This is the first Captain John’s Log entry in quite some time! AquaSafaris keeps us very busy with international destination charters, local Charleston corporate and private bookings, inshore and offshore fishing, sailing our newest addition JAZZ and of course S/V SERENA, still the area’s only true sailing yacht legally certified for more than 6 guests. Even so, I have recently crossed several milestones as my kids have both grown up and moved away, we’ve relocated from our Patriots Point office and our 100 passenger cat, PALMETTO BREEZE, is now under capable new ownership. Just this past Labor Day weekend while sailing on SERENA the all too familiar vessel came into view off the port beam. I enthusiastically addressed yet another large group of smiling passengers aboard this Charleston icon with the very same conch horn I had sounded countless times from behind her helm. Realizing the significance of this moment inspired me to pick up this dusty old log yet again.
In the spring of 2000 I went on a ski vacation with my wife and our six year old son. Spring skiing in Lake Tahoe’s Sierra mountains is magical. Since founding our company almost all of our travels prior had been to seaside destinations to further our growing knowledge of charter yachts, their crew and cruising grounds worldwide. This was supposed to be just a vacation and a chance to get our boy on skis while young enough for it to become second nature to him. During overnight lows in the mountains the snow is freshly groomed for morning runs before midday when conditions started to get sloppy as the temperatures climbed. This is when we would wander down to the lake, strip off our gloves, boots, bibs, goggles, hats and jackets to take in the scenery wearing shorts and flip flops. It was that spring on Lake Tahoe where I made a surprising discovery that changed my life. What caught my eye was none other than the very first Coast Guard certified charter sailing multihull, unsuspectingly floating over a mile above sea level! “Once and a while you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right”. The Hugh’s designed SIERRA CLOUD could almost be described as a giant 55’ x 30’ Hobie Cat. Her bones were genius in their simplicity and practicality but there was a considerable amount of room for improvement overall. Back in Charleston I had become experienced in the construction and operation of a smaller, heavier Brown/Marples cat I had owned with several partners including Mark Bayne, who’s family had been building boats in Charleston for generations. Although the SIERRA CLOUD’s capacity was only 49 passengers, spatially she had far more square footage than the 77 passenger Brown/Marples cat we had recently sold. The SIERRA CLOUD also possessed a much lower freeboard and much narrower hulls thus much less material and cost to build. The summer season in Tahoe hadn’t started so I didn’t get a chance to sail her however, much like being in the presence of a gloved falcon, there was no doubt she could fly. “
While a seed had been planted, it would have time to germinate. I was right in the middle of a year long task of totally refitting my classic 20 passenger Columbia 50’ SERENA and opening our new office at the newly constructed resort marina at Patriots Point. Still the largest marina in the south, north of Fort “yachterdale”. One of our first vessels under management was the 49 passenger sailing catamaran FRANGINES, also locally built as a hybrid term charter cat being appointed with air conditioned cabins and main salon. Frangines designed was modeled after Dennis Conners STARS ‘N STRIPES catamaran which successfully put down the America’s cup Kiwi challengers off San Diego. She was very fast in a stiff breeze and it was no time before we were booking daysails, which the owners weren’t at all ready for. They had spent a lot of money and to see their creation opened up for the public to trample on would eventually become more than they could bare. For the most part our fledgling business flourished and the dream of the perfect charter cat wasn’t the only seed planted in Tahoe when nine months after that ski vacation, our daughter was born. Thankfully, AquaSafaris destination charter bookings were also doing well and we were more than sustaining our growing family, that is until September of 2001 when everything changed.
