The Captain And His Crooked Tailed Crew: Remembering Evan Logan
Many years ago I walked up a slipway in Nelson, New Zealand, stepped aboard an old tall ship, and joined a curious crew. It was led by an equally curious seaman, Captain Evan Logan. Evan’s crew was an ever-changing mish-mash of characters who found themselves and each other aboard Alvei, the schooner Evan called home for much of his adult life. For one gonzo year, I called Alvei home as well.
In February, Evan passed away in Fiji after a hard fought battle with pneumonia. Around the world, former crew took the news of his death hard, like so many small boats crashing into the rocks. I hadn’t seen the man in twenty years, yet his passing left me rudderless. I messaged old mates, seeking direction. I rummaged through shoe boxes of yellowing photos. I stared at many walls. This was not the end I would’ve imagined for someone so hard fibered as Evan; the man crossed oceans like the rest of us cross the street. I assumed he would be sailing long after my own demise.
Everyone who crewed for Evan aboard Alvei knew they were part of something special. There were other tall ships out there. There were certainly faster, sleeker, more comfortable ones. And there have been plenty of captains easier to know and sail with than Evan. You can have them. For Evan’s crew, there was no other seaman like him, no other ship like Alvei.
Man and vessel were, in some regards, reflections of each other, both complicated throwbacks of another age. And forged, I suspect, from the same ancient steel. Originally built in the 1920’s as a Scottish herring drifter, Alvei was gathering dust and rust in a Norwegian fjord when Evan and a few fellow dreamers found her. They took her to Portugal and spent several years converting her into the home for misfit sailors she would become. They gave her three masts, sixteen sails, and a new lease on life. Along the way, more crew would arrive and pitch in, trading time and labor for a share of the sailing life she promised. But by the time I signed on, only Evan remained, still pouring his blood, sweat, and whatever money he could scrape together into keeping Alvei afloat. She was his life’s work, and the work never stopped.
My clearest memories of Evan are of him on deck, quiet and focused, head down and hard at it, painting, welding, sanding, scraping. There was always more work to do, and he kept on doing it until the sun went down, when he would retire below for a mug of the home brew he kept stashed in every spare corner of the cabin.
The work was hard, the days were long, and the help unreliable. A steady stream of wide eyed backpackers would hop aboard with grand ambitions, only to disappear a few weeks later. Alvei and Evan were acquired tastes, at times hard to appreciate with acetone peeling the skin from your fingertips. Some were intimidated by Evan, seeing him as too cold, too impersonal. I felt the same at first, until I realized how hard it must be to get chummy with every newcomer, knowing the odds were better than average they’d be gone before the next full moon.
But those who stuck it out and embraced the dirty work for a full year were rewarded with a lifetime invitation to sail. Evan would offer you the keys to his nautical kingdom for as long as you desired; an endless south seas adventure waiting just beyond the end of each cyclone season. He had me hooked straight away; I was Charlie Bucket to Evan’s grease-stained Willie Wonka, his offer promising, “Living here, you’ll be free, if you truly wish to be.” Six months in, I announced to anyone within earshot, “I am never leaving.”
If life in port was difficult, the sailing could be murder. There was no flush toilet, no refrigeration, no air conditioning. Fresh food might last a week at sea, while passages could stretch beyond a month. When new crew members asked what would happen if they fell overboard, they were told, simply, “Don’t.” Seasickness hit some without mercy, leaving them debilitated and begging Evan through tears to steer for the nearest port. Alvei was solid but slow, and in unfavorable conditions could be pushed quite off course. We navigated without SatNav or fancy electronics; Evan tried and partially succeeded in teaching the crew to use a sextant. A single sideband radio broadcast daily weather patterns, which we plotted by placing coins on nautical charts. We shivered through storms and went stir crazy in the doldrums. We played chess and read. The kerosene stoves only worked occasionally, but the crew worked constantly, always struggling to keep the wind in Alvei’s sails and her bow pointed towards Tonga, Samoa, Fiji, Vanuatu, or wherever.
Evan would run three standing watches, each with four hours on and eight hours off. But that was when there were enough people for three watches, and oftentimes there weren’t. On a 16-day passage to Brisbane, we had a crew of seven, split into two watches at four hours a stretch. Rarely did any of us get more than three straight hours of sleep. My longest passage was 35 days from New Zealand to Tonga — twice as long as planned. Evan endured his longest in 2016, a 63-day slog from Vanuatu to Nelson, outmaneuvering a pair of cyclones with a busted engine and a skeleton crew of four. These passages took a toll on everyone aboard, and left many scrambling for the airport once Alvei’s anchor hit the water. Leaving Evan alone once more.
Which is how some thought Evan really wanted it. Not so. Like Wonka, Evan was often pegged for a loner, though in fact he loved people and cherished companionship. I’ve met hermits; real, cave-dwelling, world-cursing misanthropes. That wasn’t Evan, not one bit. There was a reason he lived aboard Alvei and not some pissant sloop built for single-handing. He needed his crew as much as Alvei did.
And it was that crew, more so than Alvei herself, that was perhaps Evan’s greatest creation. Its members included, but were not limited to, drifters, dropouts, hippies, commies, runaways, retirees, rum heads, romantics, scofflaws, mystics, poet warriors, philosophers, humanitarians, and derelicts. The children of many gods. Evan welcomed them all.
