The Boating Barrister

By John K. Fulweiler, Esq. My girl is out of the Opti and into a Laser 4.7. She’s a stringbean, so it’ll be something for her when the southerly rolls down the Bay. I keep telling her it’s like she’s stepping up to the Formula 1 circuit, but there’s a wee look of bemusement on her face. Whatever the case, COVID has gutted the race calendar and this summer is for knocking around and learning her new…

By John K. Fulweiler, Esq. Whether blue water sailor or coastal cruiser, our weird quarantine world isn’t all that different from being shipboard. You keep an eye on the food, watch the water, worry the book you’ve maybe been meaning to write, consider the next menu, and scan the seascape. All you’re missing is lap of water and press of wind. My schedule largely remains the same as I trundle each morning into the office and lock…

Tick-tac-dough. I’m standing. It’s a courtroom where the photocopier is wheeled against the clerk’s desk and justice is mostly mechanical and pedestrian. We’re seeking the Court’s blessing of a settlement involving a minor. I’m idling aside the teenage client. She’s tall and quiet. A guardian (an attorney appointed to review the settlement we’d obtained) explains our (awesome) efforts to the judge and the dialogue devolves into a discussion of her injuries and lingering limitations. The girl is…

Once, a long ways back, a wealthy client complained to me. It was about his family member. “All he does,” he snarled in indignation. “All he does, is sit on a beach and read.” He was behind his desk, golf-course casual with the bumper’s edge of a six-figure car peeking beneath the blinds behind him. He was rolling a shiny shackle in hands, wanting some convivial concurrence from my side. It didn’t come because I don’t do…

By John K. Fulweiler, Esq. The “Biscayne Bay Boil” is what my daughter renamed the cursed Biscayne Bay chop. We spent four days in late December at the Orange Bowl Regatta in Miami, Florida watching our spawn bronco-bust her Opti through something like 13 races. What a fun event, and hats off to the Coral Reef Yacht Club for their enthusiasm and organization. With luck (and provided, I’m told, the snack bar continues to serve the sine…

Here’s a lazarette’s worth of things boaters would do well to remember: Sailing isn’t a sport…not in the way most of the 50 states understand sports. Foiling hulls will never catch on en masse with the recreational boater. It’s not the cost of the boat. It’s the upkeep. The buoys are there for a reason. Sail because you love it, not for any other reason. Wearing a brand name is one thing; wearing a store’s brand name…

By John K. Fulweiler, Esq. The boat show was a hoot. I drank some beer, strolled the docks with the best looking woman in the show, and feigned interest in boats so expensive it made my eyelids hurt. It’s not that I don’t like goals, but to steal a Chris Hitchens sort of analysis – there’s probably a special place in the afterlife for anyone who pays somewhere near a million for a plastic boat with four…

By John K. Fulweiler, Esq. I’ll hold a sweaty beer in my hand and watch these runabouts tear around Narragansett Bay like they’re on PCP. My memory is the only things I used to see rip up waters like that were the Cigarette-style rigs throwing 100-foot rooster tails. Now, it seems even the simple-looking center console can travel at speeds of 50 miles an hour! Who cares whether it’s “advancements” in the manufacturing or powering technology, it’s…

By John K. Fulweiler, Esq. Jesse James likes him a lobster roll. You know him…ex-husband to Sandra Bullock, denim-wearing, flattop-rocking, chopper-making TV personality. I was slugging a Diet Coke and lobster roll when he sat down next to me, both of us with a Newport harbor view. I’m no fanboy and so I ate and ran, leaving him to perspire in his getup (he hadn’t yet broken out his Nantucket Reds). But what if Jesse decides to…

By John K. Fulweiler, Esq. Let me ask you a question. It’s a morals question, but not the kind that’s any fun. It’s a question lathered in maritime facts, but it’ll work just as good as if we were talking about forty acres and a dead mule in Minnesota. Maybe the question should give way to the narrative, ‘cause the narrative probably has the lesson and it’s the lesson I’m meaning to clear off the wharf and…