Febuary 1, 1997 Four Mexicans I Met.
I have met some Mexicans, and there are four of them, sailors, who particularly stick in my mind. There is Ambroce, the attorney, and boat owner, Franco, his son, the young sailor, Felipe, crewmember, the struggling entrepreneur, and Noe the working class teenager.
Rafael Ambroce is a fit, wealthy, intelligent, arrogant 45 year old attorney from Mexico city, and the owner of the boat I sailed with in MEXORC. He keeps his boat in Acapulco and he flies in from Mexico City to race. I think he also flies the crew in. He told me he is a litigator and has his own firm and I heard he does work for Senior Chata who I met and who is purported to own Mexicana Airlines. Ambroce is also separated from his wife, but that I can understand; Senior Ambroce would be one helluva hard guy to live with. For one thing this guy is a Type A of a Type A. He is either on his cell phone in intense conversation with God knows who or he is going 900 mph on whatever activity he is doing at the moment. Sailboat racing, OK, he does it the same way. He sits on the foredeck with his phone inside the 10 minute gun then takes the wheel for the start and luffs up the whole fleet, yelling “Up! Up! Up!” On the course he is giving orders a mile a minute except when someone fucks up then he is swearing just as hard at them. After the race, motoring back to the marina, he drinks rum in one hand, drives his boat with the other hand behind his back, chews a cigar, and chases the other competitors all over the bay as he careens directly at them under full power so that he can taunt about the day’s racing. He brings a beautiful eighteen year old girl to the awards dinner as his date and he entertains the whole table with his cigar waving stories. Ambroce lives hard.
Franco is Ambroce’s son. He is about 18 and he lives in the shadow of his dad. Franco is a different kind of a sailor. His father is macho and fearless and totally self confident but Franco is more knowledgeable. When they get in a tight spot, like when a boat lee bows them in a race, Ambroce wants to know from the crew what to do but Franco knows. Only since he isn’t steering he can’t do it, and his dad won’t listen to him. Poor kid. But he is intelligent and gentle, and yet he is not afraid to yell at his dad for endless pinching or for a poor job driving through a jibe. And Franco hangs on every word from the mouth of the hot shots from the “Norte”, even when they are really retired bankers masquerading as hot shots. And when that retired banker told Franco that he’d love to have him as crew on his boat it seemed to make Franco’s day.
Felipe is a recruit. I don’t know Ambroce’s connection to Felipe but somehow Felipe got roped into sailing with him for this regatta. Talk about punishment. Felipe knew the least on the boat and got yelled at constantly. Beyond yelling, it turned into insults, but Felipe’s good humor kept the situation from getting tense. Felipe ran the pole on the down wind legs and I was constantly coaching him on when to let the pole foreward and when to pull it back. But Felipe always pulled it back when I said “pole forward”. I wondered aloud if I should learn the Spanish commands but Ambroce said I might as well stick to English since Felipe couldn’t understand Spanish either. Felipe’s other life was selling “Paddle Tennis” courts, which I never heard of. He sells them, sets them up, and promotes “paddle tennis” tournaments. He also is setting up a web page to sell Tequila. In a few months you should look for the “Tequila Page”. He wants to sell the rare brands and deliver through overnight delivery services like DHL. The biggest problem so far he said was overcoming the rules and regulations from 50 different states. For a young Mexican from Mexico City to even be able to find out all the applicable rules and regulations related to Tequila sales via the Internet I thought was pretty impressive, even if he probably hasn’t scratched the surface yet.
