Boating - Ready for their Close-Ups

Upcoming film The Rum Diary will star not only Johnny Depp, but also some of St. John’s classic yachts.

by Margie Smith
“[I have] to go over to St. John to see a man about a boat,” announces a character in The Rum Diary, Hunter S. Thompson’s autobiographical novel about American journalists working—and drinking—at a scrappy English-language newspaper in San Juan in 1958. Fifty years later, that’s exactly what happened as Hollywood scouts, in search of the perfect yachts for the upcoming film adaptation, found just what they were looking for right here in Love City. Move over Johnny Depp! St. John beauties Heron, Liberty, and Patient Lady—all making their silver screen debuts—will be sharing the spotlight when the movie opens in 2010.
“It was fun!” says Robin Clair Pitts, co-founder of St. John’s KATS (Kids and The Sea) and owner of Liberty, a classic 1924 John Alden schooner. “They treated us like movie stars for a while.”
Liberty sailed from Coral Bay to the location site in Puerto Rico, along with Patient Lady, a traditional vessel built on St. John’s East End. Patient Lady was making her maiden voyage, says Pitts, adding, “but Heron was the star!”
Heron is a familiar part of the landscape at Maho Bay, in season. The 52-foot wooden gaff schooner, also an Alden design, was built in Maine in 2003 by captain and shipwright Twig Bower, who lives aboard with wife, Bonnie, and their two daughters, 11-year-old Elissa and 9-year-old Rachel.
While Patient Lady and Liberty provided an authentic backdrop for a 1960s-era Caribbean harbor view, Depp and co-star Amber Heard were actually aboard Heron for several scenes.
“We hung out with him a little bit,” says Bower of superstar Depp. “He was a real nice fellow. Low key, with a good sense of humor.”
Bower is a bit concerned that the boat might not appear “shipshape” on the big screen. The boom had to be raised, for example, in order to accommodate the actors and all the action on board. On the plus side, the director kept the name Heron.
All of the adults had parts as extras as well, spending hours in hair and makeup and getting fitted for costumes. What was supposed to be a six-day shoot turned into three and a half weeks – there was, says Bower,  “a lot of sitting around, then everything happens all at once.”
While all the locals had high praise for the Tinseltown professionals, there are also plenty of props for St. John’s own.
Pitts says she was more awestruck by the excellence of Liberty’s captain and first mate—husband and wife team Thatcher Lord and Vicki Rogers—than she was by Johnny Depp.
“They treated Liberty like a queen and me like a princess,” she says.
Even Johnny Depp, it seems, recognizes the good life enjoyed by people here. Bower says when his daughter Elissa gave Depp a Heron T-shirt, the actor gave her a big hug and said he wished he could share her lifestyle, living on a boat.
Readers wanting their own taste of the lifestyle will have a chance when Heron, currently summering in Maine, resumes charters out of Maho Bay around Christmas. And for the truly serious: Liberty is for sale—offering a rare opportunity to own a piece of yachting, and now Hollywood, history.

Margie Smith is an avid sailor, a (not) frequent (enough) visitor to St. John and a regular contributor to the Sun Times. You can read her personal blog at msmargarita1.blogspot.com.

August 2009