Dropping Anchors, Raising Glasses

Boat Owners Elbow Each Other for Status Spots by Georgetown Promenade

Harold Seigel, an otherwise mild-mannered dentist from Falls Church, speaks in the measured tones of a professional when describing a work life of inspecting molars and performing root canals.

But talk to him about Good Vibrations, his 34-foot powerboat, and his reserve begins to slip away. Better yet, hang with him on a sultry night on the promenade at Washington Harbour in Georgetown, the women and cocktails swirling about, and he is a man fully liberated from his dental office.

"Tarzan!" Seigel yelped, spotting an old friend, a tall, handsome man with a ponytail.

It was nearly 9 p.m. on a Friday, but Seigel already had been there for hours, arriving aboard Good Vibrations in the afternoon to get a spot along what is perhaps Washington's most gilded slice of boating real estate, a 600-foot sea wall that runs along the promenade.

Here, with the Kennedy Center as glowing backdrop, the amateur captains and their crews of pals and hangers-on float away the hours on vessels with such names as Shameless and Audacious and Suits Us, drinking beer and cognac, rocking to Springsteen and the Beach Boys and ogling the revelers parading along the promenade.

The wall is not long enough to accommodate all the boats, so some are tethered to others, sometimes extending into the Potomac River in a row of four or five or even six. But the spot everyone wants is along the wall, so the boaters and their guests can slip back and forth easily between the vessels and the array of outdoor cafes, such as Sequoia and Tony and Joe's Seafood Place.

"It's a status thing," Seigel said, explaining that capturing a perch suggests a life of privilege, that "you were able to get out of the office early enough to get to the wall."

Seigel likes to describe his regular outings to the harbor as something on the order of good, wholesome fun, particularly if somebody is jotting down his perceptions. The dentist's friends are a tad more freewheeling with their odes to life on the promenade.

Tarzan, otherwise known as Bill Pierce, 39, said he spent many a night at the harbor once upon a time for one main reason: to meet women. "If you needed to rebuild inventory, this is where you came," he said. He described the boats as "floating bars and bathrooms with propellers."

Pierce said he does not spend as much time on the promenade these days, the reason being the woman who stood next to him, his wife, Bernadette. "He doesn't need to pick up girls anymore," she pronounced before hooking an arm through his and slipping away for a drink.

A few yards away, Matt Martelli, 32, a computer programmer, sipped a rum and coke by his 32-foot powerboat, Colonel's Lady, and rhapsodized about the close ties he has developed with those he regularly sees at the harbor.

"I don't know Guy's name; I don't know what he does," he said of the man he was talking to at the moment. But on the water, he said, he would do anything for him. "We're brothers who are boaters."