Finally there is Noe. (pronounced “No-Way”), is the one guy in this piece who didn’t sail with Ambroce. But he is a sailor. He sailed with us on WINGS one day and I can tell you, even though it was his first time on a sailboat, he can do just fine, thank you. He is bright and amazingly observant. He sees every thing and he can put it all together. On the boat he had only to be shown or told once. We put him on the helm and showed him the tell tails and from then on he steered upwind perfectly. He seemed to sense when the boat was pinching or too high and corrected without looking at the tell tails. He works in the Canvas Connection and does boat tops mostly but he is also repairing sails there. He asked to go sailing because he wanted to see what the sails he works on do for a living. I was happy to take him and suggested Sunday which was perfect at first but then he remembered that he has agreed to take his girl friend to her Grandmother’s house on Sunday. I could see him struggling with how to get out of that and I quickly switched to Saturday after work. Noe reminds me of my son Ken. Both of them are bright and observant. Both of them understood the sailboat almost instinctively. And Noe even dresses kind of like a USA teenager with those funny sunglasses and baggy pants and even a gang-banger bandanna on his head almost all of the time. But Noe is a responsible and mature young man, and I was impressed with him both on the boat and at work in the loft. And Noe shared with us his dream for old age. He wants a “Ranchita”, a small ranch, up in the hills behind Vallarta with enough land and animals to feed himself and his wife, and that’s all. Away from the tourists; where it is quiet. He said the kids, they can get out of there and go to work, he’s just going to work enough for himself and his wife, and eat some frijitos, some carnitas, and drink some Tequila.
Of course there were other Mexicans I met and liked, like Emigdio, Noe’s father who is wise and humorous, and knows when to joke and when to keep his mouth shut, and who gave Noe his value system. Also Jesus, the marketing manager for the big Disco near the marina who always has a beautiful young woman with him, hardly ever the same one twice or another Felipe who waxed our boat one day for $25 after starting the bargaining at $100, or Alexandro who works full time for Lupe keeping her stable of boats clean and well maintained, and who it seems, is willing to try to fix anything, even if it is exotic sailboat hardware which he’s never seen before, or Lorena, the dark beauty who married a Canadian cruiser and who runs a office supplies store in La Cruz. Other than Lorena, it’s been mostly men that I’ve met; it is a male dominated society.
The Mexican women I met were wonderful too, either the centerposts of their households, hardworking and accepting of what seemed to me like tough lives, young working class girls on the busses who I never met but watched with admiration, or the fiercely proud upper-class women who always dressed immaculately, spoke with excellent English, and treated me with the utmost kindness and graciousness, but seemed to be teeming with ambition and drive that the men lacked.
Fred Roswold, SV WINGS, Mexico
Rafael Ambroce is a fit, wealthy, intelligent, arrogant 45 year old attorney from Mexico city, and the owner of the boat I sailed with in MEXORC. He keeps his boat in Acapulco and he flies in from Mexico City to race. I think he also flies the crew in. He told me he is a litigator and has his own firm and I heard he does work for Senior Chata who I met and who is purported to own Mexicana Airlines. Ambroce is also separated from his wife, but that I can understand; Senior Ambroce would be one helluva hard guy to live with. For one thing this guy is a Type A of a Type A. He is either on his cell phone in intense conversation with God knows who or he is going 900 mph on whatever activity he is doing at the moment. Sailboat racing, OK, he does it the same way. He sits on the foredeck with his phone inside the 10 minute gun then takes the wheel for the start and luffs up the whole fleet, yelling “Up! Up! Up!” On the course he is giving orders a mile a minute except when someone fucks up then he is swearing just as hard at them. After the race, motoring back to the marina, he drinks rum in one hand, drives his boat with the other hand behind his back, chews a cigar, and chases the other competitors all over the bay as he careens directly at them under full power so that he can taunt about the day’s racing. He brings a beautiful eighteen year old girl to the awards dinner as his date and he entertains the whole table with his cigar waving stories. Ambroce lives hard.
Franco is Ambroce’s son. He is about 18 and he lives in the shadow of his dad. Franco is a different kind of a sailor. His father is macho and fearless and totally self confident but Franco is more knowledgeable. When they get in a tight spot, like when a boat lee bows them in a race, Ambroce wants to know from the crew what to do but Franco knows. Only since he isn’t steering he can’t do it, and his dad won’t listen to him. Poor kid. But he is intelligent and gentle, and yet he is not afraid to yell at his dad for endless pinching or for a poor job driving through a jibe. And Franco hangs on every word from the mouth of the hot shots from the “Norte”, even when they are really retired bankers masquerading as hot shots. And when that retired banker told Franco that he’d love to have him as crew on his boat it seemed to make Franco’s day.