Quoting Langhorne Slim, “When all my friends have crooked tails, that’s the way I like it, that’s the company I keep.” That was us, Evan’s crooked-tailed crew. Some brilliant, some broken. The spirited, spiritual and godless, hoisting sails as one. People who might never break bread in the world back home found themselves bonding, laughing, fighting, working, weeping, occasionally shacking up in the bow nets, and always, always looking out for each other, no matter what. Knowing you’d take a mugger’s knife in the belly for a mate you sometimes wanted to stab yourself– we were that kind of crew. Our strength was in all those crooked tails.
When I joined in 1998, our aspirations were simple: follow the tradewinds towards the setting sun, or wherever the beer was cold. After my time, others came along and gave greater purpose to crewing aboard Alvei, working to provide medical assistance to the people of the Pacific, or relief when storms wrecked their island homes. Journeys far more substantive than my own. Over the years, I followed this work from afar. I’d scroll through pictures of young men and women I’d never met, sprawled out on Alvei’s deck splattered in paint, or helping to provide clean water to a remote Fijian village, or trudging through knee-deep mud on the island of Malekula en route to a tribal ceremony with the Small Nambas, and I’d tell myself, “That’s my crew.” Down through the decades, friends and strangers alike, we were all one crew.
Today, there must be hundreds around the world, forever bound by Evan, Alvei, and those long, slow limps across the Pacific. Did Evan ever stop to consider how many lives he changed, even saved? Not likely. Such ideas would stray too close to vanity for his comfort, like sailing near uncharted reefs.
I kept daily journals during my year on Alvei, mostly grumpy, gin-soaked ramblings best left unmentioned. But between the lines of withering self pity can be found the lessons that came straight from the words and deeds of my captain. They remind me that my time as crew was more than a blur of booze, island-hopping, and chasing sun kissed girls in vain. Thanks to Evan, I did a little growing up, too.
One incident sums up Evan Logan for me, the leader and the man. We were halfway from Tonga to Fiji. I was on pre-dawn watch when we were suddenly thwacked by a nasty squall. The sky turned inky black and conditions went from tranquil to hurricane strength in minutes. Rain blasted in sideways, sharp as nettles. By the time Evan got on deck, several sails were blown out, and Alvei was heeling far over to port, her gunwales buried in seawater. Heavy stuff for a crew of beginners. Evan calmly called out orders to get our sails down and our bow pointed to weather. We listened. We did our jobs. Slowly, Alvei righted herself, and though there was some damage, we were soon out of danger and headed in the right direction. Through it all, Evan set the tone, calm and cool, solid as an iceberg.
Days later in port, we were having a drink at sunset on the aft settee. I asked him if he had ever felt panic in situations like that. He shrugged. “Where does panic get you? You just do what you need to do.” He left it at that.
That was the nature of his leadership, superb in the moment, driven by a clear, mindful focus on the task at hand. Years later I still hear those words when a child is sick, or a job goes south, or I say something profoundly stupid to my wife. And I just do what I need to do. (He also taught me that you can circumnavigate the world with a single cookbook, so long as it’s The Joy of Cooking. Just keep plenty of extra soy sauce on hand.)
Other memories return in fits and starts. Hot tea with rum. Evan’s homemade muesli, which he swore was the secret to long life and regularity (I can attest to the second claim). Idle days in Port Nelson, cash strapped and running loose with the beggars and buskers like a den of thieves. Intense discussions about reincarnation and extraterrestrial life. Mid-ocean meals of pressure cooker bread and pickled flying fish. The clang of Alvei’s engine, like the world’s largest trash can lids being bashed together, pure hell on a hangover. The hypnotic rush of the sea against the hull as I slept. Evan’s counsel as I struggled to gather the pieces of a broken heart. Wood stain, tar, and paint thinner everywhere. And of course, rust busting. On a steel ship, you were always busting rust.
Strong as the draw was to life aboard Alvei, the sad fact is that most of us would eventually leave. What at first felt like the freedom of the open seas later became an anchor tied to an old ship in need of constant care. Keeping a reliable headcount was Evan’s greatest challenge and source of frustration. Those who lasted more than a year were a rare breed. Many burnt out. Others went broke. I got homesick and flaked. When he died, Evan was down to a single, loyal crew member.
He had made it known throughout the years that he wished to one day go down with his ship, but death would be one of the few things Evan couldn’t master. Pneumonia came on fast, and by the time he agreed to seek medical care, sepsis had seeped fatally into his bloodstream. Evan was buried at sea in the deep waters off Viti Levu, Fiji’s main island, sent off by a few close friends and former crew, as well as a handful of locals who knew him as “The Lone Wolf Sailor.” An apt nickname, as wolves too have been mythologized as solitary creatures, but are only truly at home in the company of a pack.
As I write this, Alvei rests at anchor in the waters near the Royal Suva Yacht Club, her unofficial Fijian home base, and the setting for numerous tales of debauchery courtesy of her crew. What will become of her I cannot say. Tall ships are a hopelessly romantic enterprise, as out of step with the modern age as epic poetry. I fear her sailing days are done, but that’s for others to decide.
Like so many others who jumped ship, I used to ponder a return to Alvei. The pull was strong, but in the end the winds blew me elsewhere, towards marriage and fatherhood and other shores Evan never cared to explore. Still, I’d like to think he would see a touch of his handiwork in what I’ve become. More of a man now than I was then, less afraid of the dirty work, steering my own little crew over the horizon, and trying my best not to panic when sudden storms hit.
Fair winds, Evan. Good on ya,’ mate, for a life well lived.
