FINDING A CARPENTERO IN PANAMA CITY
Golfito, Costa Rica, 05 January 2010
I guess it was no different than other routine jobs on the boat. And Panamá City is famous: you can get anything there, we had been told repeatedly. Why, it’s just like the United States. So, there should have been no problem beyond the nuisance.
We had been at anchor for several months with an engine problem, one of those small things – in this case a $4 oil seal - that turn into nightmares of time and money. While minding our own business at anchor, however, one of the afternoon squalls so typical of wet-season Panamá blew up. A large German-built, steel yacht, heavily constructed and owned by an ancient American who seemed long ago to have given up regular maintenance or indeed even regular bathing and had let both himself and the vessel become derelict – the boat dragged around the anchorage nearly every afternoon for a week. There was a final episode, however, before the Port Captain finally impounded the boat and secured it to a stout buoy -about the only useful thing I have ever seen the Port Captain do for all the money yachties have had to throw at him and his flunkies.
The steel yacht finally one day dragged its anchor several hundred feet towards shore, grazing a yellow sloop anchored just upwind from us and wrecking its anchor bow rollers. Then Vilisar was addressed. By the time I arrived out from in the dinghy through howling wind and driving tropical rain, the boat had reached us and was in the process of smashing and crashing its way down our starboard side. Fortunately, the squall petered out as suddenly as it began and others were able at last to pull her off of us. The damage was plain to see but mostly not structural. One of the bowsprit whisker shrouds was ripped off and the shroud was hanging in the water from the bowsprit. And, the starboard lightboard now hung in two splinters from its lashings; the copper oil lamp for navigation looked like a crushed beer can.
There was other damage, but in the end the stout nature of our wooden sailboat prevailed and damage was relatively limited. But how to deal with the lightboard? We needed the lamp for navigating at night and we needed the wooden lightboard to hold the lamp.
I had always found Roger a great resource. He had once been the dockmaster at that yacht marina in Colon that the Panamá Canal Authority had suddenly shut down. Roger, descendent of Caribbean Canal workers, decided Colon was no place to raise children and had moved his family to Panamá City where he started driving taxi with a focus on yachties. It had taken him a while but now he knew his way around and he knew what kind of assistance cruisers needed. Of course, there were the normal provisioning stops for those planning a South Pacific passage. But, cruisers are special need customers. They were always looking for some spare part or some specialist service to keep their boats operating. Why don’t Japanese build boats as well as cars? There would be no need of all this.
Roger is cool. I met him one morning by appointment at Las Brisas de Amador, a bullshit name for a polluted anchorage open to northerlies and an over-priced dinghy dock without even the pretence of facilities. I had the shattered starboard lightboard with me. Like so much of the sailboat it too was made of lightweight yellow cedar. I needed to find a local carpentero who could make me new ones. The port lightboard had been broken years ago off the Pacific coast of Baja California and I had glued and screwed it back together. (That’s an interesting yarn too but not here.) I had decided to have the pair of them made new. But, since I didn’t have the materials there was no workshop on board and hand tools was not going to suffice here, I wanted Roger to take me to a local carpentero. No big deal. Just a simple carpenter that could cut out and glue up the two lightboards based upon the model I was offering.
I guess wooden yachts are something else in Panamá. At east Roger had never been confronted yet with the need for a carpentero. We had other errands to run and all the while Roger was asking people we were meeting to be pointed at a carpenters shop. When the control of the Panamá Canal passed to the Panamanians, many well-paid local craftsmen were laid off and had to find other livelihoods. Many started little one-man shops. There had to be a carpentero amongst them.
Finally a lady in a engine-filter shop told Roger about a carpentero in Rio Abajo neighbourhood. They made furniture but took on all kinds of work, she reckoned. Eventually we found it in a dusty back street. It was a large shop filled with unfinished cupboards and other items. Lots of sawdust.The two workers sanding a cabinet in the street outside waved us towards the back. We approached the office. I guess we should have been alerted by the fact that an elderly man was dozing in the office armchair and, when we knocked, was startled out of a deep siesta.
Clinton Henry, he said his name was. He was tall and might once have been meaty. But now he was quite advanced in years. His woolly hair was strongly flecked with white, his eyes looked watery and he seemed to have difficulty focusing. He moved slowly. As it turned out, like most black people in Panamá City, he spoke English. Nevertheless, Roger explained using the models just what we needed. No problem! You gonna do the finishing yourself? So just cut and glue, rightr? It’ll be ready in two days. Fifty dollars for the pair. But I need some money down for materials; teak would be best. I paid him $40, which I later regretted. How many people had told us never to give money in advance? But, he seemed serious and a two-day turnaround was great. And to make it even better, Roger offered to pick them up and bring them out to the anchorage for me.
