Caribbean Compass Yachting Magazine - April 2022

APRIL 2022 CARIBBEAN COMPASS PAGE 22
YACHTING HISTORY
IN THE
EASTERN CARIBBEAN
Part Three:
The Dawn of the USVI Charter Trade
by Don Street
The folks who ran charter boats in the USVI in the 1950s and ’60s were a different
sort than those who do so today.
In the late 1940s, a Bahamian sailor and adventurer named Basil Symonette
wandered down through the Bahamas and Puerto Rico in his 43-foot William Handdesigned
gaff schooner, Sea Saga, and ended up in St. Thomas, US Virgin Islands.
After chartering Sea Saga for a couple of years, he sold her and took over the running
of the fledgling Yacht Haven marina in the early 1950s.
Yacht Haven
Yacht Haven marina — which through the years, by purchase, development,
knocking apart and redeveloping a couple of times, developed into what is now the
deluxe IGY Yacht Haven Grande — came about after the end of World War II. The
West Indian Company, which had been formed in 1912 as a coal-bunkering
ALL IMAGES COURTESY OF STEVE CRYTSER
operation supporting vessels that would travel through the Panama Canal, owned all
the land north of its commercial dock in St. Thomas Harbor. In 1952 the company
discontinued coal bunkering.
The company had a large barge that had reached the end of its life, which they
sank about 100 yards north of the commercial dock. They built a wooden pier out to
the barge. On top of the barge they constructed a dock containing an office and
about a dozen storage lockers. They installed lines for petrol and diesel running from
tanks ashore to pumps on the dock. They also ran a water line to the dock.
Ashore they built a small building to house a marine store, another building for a
small bar and restaurant, plus a small building with a couple of toilets and showers.
Yachts had started trickling in from the East Cast of the States. West Coast boats
cruised the Pacific coast of Central America, working their way south to the Panama
Canal. To rebuild their cruising kitties, they often managed to find work with the
corporation that ran the Panama Canal. Many became tired of Panama, slowly
worked their way eastwards and ended up in St. Thomas.
All boats arriving were short of cash. The skippers discovered that they could make
money chartering their boats, either by the day or for one- or two-week charters.
The day charter business
That is how two of the most successful early day charter boats — Pat and Leo
Minor’s Tropic Bird and Jack and Ruth Carstarphen’s Shellback — arrived in St.
Thomas. Both couples were founding members of the Seven Seas Cruising
Association (SSCA). Their boats were almost sister ships, both 36-foot Block Island
ketches with pinky sterns, making them 40 feet long overall with good deck space.
One year, the Christmas winds came in with a vengeance and Shellback blew out her
main. Obtaining a new mainsail in the ’50s in the Virgin Islands was a four- to fivemonth
project. But Tropic Bird had a spare mizzen, which she lent to Shellback. It
was only slightly smaller than Shellback’s reefed main, and the wind blew so hard
all winter that it worked perfectly.
For drumming up day charters, it was a case of the skippers visiting the hotels,
meeting guests and letting them know that they could have a nice day sail to a beach
on St. John with lunch, beer and drinks thrown in — all for just ten dollars per
person. This was possible because if the skipper brought an empty gallon jug to
Reese’s liquor store he could fill it up with St. Croix rum for 75 cents, and a case of
24 cans of Schaefer beer cost less than two dollars.
The VI Hilton had been built in 1950 on a hill overlooking St. Thomas. It was a large
hotel built with the expectation that gambling would be allowed in St. Thomas, which
never happened — quite. Entertainment at a small bar was provided by the
calypsonian The Duke of Iron, famous for his version of the ribald classic “The Big
Bamboo.” People could not figure out how the owner could pay such a famous star
on its proceeds. What they did not realize was that in a back room there was a nightly
high-stakes poker game, and when his show was over The Duke of Iron would join
it. The hotel owner was an excellent poker player and would relieve The Duke of the
majority of his earnings, leaving him enough to get by on until the next night.
Among the hotel guests were many women who had come from the US mainland
to obtain divorces in the St. Thomas court. It was a federal court, so their divorces
could not be contested in any state court. However, they had to establish St. Thomas
residency, which took six weeks. That, plus organizing a lawyer, scheduling a
hearing, etcetera, often took months, so the women got bored and restless,
presenting a great potential charter clientele.
Two good-looking young sailors, Rudy Thompson and Eric Winters, obtained the
use of Tropic Bird when Pat and Leo Minor landed a job running a big powerboat.
Above; In 1955, raising a cannon from the harbor seabed at the old West Indian
Company dock as crew of a yacht looks on. Note the sailboat hauled out on the dock
behind the crane.
Below: A sail-training ship, possibly the Danmark, visiting St. Thomas Harbor. The hills
behind Charlotte Amalie were remarkably undeveloped in the ’50s and ’60s.
In the early ’50s steel bands were just
arriving in the USVI, but bongo drums were
still popular. Rudy and Eric would go to the
VI Hilton, one would play the bongos and, as
a crowd assembled, the other would do the
sales pitch for a day sail. Lining up clients
wasn’t a problem.
As they sailed out of the harbor, once clear
the harbor mouth, Rudy and Eric would shed
their clothes and announce, “Everyone sails
naked in the Caribbean!” often with the
hoped-for results. Sometimes, sailing to
windward with the boat well heeled over, one
of them would take the spinnaker halyard,
stand up on the bow pulpit, swing out over the
water and land on the stern. Very spectacular,
and the ladies enjoyed the show, but as Eric
said, “Once in a while instead of landing on
the deck you’d end up being wrapped around
the mizzen rigging, which was very painful.”
They had one good season but then Pat and
Leo’s job on the motorboat ended, and Rudy
and Eric eventually acquired wives, gave up
chartering, and ended up working ashore.
The term charter business
Some boats started taking charters of one
week, ten days, or occasionally two weeks.
These charters were usually limited to the
waters around St. Thomas and St. John. A
two-week charter might sail south to St. Croix
and back.
Most charters didn’t venture farther east
than The Baths on Virgin Gorda, as the
standard chart was the US coast and geodetic
survey 905, which covered only the area from
the west end of St. Thomas to the west coast
of Virgin Gorda and south to and including St.
Croix. (See sidebar.)
Other than my Iolaire, none of the St.
Thomas charter boat fleet was willing to fight
across the Anegada Passage to St. Martin, St.
Barth’s and on to Antigua. In 1962 I
deadheaded directly south to Grenada to pick
up a three-week charter, sailing back north
through the islands to St. Thomas.
—Continued on next page