Bequia Easter Regatta 2008 - Caribbean Compass

The Passing of
a Pioneer
Charter Skipper
by Deb Andrews
Esteemed by friends and family, Irish Pete was never
a ladies’ man — his first love was the sea
P
eter Keily known as “Irish Pete”
died peacefully at the age of 85
in Torrington House Nursing
Home, Barbados.
Irish Pete was best known in the
1970s and ’80s as one of the first charter
skippers at The Moorings’ base in
the British Virgin Islands. His shy
character and quiet Irish lilt endeared
him to many of those early charterers,
and made him one of the best-loved
captains in the Virgin Islands. He was
not a great storyteller in the traditional
sense, and yet when he had a story to
tell, it was told with a paucity of words,
an Irish idiom and punctuated with a
warm giggle that was unforgettable.
And his stories were legion, as Irish
Pete lived his life to the full from the
day he left his father’s bakery in
Dungarvon, County Waterford, in his
teens, to the day he died.
His love affair with the sea started
before even he could remember, and as a teenager he saved up and bought his first boat, a Bantry Bay. He
secured a job aboard a coal freighter that plied between Liverpool and Dun Laoghaire. Baking bread was
not in his genes, the sea was.
Those early trips between England and Ireland came to an abrupt halt one night in Liverpool docks. After
the last pub closed, Pete appeared at the end of the pier, only to remember that his ship was anchored
some distance out from the dock. Shrugging off his jacket he dove off the pier, quite prepared to swim out
to his bunk.
But he forgot that the tide was out!
It was some time before they dug him out of the deep sticky mud and declared that his back was broken.
In Liverpool they told him he would never walk again. But Pete could be stubborn and difficult for all his
shy demeanour, and he insisted that they put him on a ferry to Ireland.
Once back in Ireland Pete made his way to a “bonesetter” in County Waterford, a member of an Irish
fraternity who have set bones since the Battle of Clontarf and before, passing on the secret knowledge century
after century. And before long Pete’s six-foot frame was as upstanding as it had ever been and he left
Ireland once more.
This time he signed on for bigger adventures. As a merchant navy seaman he visited Shanghai and Port
Said, Adelaide and Hong Kong — you name the port, he knew the best pubs. Pete was never a ladies’ man,
although he had romanced a few with his bright blue eyes and his courteous Irish charm over the years.
But no lady ever supplanted the love of his life, the sea.
His fascination with boats and the sea continued to grow and he always had a yacht moored up the
Hamble River on the south coast of England. She was always there for him when he stepped off a merchantman
in Southampton after a three- or six-month stint at sea.
In the late ’60s he upgraded to Valerie, a lovely wooden sloop known to Pete and his friends as “de
Valerie”! It was on Valerie that he made his first big singlehanded crossing, from England to Antigua.
Unfortunately it took him three years to actually leave England as he couldn’t get his new-fangled selfsteering
to work. It was another old BVI charter skipper, Dan Bowen, who left three years earlier expecting
Pete to follow right behind him (it was a “last one into Nelson’s Dockyard in Antigua buys the rum” arrangement)
who sorted him out. Dan did two years of skippering around Antigua and then sailed back to the
Solent one summer to find out where on earth Pete had got to. “Dis new self-steering doesn’t work, Dan, do
it?” quoth Irish Pete. Dan showed him, with some resistance from Pete, that he had the lines on back to front.
Pete let loose with his strongest exclamation, one that was Pete’s and Pete’s alone: “Oh my, oh my, oh my!”
And soon after, they set sail for Antigua, Pete carrying only a large barrel of beer lashed to his keelstepped
mast for sustenance. When Dan Bowen’s mother who came to see them off asked to see his food
lockers, Pete’s now-famous response was to point at the sturdily tied barrel and say “Dere’s enuff vitamins
in dat to see me to Antigua!”
After a few years working and chartering in Antigua Pete moved to the BVI and started his long career for
the Moorings.
Pete settled in Maya Cove, now known as Hodge’s Creek, and finally
sold Valerie, replacing her with Saganor, a fibreglass boat that needed a
lot less maintenance. This meant that when he was not working he could
relax and enjoy his idyllic mooring spot in Maya Cove. He loved the BVI
and it was his home for nearly 40 years.
Pete was a well-known figure in Maya Cove, sailing Saganor on and off
his mooring in what became a very crowded anchorage. Only two years
ago, he and Wilf Wild, both in their 80s, were still spending each hurricane
season in the mangroves along the south coast of Puerto Rico,
drinking El Presidente and dining on Puerto Rican barbecued chicken in
the company of old cruising friends.
It was on the personalities of those unique hardy individuals like Irish
Pete, Fritz Seyforth, Ross Norgrove, Wilf Wild and Dan Bowen that the
success of the modern BVI chartering industry was founded. These men
are legend and Pete is one of the last.
Pete’s knowledge of sailing ran bone deep, and yet he would never
boast to those less knowledgeable or experienced than himself. I once
did the Round Tortola Race with him and at one point there was an
Pete sailed Valerie from
England to Antigua
altercation between the six would-be skippers we had on board that day.
And I turned to Pete who sat in a corner of the cockpit, watching them
silently with his usual Old Milwaukee clasped in his huge seaman’s
hand. “Pete,” said I, thinking to draw him in and make a definitive deci-
sion. “What do you think?” He raised his beer can in a familiar motion of dismissal, “Oh my,” he said with
that blue eyed mustachioed smile of his, “Oh my!” That was all. Needless to say, we didn’t win that year.
Irish Pete’s ashes will be scattered at sea close to his beloved British Virgin Islands.
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APRIL 2008 CARIBBEAN COMPASS PAGE 37