After a week I finally heard from Roger by cellphone. He had been to the workshop twice and talked with Clinton Henry. The carpentero had started the job, and one of the boards was partially cut out of one-inch thick teak. But then Clinton Henry seemed to have run out of steam. Roger found him again, dozing in his office while his workers were busy outside. It took a minute for Clinton Henry to even recall the job. But, no problem! Two more days. Pick it up on Saturday. It’ll be ready.
Roger didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when he called me on Saturday afternoon. You could hear him shaking his head through the phone. When he arrived that morning, Clinton Henry acted just as bemused as before. Surely he had only promised to make one lightboard for fifty dollars. Anyway, they weren’t finished. Tuesday, for sure!
I had given Roger an extra $20. The original price was to have been $50 and I paid $40 on account. But I knew there would be ‘an issue’ of some sort and left him with a bit more, just in case. Clinton Henry, when he came to his senses, fussed and argued and bargained. He tried to bluff his way to making only one lightboard. But finally, Roger told him ‘the man’ is getting really pissed off. There’s twenty dollars more when it’s all done. But get the work finished by Tuesday or there’s gonna be big trouble. The man’s going to go to the police.
In the end, the lightboards were made and Roger brought them out to the anchorage. I guess Clinton Henry was just getting on in his dotage. Dozing in the office was the way he stayed out from under foot at home. The workers carried the business. For all I know they were robbing him blind too. I gave Roger some money for his efforts. He is a great resource in Panamá City. Call him if you need a taxi or just need to know where to go to get something done.
He probably won’t take you back to Clinton Henry’s shop, however. If you need a small job done by a carpentero, go see Tito, the guy who runs the donkey engine at Balboa Yacht Club. According to Dennis, an American shipwright living on S/V Charlie in the anchorage, Tito does a pretty good job. Or you could just go by S/V Charlie one evening and find Dennis. For bigger jobs there are good carpenteros de navales (shipwrights) around Panamá City (e.g. Erwin and Ivan Pitti and family) or contact Jim Laing, a New Zealander who builds and repairs wooden boats.
Golfito, Costa Rica, 05 January 2010
I guess it was no different than other routine jobs on the boat. And Panamá City is famous: you can get anything there, we had been told repeatedly. Why, it’s just like the United States. So, there should have been no problem beyond the nuisance.
We had been at anchor for several months with an engine problem, one of those small things – in this case a $4 oil seal - that turn into nightmares of time and money. While minding our own business at anchor, however, one of the afternoon squalls so typical of wet-season Panamá blew up. A large German-built, steel yacht, heavily constructed and owned by an ancient American who seemed long ago to have given up regular maintenance or indeed even regular bathing and had let both himself and the vessel become derelict – the boat dragged around the anchorage nearly every afternoon for a week. There was a final episode, however, before the Port Captain finally impounded the boat and secured it to a stout buoy -about the only useful thing I have ever seen the Port Captain do for all the money yachties have had to throw at him and his flunkies.
The steel yacht finally one day dragged its anchor several hundred feet towards shore, grazing a yellow sloop anchored just upwind from us and wrecking its anchor bow rollers. Then Vilisar was addressed. By the time I arrived out from in the dinghy through howling wind and driving tropical rain, the boat had reached us and was in the process of smashing and crashing its way down our starboard side. Fortunately, the squall petered out as suddenly as it began and others were able at last to pull her off of us. The damage was plain to see but mostly not structural. One of the bowsprit whisker shrouds was ripped off and the shroud was hanging in the water from the bowsprit. And, the starboard lightboard now hung in two splinters from its lashings; the copper oil lamp for navigation looked like a crushed beer can.
There was other damage, but in the end the stout nature of our wooden sailboat prevailed and damage was relatively limited. But how to deal with the lightboard? We needed the lamp for navigating at night and we needed the wooden lightboard to hold the lamp.
I had always found Roger a great resource. He had once been the dockmaster at that yacht marina in Colon that the Panamá Canal Authority had suddenly shut down. Roger, descendent of Caribbean Canal workers, decided Colon was no place to raise children and had moved his family to Panamá City where he started driving taxi with a focus on yachties. It had taken him a while but now he knew his way around and he knew what kind of assistance cruisers needed. Of course, there were the normal provisioning stops for those planning a South Pacific passage. But, cruisers are special need customers. They were always looking for some spare part or some specialist service to keep their boats operating. Why don’t Japanese build boats as well as cars? There would be no need of all this.