It was obvious that our focus would have to be on Charleston when travel abroad after 9-11 came to a halt. Two years later, FRANGINES’ owners finally announced they were saving their dream boat from the “The Unholy City” and removing her from the day sail business. We now had a large income whole to fill. The first person I mentioned building our own day charter cat to was my friend George Schilling. Like yours truly, he had spent time sailing in the islands although not on a monohull but a custom trimaran. He was amazingly boat tech savvy and I employed him often, particularly in the refit of SERENA. He absolutely loved the idea and was eager to present the concept to Mark Bayne, who would be by far the most integral part of the plan. Since our Brown/Marples cat, Mark had assembled a talented crew who built mostly sport fishing boats. Fortune smiled yet again as he was between jobs and in the late fall of 2003, we got approval from the US Coast Guard Inspections Division to begin construction at the Navy base in the old seaplane hangar. Our project came together rapidly with the diligence of some incredibly talented individuals, most notably Carlton Poulnot who helped with the rigging, Leigh Parker who powered her, Jay Holmquest who did all the welding, George who wired and plumbed her according to strict US Coast Guard specs and of course Mark’s crew of Hamp, Doug, Ted, and Rob. Rob Slocum, who’s great, great uncle was the first single handed sailor to circumnavigate the globe, no doubt inherited his stubborn tenacity, saving himself from an unfortunate epoxy incident that almost made Rob a permanent fixture to the hull. Not at all funny at the time, it’s now a story we can look back at with a laugh. Locals wandered over from Wadmalaw to Goose Creek, to lend a hand, embracing the craft as their own. Coming up with a name had been a bit of a puzzle. Most of the money to build her had come from inherited funds from my grandfather’s farm. Dr. Jim Rose was the G.P. for the entire town of Pikeville, North Carolina, where my mom at an early age picked tobacco during the Rose farm harvest right along with the hired help. Pop Rose was himself, as were most men of the time from Eastern Carolina, a tobacco smoker who my afore mentioned Cousin on the other side, Dr. Richard Borden, would attest to. Cousin Dick often talked about being on call with Dr. Jim who could put down a lit cigarette, scrub in, deliver a baby in time to scrub out, pick his cigarette back up and polish it off. When Pop Rose passed, all the children of Pikeville were let out of school that day as he had delivered each and every one of them. I was very young when he died and the only memory I have of him is sitting me atop a toy tractor. Family and friends, including our daughter’s godmother Sheryl Smith, went round and round trying to incorporate Rose in the vessel’s name when our Low Country raised son instead pipped up, “PALMETTO BREEZE!”
On Memorial Day Weekend 2004, in front of a jubilant crowd, she was christened and launched while playing Jerry Garcia’s “Scarlett Begonias”. Serendipitously, as a belated birthday present a few months later Mark Bayne gave me Buffett’s newly released CD, “License to Chill”. Tracks of the album included “I got Boats to Build”, “Coast of Carolina” and an inspired cover of “Scarlet Begonias”. We started running from our home base at Charleston Harbor Marina but it was LJ Wallace, editor of The Water Log who encouraged me to bring The Breeze over Wednesday’s to board from Red’s Ice House on Shem Creek. In less than 2 years Shem Creek became her permanent home. There are far too many stories to share in one log entry but most agree that for the last 20 years, PALMETTO BREEZE has thrived as a beloved Charleston fixture. Now Carole and I will turn our attention to JAZZ, SERENA and daily inquiries for charter vessels here in the Low Country and abroad. We’re always in search of new paradises as well as rediscovering old ones. Just in the last year we have “worked” both the Poros, Greece and Mediterranean charter yacht gatherings, viewed vessels off the southern coast of Italy, and in the months to come will be revisiting Croatia, Antigua, Australia and seeing New Zealand for the first time. Needless to say please check back for more of Captain John’s Log. I’m sure people will still ask me how it was possible to maneuver a 1,500 square foot, one hundred passenger sailboat in the middle of the most congested boat traffic in all of the Low Country? The answer is simple, with two diesel engines thirty-feet apart it’s as easy as driving a tractor. Thanks Pop! Now as I pass by the PALMETTO BREEZE I can feel proud, especially knowing she’s in good hands and that where ever I roam, The Breeze Blows On.
Dedicated to Carlton Poulnot: Commodore, Captain, Marine rigger and surveyor, husband, father, grandfather, one of the original Navy Frogmen (later changing the nickname to seals) and a very good friend.