Are you trying to plan an office party, and you want it to be memorable—but not the kind of memorable that makes the news? I would definitely suggest having your party on a boat.
It’s definitely more exciting than leaving cake in the break room. Again.
I recently attended one such party when some company hired me to do stand-up on a party boat. Apparently, there are companies that rent boats out for this kind of thing. It wasn’t a huge boat, like the Staten Island Ferry, but it wasn’t me standing up at the front of a rowboat and doing it for the two guys who were rowing either.
“Can you both at least face me?”
It was on a yacht, which is pronounced yaht, probably because it’s non-Jews who decided how to pronounce it. Jews might pronounce it yacht.
And based on my experience, I would definitely recommend having your party on a boat. And not just because I like getting hired. I can get hired on land too. But why not have a party offshore? I mean, you’re on shore all the time.
Look at all the benefits:
The venue is easy to find. It’s on the water. Just drive until they don’t let you drive anymore, and you’re there.
Actually, I parked in a garage right near the place, and I wasn’t sure which way to go from there, but then I saw a group of three Chassidishe Yidden, and I asked them if they were with the company, and they said, “How did you know?” which was a fair question, because they were wearing baseball caps. So I started walking with them, and they said, “We brought an extra cap. Do you want to wear it?” And I said, “Sure!” because I didn’t want to be the one guy who gave away that we were Yidden. So they handed me this bright green cap that just said “Israel” on it in big letters. Problem solved!
As long as they don’t ask someone how to get to the yacht.
Mostly what you do is eat! The cruise, of course, had an all-you-can-eat buffet. Of milchig and pareve foods, such as fish. And sushi. That’s the minhag on boats—buffets. “Maybe if I eat more food, I’ll feel less seasick!… Nope, that wasn’t it. Maybe if I have some sushi.”
I mean, thematically, fish is great…
People will remain seated. A lot of times with buffets, people stand so they can get back to the buffet table easier. You don’t want to waste valuable time walking. But this is not a great system, because they have to hold a plate and a fork and a cup and sometimes a knife and carry on a conversation while shoveling food into their mouths. But on a boat, people sit when they eat. It’s just one step too much to also have to keep your balance yourself.
In fact, some of the other speakers at this party had to sit down for their speeches so they’d be a little bit more stable. I couldn’t do that for mine, because it was stand-up comedy. This is literally what I was getting paid for: the standing.
Boat parties rock! Literally. The boat doesn’t stop rocking. That was the first joke in my act. The boat did not stop pitching back and forth the entire time. And this was on a nice day. This was not during monsoon season.
But even the rocking is a maalah. For starters, you don’t have to serve any alcohol. People will just stagger around like that naturally, food sliding off their plates… There are very few vehicles on which it’s okay to walk around while the vehicle is in motion. It’s deemed safe, I guess. Or because it’s in international waters? Even planes have a seatbelt light. On what other vehicle can you walk? It’s basically this and the subway. And the subway has poles everywhere. You basically catapult yourself from one pole to another.
Boats are fun! When you’re on the top deck, anyway. When I’m on the top deck, and the wind is blowing in my cap, I feel like I’m on a ride. It’s exhilarating. If the ride is rocking, that’s the ride. At least I’m not going upside down. If I’m on a lower deck, indoors, it’s more like I’m in a room that keeps moving for some reason. Imagine giving a prepared speech on a subway. While people eat. Fish.
And the windows don’t help, because they just magnify how much you’re rocking. I spent one of the other speeches looking out the window, and I saw water, then buildings, then sky, then buildings, then water, then buildings, then sky.
By the way, it turns out the point of the cap was to keep my yarmulke on on the upper deck. This is why we had to eat on the lower decks—so we wouldn’t have to keep one hand free to hold our yarmulkes on.
No one can leave. See, normally when I try to talk, people leave. I don’t take it personally. Some of these people actually tell me beforehand: “Oh, you’re speaking? I have to go, though. I have a babysitter.”
“You don’t have a baby.”
So the company said, “No, we’re going to make this party on a boat. Everyone’s staying until the end. If you want to leave early, you’re going to have to swim.”
People have to come on time. Otherwise, they miss the boat. They can’t take a rowboat out there and catch up.
Well, they try to come on time, anyway. I was running late because of traffic, so I called one of my contacts at the company to ask how Yekkish the boat people were, and they said, “I hope not so Yekkish; I’m on one of the vans coming from the office, and we’re not there yet.”
I think the organizers told everyone the boat was leaving an hour earlier than it was going to. On purpose.
I think that’s how the invitation people plan chasunas as well.
You can daven Mincha! That’s always a benefit. Whenever we go anywhere, everyone wants to know: Can we daven Mincha there?
That’s what everyone was asking after the speeches. And they kept asking, for way too long, considering we were all in the same room and had literally nowhere else to be.
“Yeah, I’m in. As long as I can daven near something I can hold onto for support.”
If there’s one thing you learn on Chol HaMoed, it’s that it’s very exciting to daven in new places. Men have a bucket list of places to daven Mincha. It also allows us to spend some time at these things where we don’t have to talk to anybody.
In the interest of full disclosure, though, I do have to mention the downside of boat parties:
Whatever you don’t eat, you have to help carry off the boat. They should announce that up front. People would eat more.
The thing is, you can’t just back the catering van up to the boat. There’s a whole long dock. The bigger the boat, the more dock you have to walk on to get there, carrying a massive crate of food that no one’s gonna eat that you can’t put down because there is water and no railings on both sides of you.
They can’t just dump the leftovers overboard? We ate fish. How is that littering? And salad! Maybe the eggplant is littering.
A lot of the men packed out immediately when we docked—I don’t know to where, as we’d already davened Mincha—so I, who had stuck around in case they were going to hand me a paycheck on the spot, had to help carry the rolls. Which are not heavy unless there are a hundred of them.
The planners were like, “People are gonna wash.”
I think nobody really figured out how to wash. Short of holding each other’s ankles and dipping each other into the river.
Should we ask the crew?
“Where’s the washing sink?”
“Aren’t… aren’t all sinks washing sinks?”
That said, I think other parties should be on boats too. Shul dinners, Chinese auctions…
(Insert your “boat mitzvah” joke here.)
Or weddings! You always have problems getting people to stay for bentching and sheva brachos, but all you’d have to do is not dock until things are over. There is a limit to what people will do to not stay until bentching.
The chuppah itself would be on the upper deck, with the chosson and kallah staggering down the aisle with their parents, who’d be holding candles. But it’s okay, because the candles would keep going out. And the photographer will be very hit or miss.
And all the cards with the sheva brachos on them would go flying away… The flowers would not make it… You’d lose a lot of hats…
And the chuppah would take off like a sail.
Another great party for a boat—for which you’d like people to come on time, and you’d get to watch the sunrise!—would be a bris.
Or maybe not.
Mordechai Schmutter is a weekly humor columnist for Hamodia, a monthly humor columnist, and has written six books, all published by Israel Book Shop. He also does freelance writing for hire. You can send any questions, comments, or ideas to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.