In early 2009, several schooner owners were minding their own business in the Virgin Islands when a movie scout invited them to join the actor Johnny Depp in Puerto Rico to make a film version of the Hunter S. Thompson tale Rum Runners.

Robin Clair-Pitts, her captain, Thatcher Lord of Liberty, and the owners of Heron and Heart’s Desire jumped at the chance to take a sail, earn some cash and hang with stars.

Another boat, Patient Lady, recently launched after 30 years of construction, needed some coaxing, not to mention some sails, if she was to appear on the silver screen. But her owners, Michael and Angela Ebner, worked against the clock and then sailed west toward stardom on their maiden voyage.

In Puerto Rico, the six-day job soon turned to 15 and then 22 days, as the director waited for the right weather. “It was a lot like sailing,” Angela Ebner said. “Long periods of being bored, then everything happened at once.”

At one point, Heron and Patient Lady were staged at the concrete dock in Naguabo Harbor, only to run aground. No problem for Hollywood: the set builders simply added another 100 feet of dock, and divers with airbags inched the two boats over to their new locations.

When it came time to start filming, the crews all wore costumes and had their hair done so that they looked the same age as their boats. “We all looked like the 1950’s. They poofed up my hair. Thatcher said I looked like Lauren Bacall,” Clair-Pitts recalled.

Angela Ebner said she found it hard to believe that she was actually being paid to get a trim from Depp’s own hairdresser. “The directors and producers had such nice manners. They even asked permission to board,” she said.

The movie, titled The Rum Diary, is scheduled for release later this year.

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