YACK on: Water Dependent
Grant Sanders
My buddy Stan and I were sitting around reading back issues of the "Indy" when Stan got that look on his face like he was just about to give birth to a cinder block, which meant he had a whopper of an idea coming on. He had been reading about all of the problems the Great Harbor Yacht Club was having building their clubhouse and keeping their travel lift working and all kinds of people were angry about the whole thing. The GHYC was mad at the Department of Environmental Prosecution or some such thing. The selectmen wrote a letter asking the DEP to tell the yacht club people how to do things. And the fishermen were mad at the selectmen for putting the screws to the yacht club on their boat-hauling operations. And the whole thing was so confusing, Stan had to lay down and put a wet towel on his forehead.

That's when he got one of his gen-u-ine, A+ ideas.

Stan figured that since the new yacht club was being held up by all that red tape and stuff, we could do an end-around run and start our own yacht club before they knew what hit them. Then all those fancy people with all their money could come to our club instead. If we charged enough for membership - Stan figured $60 or $80 a head - he and I might be able to buy our own boat since the last boat Stan had was ruined in that shark-fishing tournament last year.

I agreed that this was a pretty good idea, and while $80 a piece seemed like a lot, these folks with their big boats and fancy houses probably could afford it.

So the first thing we did was set out to find a place we could use as a clubhouse. I thought maybe the high school would rent us a room or something, but Stan did not like that idea because it cut into our profit margins. (I like the way Stan is always using his brains and stuff.) Then I remembered that old shack that Stan and I found off in the woods that time we were looking for a faster route to the dump. Nobody was using it. It was perfect!

"And best of all," said Stan, "it's not water dependent! So the DEP will not write us any long, complicated letters." I thought a yacht club should be on the water but Stan said that a chess club is not located on a chess board, and a garden club does not have to be in a garden, and the Pacific Club is just a few steps from the Atlantic Ocean.

Who can argue with that kind of logic?

The next thing we did was come up with a name. Stan liked the name, "Yacht Club by Stan." That is, until he heard my idea. The Grey Water Yacht Club. I figured that everything on Nantucket is "grey this" and "grey that," so it would fit right in, and the name was close enough to the Great Harbor Yacht Club's name that some people might mistakenly pay us dues that they might have given to the competition, which would be an added bonus!

So Stan set out to clean up the old shack in the woods and I set to work making a club flag. I think the official name of the flag is a bungee flag or some such thing. Anyway I know they are usually pointy at one end and I'm a whiz on the computer so I went home and designed the coolest yacht club bungee flag anyone has ever seen. It was black, like a pirate flag, but instead of a skull and crossbones, which would have been pretty cool, I put a drawing of a feral cat on it because there are lots of them around that old shack in the woods we found. I also made white dashes around the outside edge to give it flair.

Once I got the bungee flag printed out I went to show Stan and he had made the shack all nice and cozy. He had a deli platter from the Grand Union there and a cooler full of expensive imported beer and a bunch of old calendars from one of the marine stores that showed the tide charts from 2002 and everything. Very nautical. He also cleared a bit of land out front of the shack and made a bocce ball court. Stan figured that the yacht club types would appreciate a game with a European name and all.

Finally, he made a big sign out of plywood that read, The Grey Water Yacht Club. And he put it on the shed's roof. Classy.

Later that day, Stan and I put up fliers in all of the places we knew people with boats and money would go. Like the Hub Board. The Chicken Box. Henry's Junior. The Stop and Shop bulletin board (because no matter how wealthy, we all have to eat, now, don't we?) and then we nailed one to just about every telephone pole we could find within one mile of town. Some telephone poles already had signs for yard sales on them, so we were careful only to cover up the posters for yard sales that were over two weeks old.

The next day, when we got to the clubhouse we knew that putting the words "free beer" on the posters we put up was a good idea because three people were already there. One was a guy named Monty who was wearing one of those captain's hats and a blue blazer and an ascot so we know we had our first customer. Monty was a little inebriated and was clutching one of our flyers and swaying where he stood a little bit. He told us he usually did not carry money "on his person." So we had to spot old Monty the cost of admission. He looked to be good for the $80. His hat was worth that much at least.

The second guy who was there was also holding a flyer and he was a guy from the HDC who was telling us it's not okay to put up signs all around on telephone poles. We told that nice man that we had dialed "O" and asked if it was okay to put posters on telephone poles and the telephone lady said she did not know. We figured if there was a rule against it, she would definitely know and figured it was all right. But that nice man made us promise to go around and take all of the posters down. Then he left.

The third person who was waiting for us, turned out to be the Zoning Officer or something and he said the land we were on was not zoned for a club of any kind. And that we did not have the proper permits to run a club. But after we offered to waive his membership fee, he seemed to calm down and get into the spirit of things.

Stan reached onto a cooler and pulled out a few imported beers and I made a point to whisper to Stan to not refer to the beers as "Heinies," and then giggle like he always does as this might offend our yacht club customers. And Monty Kept making jokes asking why it was so dark in the shack and when was the new yacht club actually going to be built, and we all had a good laugh.

But after about an hour, there was a knock on the clubhouse door, and instead of more boating types there were two police men there telling us we were trespassing on private property and that we had to leave. Monty yelled that he was going to sue, and Stan and I had to quiet him down with another free Heineken (there goes our profit margins). After a little discussion, it was decided that it would be best for us all to leave and find another clubhouse. The officers declined an offer to partake of our deli platter and left.

Nobody is using the Dreamland Theater right now so Stan said he would make some phone calls to see if we could use that space. It's even near the water and within sight of a few boats and Monty and I thought that was a great idea. Until then, though, all operations of the Grey Water Yacht Club have been suspended.

Who knew starting a simple yacht club could be so difficult? Boy, oh boy, now Stan and I know how those guys Gary McCarthy and Blake Drexler feel!

YACK on. I

Grant Sanders is the host of YACK, The Nantucket Online Community at www.yackon.com and he has at least one blue blazer. His views are his own and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of The Nantucket Independent, his wife, or anyone named Stan.