I don't know if this will be of interest to those who were on the Tropic Bird, but here goes:
The Tropic Bird was orginally the CARLA out of Hamburg Germany. It was built by a wealthy industrialist named Hans Hartman around the time of the Cuban missle crisis. After it was built it sank one winter at the dock due to a burst/frozen through hull fitting.
My father married his daughter, Ziggy and was 'given' the boat as a wedding gift. He spent a year in Germany having it refitted. New Cat engines and 60kw generator. By that time, as these things tend to happen Ziggy left him and he hired a german crew and sailed (1969 +/-) it to Sarasota Florida where it was fixture of the area. It was moored at Marina Jack in Sarasota.
After it arrived the crew except for one was sent back to Germany. The one was named Uwe Pliler and he worked on the boat for a couple of years. Uwe was extremely fit and eventually a rich older lady found him and married him. She recently died and he is now a wealthy patron of the arts I suppose
I lived on it for a while. It carried a German flag so it befuddled the local sheriff who was determined that it was smuggling 'something' and stopped by for free tours which we were glad to give him to calm his fears.
I was 20 at the time and tasked with navigating it around. Quite a fun thing for me at the time.
My most memorable experience was in 1971 I believe when we loaded up the boat with friends and booze and took off for Mexico. 212 degrees on the compass I recall from Sarasota. Well no one bothered to check the weather reports and we ran smack dab into Hurricane Celia (we found out later) and spent three days in enormous waves trying to survive. Everyone was sick except for Uwe who loved it!
At the time the only navigation aid was a lousy Radio Direction Finder. No one knew of course how to use a sextant.. I spent hours reading Chapmans and trying to figure out where we were. I remember listening to the beeps ...-. or thereabouts for hours. Although the compass held steady, the radio station seemed to move around - due no doubt to atmospheric interference. What a mess. THe engine room was up to me to manage and no one cared about my complaints that the bilge pump was not working so well. The Carla (Tropic Bird) did very well considering 40 foot waves and all.
When the storm cleared we were concerned we were below Cuba when we saw the lights of the city but then noticed the lights moved off to the East - oh that must have been a freighter!
Finally we decided we would sail due West; the penalty at the time for being wrong was Castros jails so we were cautious.
Finally one of the old salts saw a cloud bank to the south and declared it looked like the clouds over Isla De Merahis (spelling) and we headed south. Finally we found Cozu Mel(spelling) and tied up at the one dock.
Of course we had no idea if we needed 'papers' and when the local police chief came to see us, my father showed him, all in German, the very official looking membership in the Hamburg Yacht club, and that with enough US $100 bills and a few drinks and were ok.
We went ashore; the only thing on the island were ten foot tall huts at the time. I understand its changed - I should go back someday?
On the island a Dr Menedez was corgial and set up a traditional meal of Sea turtle cooked in the sand; tasted like Chicken.
We saw the sites. A few of the crew flew back on an airplane as they had had enough of boats.
We sailed back without incident. My father finally sold the boat (1976?) to a gentleman from the islands for a bag of green cash - things were less formal then, no?
We have pictures of the old Carla somewhere. My father died this year but kept a painting of the Carla on his wall till then. I still have a key to the rear submarine style door and the two german built brass oil burning anchor lights.
Good times!
