Sailing With the Vol Navy

Spencer Hall, a Florida graduate, spent the day in Knoxville on Saturday with the Vol Navy -- a collection of boats that come together on Gameday for one righteous tailgate, of sorts. He made it back alive enough to tell his tale.


These ladies thought they were posing with television celebrity Rainn Wilson. They were not informed that it was actually internet superstar Spencer Hall.

I walk down a dock by the Tennessee River, which is a wide, rippling band of even green sparkling in brilliant late summer sunshine. I'm walking and attempting to talk into a phone at the same time, a dangerous thing given my lack of coordination and the stream of drunken people bobbing and weaving their way down the boardwalk: waif-y Florida undergrads in sundresses and bugeye Audrey Hepburn shades, burly Vol fans clomping around in boat shoes and baseball caps, a foursome of Gator fans mad enough to wear orange ties and blue cardigans on a warm day and then attempt to high five every person they meet.

"WOO! Go Gators! Yeah! No, you! YEAH GIMME FIVE!" One turns to a friend. "I'm already tired, man. I'm not making it."

I tail them for a block or so, passing under the rusty steel of the old rail bridge across the Tennessee. (This is a rule in Tennessee: if you have a bridge across a body of water, there has to be a haunting, impossibly Southern Gothic steel bridge right next to it, like some kind of Depression-era doppelganger to the modern, non-deathly looking bridge everyone actually uses. I suspect they leave them up because the fishin's good around the pilings.)

I'll call my contact "Jim." Because that's his name. Jim. I know him through three degrees of separation, and he has absolutely no idea who I am. I ask him how to find him in flock of white river limos bobbing in long chains from the riverside.

"Sixth from the back, next to last row on the Pagoda. Call me when you get there."

"Will do." I have no intention of actually following directions. I know the name of his boat, and getting overly specific would take the fun out of stumbling through five other boats to get to my host, which is precisely what you have to do. Understand this about the Vol Navy: while ostensibly a tailgating scene outside a football game, it's also a small miracle of community organization and silent politics, a model of cooperation where you think none should exist.

The docks that line the river have no slips, meaning there's no sort of individual parking space for your boat. Instead, the first boat sort of accepts that they'll be the entryway to the dock, and ties up at the dock and lays out the welcome mat. This is not a joke, there are welcome mats, because Vol fans are civilized and organized to a degree unimaginable by most fanbases.

... and very clearly defined rules, listed in 72 point orange and white font:

The others like up and tie on in rows, everyone grabs a beer, and then ... you turn on the flat screen you have mounted in your cabin to Gameday, kick back, and say hello to whoever clambers over the side and into your boat.

Do not attempt to watch Gameday and operate boat simultaneously. Sincerely, the Coast Guard.

There's no particular order. The boats pull up in no set sequence, the Coast Guard generally just hangs back and watches for especially egregious violations of common sense, and the whole thing improbably works on its own, even with inebriated people clambering between and over boats jammed together in close quarters.

Orange crush: parking is tight at the Vol Navy.

I make my way down to the end of the chain, hoping not to drop my laptop into the Tennessee River and thus file the most interesting and easily rejected expense report in my career thus far. Jim is at the end, beer in hand and grinning.

"Should we hide the booze?"

"No, please don't," I say.

"Okay. Hey, we're Presbyterians. We'll drink with you."

Presbyterians are sensible people who allow for a drink, and would surely as a church approve of spending Saturday on a boat getting responsibly tipsy before walking down the dock and watching a football game. That's the whole idea until you get on the boat, which is relaxing to begin with, and then have a beer ... and note the stunning angle of the sun on the water, and the attractive women dancing on the massive houseboat across from you, and the fact that hey, the game's on the television, which is right here on the boat, and thus keeping me in this plush white leather seat on this boat, with the beer, and the ladies, and the delicious pulled pork barbecue sandwiches, and the astonishingly friendly Tennessee fans who, while barbarians in the stadium, are doing their best imitation of Tennessee Tourism Officials by offering you everything but the keys to the boat.

"That happens," says Jim. "About thirty percent of these people won't make it to the game." I can't really blame them, especially with the prospect of a blowout looming inside. (Postscript: a 30-6 final means those people were right.) We're both watching a boat pull up across from us with its bumpers in, and Jim starts shaking his head.

"See? Now, that's a no-no. They're coming in with the bumpers in, and just reaching out to stop the boat by pressing on the other boat." Okay, perhaps there are rules, like getting your bumpers out before you nearly crash into the next boat. In lieu of common sense, the drivers of the boat are yelling at the passengers to reach out and stop the boat by hand, leaning ridiculously far over the rails and off the back to arrest the sideways slide of Expensive Boat A into Expensive Boat B. Jim laughs. "That's how people end up in the river."

There are other ways to end up in the river, of course. A woman jumps from the second story of the houseboat across from us, landing in the water with a loud splash and a couple of accompanying "WOO!"s from an appreciative gallery. Next to us someone cranks up Flo-Rida's "Low." Alabama is murdering Arkansas on Raycom on that television mounted in the cabin. I could watch two games, actually, if I could get the people next to us to turn their swivel mounted HD set a little to the right.

"Not bad, eh?," Jim asks.

No, no. Bad would not be a word to describe this in any way. Key points and summaries:

Food: 7 out of 10. Being on a boat means open flame is problematic, so it's pre-packaged and take-out, mostly. No problem there, though. Quality fare throughout, including pulled-pork barbecue, a run on Doritos (Classic, not Cool Ranch. These people aren't Commies, now.), and delicious snacky bits all along the way. It's not LSU, but then again, you won't have to put your cardiologist on speed dial after one meal at the tailgate.

Booze: 9/10. Brown liquor is standard, and loads of it. Maker's Mark has crept into the Vol market on the whole, especially thanks to some canny marketing:

....but the booze hand slaps strong in the Vol Navy, especially with some tight accessorizing:

Atmosphere: 10/10. The game really could become secondhand easily, and not just because you're combining the magical phrases "pleasantly drunk" and "sitting on a boat." Partly out of necessity and partly out of just plain good manners, everyone in the Vol Navy is ridiculously nice. In 10 minutes I was offered six drinks, two sandwiches, and a bump-and-grind dance from a total stranger. (I declined. He was disappointed, but understood.) Absurdly civil people on the whole who will open their beer coolers to a total stranger even after he clearly identifies himself as the enemy. Huzzahs and bravos all around on this point, especially for their willingness to take silly pictures at the behest of a lowly blogger.

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.