Felipe is a recruit. I don’t know Ambroce’s connection to Felipe but somehow Felipe got roped into sailing with him for this regatta. Talk about punishment. Felipe knew the least on the boat and got yelled at constantly. Beyond yelling, it turned into insults, but Felipe’s good humor kept the situation from getting tense. Felipe ran the pole on the down wind legs and I was constantly coaching him on when to let the pole foreward and when to pull it back. But Felipe always pulled it back when I said “pole forward”. I wondered aloud if I should learn the Spanish commands but Ambroce said I might as well stick to English since Felipe couldn’t understand Spanish either. Felipe’s other life was selling “Paddle Tennis” courts, which I never heard of. He sells them, sets them up, and promotes “paddle tennis” tournaments. He also is setting up a web page to sell Tequila. In a few months you should look for the “Tequila Page”. He wants to sell the rare brands and deliver through overnight delivery services like DHL. The biggest problem so far he said was overcoming the rules and regulations from 50 different states. For a young Mexican from Mexico City to even be able to find out all the applicable rules and regulations related to Tequila sales via the Internet I thought was pretty impressive, even if he probably hasn’t scratched the surface yet.
Finally there is Noe. (pronounced “No-Way”), is the one guy in this piece who didn’t sail with Ambroce. But he is a sailor. He sailed with us on WINGS one day and I can tell you, even though it was his first time on a sailboat, he can do just fine, thank you. He is bright and amazingly observant. He sees every thing and he can put it all together. On the boat he had only to be shown or told once. We put him on the helm and showed him the tell tails and from then on he steered upwind perfectly. He seemed to sense when the boat was pinching or too high and corrected without looking at the tell tails. He works in the Canvas Connection and does boat tops mostly but he is also repairing sails there. He asked to go sailing because he wanted to see what the sails he works on do for a living. I was happy to take him and suggested Sunday which was perfect at first but then he remembered that he has agreed to take his girl friend to her Grandmother’s house on Sunday. I could see him struggling with how to get out of that and I quickly switched to Saturday after work. Noe reminds me of my son Ken. Both of them are bright and observant. Both of them understood the sailboat almost instinctively. And Noe even dresses kind of like a USA teenager with those funny sunglasses and baggy pants and even a gang-banger bandanna on his head almost all of the time. But Noe is a responsible and mature young man, and I was impressed with him both on the boat and at work in the loft. And Noe shared with us his dream for old age. He wants a “Ranchita”, a small ranch, up in the hills behind Vallarta with enough land and animals to feed himself and his wife, and that’s all. Away from the tourists; where it is quiet. He said the kids, they can get out of there and go to work, he’s just going to work enough for himself and his wife, and eat some frijitos, some carnitas, and drink some Tequila.
Of course there were other Mexicans I met and liked, like Emigdio, Noe’s father who is wise and humorous, and knows when to joke and when to keep his mouth shut, and who gave Noe his value system. Also Jesus, the marketing manager for the big Disco near the marina who always has a beautiful young woman with him, hardly ever the same one twice or another Felipe who waxed our boat one day for $25 after starting the bargaining at $100, or Alexandro who works full time for Lupe keeping her stable of boats clean and well maintained, and who it seems, is willing to try to fix anything, even if it is exotic sailboat hardware which he’s never seen before, or Lorena, the dark beauty who married a Canadian cruiser and who runs a office supplies store in La Cruz. Other than Lorena, it’s been mostly men that I’ve met; it is a male dominated society.
The Mexican women I met were wonderful too, either the centerposts of their households, hardworking and accepting of what seemed to me like tough lives, young working class girls on the busses who I never met but watched with admiration, or the fiercely proud upper-class women who always dressed immaculately, spoke with excellent English, and treated me with the utmost kindness and graciousness, but seemed to be teeming with ambition and drive that the men lacked.
Fred Roswold, SV WINGS, Mexico
Labels: crew, Mexico, Puerto Vallarta
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