Poor Joe. Woe is Joe.

It is an historical fact that Joe sunk his beloved motorsailer "Red Cloud"
in the Gulf of Mexico about 200 miles off the coast of Texas during a cold
front passage. Actually, his boat was afloat when he and his hapless crew
was airlifted from the vessel. She drifted off, left to her own devices, and
eventually foundered later on at some indeterminate time. If ships have a
soul then Red Cloud's is a forsaken soul.

Cold frontal passages are pretty common in the Gulf of Mexico in the
wintertime and there is plenty of advance warning so they are easily
avoided. But, where poor Joe went wrong is he tried to motor through the
cold front in order to keep on schedule for a delivery of coffee beans. In
other words he's no sailor as a sailor does not attempt to motor north and
northwest during a Gulf of Mexico cold front passage into the teeth of wind
and wave. A real sailor would have hove-to and allowed the front to blow him
downwind in a comfortable and safe manner. What's fifty or sixty miles in
the long run? But, it appears that Joe's motorsailer had an inadequate
rudder and heaving her to would have knocked the rudder clean off and he
knew it. So he presented the bow to the wind and motored in a vain and
failed hope of protecting the defective appendage from the elements. Well,
his ignorant scheme failed. His rudder broke due to poor and weak design.
Part of it holed his transom.

Now, close to eight years later he still hasn't managed to scrape together
enough cash to replace his sunken vessel. He continues to ship his coffee
via conventional motor freight methods. His 'green' coffee company is a pipe
dream and a lie. Some competitor needs to sue him for false advertising
until he actually manages to ship his freight under sail. Until he can ship
his coffee under sail, he's a failure and a liar and he's duping his
customers who believe they are being 'green' when purchasing his wares.

In my opinion, if Joe hasn't managed to secure financing for a new sailing
freighter it indicates his idea is simply not viable and nobody is dumb
enough to loan him money on an idea that's been a proven failure since the
advent of steam drove the last of the clipper ships from the world's oceans.
Joe is trying to turn back the hands of time and it's just not gonna happen.
Sailing freighters are history. Joe's business model is doomed to fail. It
has demonstrably already failed with the sinking of "Red Cloud". The only
way Joe has any chance of succeeding is to secure a seaworthy sailboat that
is stout enough and roomy enough to carry freight and to HIRE a competent
and experienced sea captain who is then empowered to hire a competent crew.
No women, dogs and relatives on deck who don't have what it takes -
experienced seaman only.

With this in mind, I offer my services as captain at a reasonable rate.
(But, Joe must stay ashore and I insist upon Ms. Terry as ship's cook and
bottle washer)


Wilbur Hubbard
25GT Near Coastal Master Mariner