David Engel: Sailor
“I must down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull’s way and the whale’s way, where the wind’s like a whetted knife...”
Billy Bones (David Engel) aboard the ‘Innisfree” sailing off Breezy Point Long Island, NY. Innisfree is a cedar-on-oak Crocker Stonehorse cutter David co-owned with his best mate, Christopher Ockler.
Ever since David was a little boy he has yearned to go to sea. He was always pulled by the allure of the open ocean and the lore of the Golden Age of the Pirate.
Perhaps it was in his genes? His father Alfred Engel, who died when David was 8 years old, was an avid sailor. After his service in World War Two, Al and his Sherman tank crew-mates did some derring do themselves. In 1948, they rescued the 35 foot yawl ‘Malabar’ and took off on an adventure of a lifetime, motoring down the Illinois and Mississippi rivers and out into the Gulf of Mexico to Cuba and beyond.
David grew up along the shores of Lake Michigan and went to Aquatics camp as a kid, where he learned to respect the water and ply the waves. David sailed small boats from his youth to adulthood. Fifty years after his fathers own adventures aboard ‘Malabar,’ David and his lifelong friend Chris Ockler would do something similar. They rescued a hundred-year old wooden Crosby Catboat named ‘Tang,’ refitting her and voyaged along the Erie Canal, through twenty-three locks and on down the Hudson River to her sailing ground of Coney Island, Brooklyn, NY. Years later the two friends moved on to a 25’ wooden Crocker Stonehorse cutter named Innisfree. David has crewed on Chicagos own tall ship ‘Windy’ from Charleston, SC to the Bahamas, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands and helped a transit of the 1893 historic schooner ‘Lettie G. Howard’ from Gloucester, ME to Manhattan.
David has performed Pirate School! on many vessels both anchored and underway and still yearns to “go down to the sea again.”
11 yr old David contemplating going out on his Sunfish (in background). Evanston, IL c 1976
15 yr old (?) David at the helm of his stepfathers 35 foot sloop, 'Xenodocium' on one of the three week summer voyages across Lake Michigan. c 1979 (?) Note braces, yikes!
Billy Bones (David Engel) on bowsprit of the tall ship Windy, off-shore, Bahamas, Caribbean. c 1990
Billy Bones (David Engel) yearning for the sea. Negril, Jamaica c 2008 Photo credit Jeff Engel
Billy Bones (and friends) aboard a replica the Onrust, a 17th century replica Caravelle, Essex, CT
Billy Bones (and friend) rowing toward the Onrust, a 17th century replica Caravelle, Essex, CT
Billy Bones aboard the tall ship Windy off Navy Pier, Chicago, IL. Firing a ships cannon.
Billy Bones performing aboard the tall ship Windy off Navy Pier, Chicago, IL.
Plying the grassy shallows with The Ship Ridiculous, Long Island Maritime Museum, NY
At the helm of 'Tang' after a year-long refit at Weeks Yacht Yard, Patchogue, NY, with partners Chris and Judi Ockler, and Flambee the French Bulldog (RIP)
David aboard the catboat 'Tang.' Photo credit Chris Ockler, taken from bosuns chair at 35 feet high.
David at sea, off Coney Island, Brooklyn, NY.
'Innisfree' at her berth near sunset. Gateway Marina, Deadhorse Bay, Brooklyn, NY c 2011
David, at dawn after a night watch, at sea off Florida aboard the tall ship Windy. c 1990
David doing a trick at the wheel. Ship unknown, whereabouts unknown, Western Hemisphere. c 2012
David's father, Al (in baseball cap, at stern) with his tank-crew friends aboard the s.v Malabar prior to setting off from Chicago to Havana. c 1948
David's father, Al, dressing a barracuda for dinner aboard the 'Malabar' c 1948