright © 1999, 2003 Steven C. Brandt.
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