Roger is cool. I met him one morning by appointment at Las Brisas de Amador, a bullshit name for a polluted anchorage open to northerlies and an over-priced dinghy dock without even the pretence of facilities. I had the shattered starboard lightboard with me. Like so much of the sailboat it too was made of lightweight yellow cedar. I needed to find a local carpentero who could make me new ones. The port lightboard had been broken years ago off the Pacific coast of Baja California and I had glued and screwed it back together. (That’s an interesting yarn too but not here.) I had decided to have the pair of them made new. But, since I didn’t have the materials there was no workshop on board and hand tools was not going to suffice here, I wanted Roger to take me to a local carpentero. No big deal. Just a simple carpenter that could cut out and glue up the two lightboards based upon the model I was offering.
I guess wooden yachts are something else in Panamá. At east Roger had never been confronted yet with the need for a carpentero. We had other errands to run and all the while Roger was asking people we were meeting to be pointed at a carpenters shop. When the control of the Panamá Canal passed to the Panamanians, many well-paid local craftsmen were laid off and had to find other livelihoods. Many started little one-man shops. There had to be a carpentero amongst them.
Finally a lady in a engine-filter shop told Roger about a carpentero in Rio Abajo neighbourhood. They made furniture but took on all kinds of work, she reckoned. Eventually we found it in a dusty back street. It was a large shop filled with unfinished cupboards and other items. Lots of sawdust.The two workers sanding a cabinet in the street outside waved us towards the back. We approached the office. I guess we should have been alerted by the fact that an elderly man was dozing in the office armchair and, when we knocked, was startled out of a deep siesta.
Clinton Henry, he said his name was. He was tall and might once have been meaty. But now he was quite advanced in years. His woolly hair was strongly flecked with white, his eyes looked watery and he seemed to have difficulty focusing. He moved slowly. As it turned out, like most black people in Panamá City, he spoke English. Nevertheless, Roger explained using the models just what we needed. No problem! You gonna do the finishing yourself? So just cut and glue, rightr? It’ll be ready in two days. Fifty dollars for the pair. But I need some money down for materials; teak would be best. I paid him $40, which I later regretted. How many people had told us never to give money in advance? But, he seemed serious and a two-day turnaround was great. And to make it even better, Roger offered to pick them up and bring them out to the anchorage for me.
After a week I finally heard from Roger by cellphone. He had been to the workshop twice and talked with Clinton Henry. The carpentero had started the job, and one of the boards was partially cut out of one-inch thick teak. But then Clinton Henry seemed to have run out of steam. Roger found him again, dozing in his office while his workers were busy outside. It took a minute for Clinton Henry to even recall the job. But, no problem! Two more days. Pick it up on Saturday. It’ll be ready.
Roger didn’t know whether to laugh or cry when he called me on Saturday afternoon. You could hear him shaking his head through the phone. When he arrived that morning, Clinton Henry acted just as bemused as before. Surely he had only promised to make one lightboard for fifty dollars. Anyway, they weren’t finished. Tuesday, for sure!
I had given Roger an extra $20. The original price was to have been $50 and I paid $40 on account. But I knew there would be ‘an issue’ of some sort and left him with a bit more, just in case. Clinton Henry, when he came to his senses, fussed and argued and bargained. He tried to bluff his way to making only one lightboard. But finally, Roger told him ‘the man’ is getting really pissed off. There’s twenty dollars more when it’s all done. But get the work finished by Tuesday or there’s gonna be big trouble. The man’s going to go to the police.
In the end, the lightboards were made and Roger brought them out to the anchorage. I guess Clinton Henry was just getting on in his dotage. Dozing in the office was the way he stayed out from under foot at home. The workers carried the business. For all I know they were robbing him blind too. I gave Roger some money for his efforts. He is a great resource in Panamá City. Call him if you need a taxi or just need to know where to go to get something done.
He probably won’t take you back to Clinton Henry’s shop, however. If you need a small job done by a carpentero, go see Tito, the guy who runs the donkey engine at Balboa Yacht Club. According to Dennis, an American shipwright living on S/V Charlie in the anchorage, Tito does a pretty good job. Or you could just go by S/V Charlie one evening and find Dennis. For bigger jobs there are good carpenteros de navales (shipwrights) around Panamá City (e.g. Erwin and Ivan Pitti and family) or contact Jim Laing, a New Zealander who builds and repairs wooden boats.
posted by rjb @ Tuesday, January 05, 2010
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