Links
Our banners
Latest News
Newsletter archive
Interviews
Sileakhunt
Book Store

Barely one hour past noon the clippership UNION HILL and the clippership SANUK and the clippership CHUCK WOWW all passed under the King Thaksin bridge. Traffic stopped, children cried, and 'good luck' birds wheeled and dipped in exultation as the three clippers raced for nun can #2 off Yok Yor and the prize. The prize for the first ship across the Ratchawong ferry landing line was freedom for the Australian jailbirds that had shipped in Adelaide. The prize for the owners would be top price for the bargirl Frankenstein shoes, and pink cell phones, and spices crammed between decks. The prize for the captain who crossed the finish line first would be lunch with Uri of Udon, the most beautiful woman in the world.

The first fatality was the UNION HILL under the command of a Malay prince who had risked all for lunch with the Thai siren. With his topsails overexposed to a brief williwaw from the Thonburi side of the river, he stood at the wheel and watched helplessly as she rolled her starboard studdingsail booms under, dug in her forefoot, broached and capsized. Women standing on the Oriental Hotel terrace under parasols gasped in horror.

Next to go was the beautiful long black singing sythe of a ship known as the CHUCK WOWW under the command of Captain Boss Hogg of Sukhumvit's Soi 4 in Siam's capital. After seeing a picture of the beautiful Uri of Udon in a copy of the Pattaya Mail he declared that she wasn't a woman, but an angel sent from heaven to give him life. Vowing to never spend another night with a lumpy dumpy Caucasian woman; he left wife and family in the States, chartered the CHUCK WOWW out of Germany and joined the race. Unfortunately, he and the black three-masted steed he was riding didn't pass under the bridge first, but second behind the UNION HILL. When the UNION HILL broached and capsized, she did so right in front of the CHUCK WOWW. The crash was spectacular. The screams could be heard all the way to the top of Wat Arun as the two Uri seeking steeds ground and chopped and pureed each other in a man made flotsam and jetsam of blood and bone and iron and oak.

Captain Dana of the iron barque SANUK witnessed the debacle as it played out before him. He hadn't thought much of the HILL or the WOWW or their captains but he hadn't planned on carrying so much blood to the finish line either. Still, a win was a win and there was only one Uri of Udon. Third in the Chao Praya race to the finish until the aforementioned events, he now was the certain winner except that two 300 foot clipper ships were disintegrating before him in a maritime miasma of choking screams and dying dreams. He couldn't head up because he already had her cranked in to windward as much as was possible; and he couldn't fall off to leeward because of a line of rice barges captained by a retired NEP mamasan. Nothing for it, he posted his officers with guns at the masts with orders to shoot anyone who tried to let go the halliards. The man at the wheel was encouraged to steer straight with a gun in his ear. With topmast wedges turning to oaken pulp, skysail masts and yards cracking, and the lee rail under; the great long heavy barque picked up her kelp green heels and rushed for the line at over 18 knots! With another Thonburi shore williwaw striking the topsails, she started to roll over just like the HILL. Sailors leaped for the rigging as the deck rolled under, but she was past the rice barges now and coming into flat water. The line was crossed. The race was won! Oriental hotel terrace women smiled and Wat Arun monks bowed. Rainbows burst from the bow spray, river dolphins danced on their tails, and soi dogs stopped scratching. Life was good.

Captain Dana and Uri from Udon were married in June. The Malay prince and Captain Hogg were the best men and the wedding vows were officiated by the English teacher to the royal family: Stickman. Both captains went on to become great legends of the sea. Dana and Uri retired to the mountains of Chiang Mai. He raked the Ping river pebbles in the Garden of Contemplation, and she painted her toe nails under the shade of the gazebo.

They named their first child Sanuk.

 

© Dana. All rights reserved by the author.