Her Boat Comes In With Sea Safety Book

When Dee Cache’s four children were growing up in the ‘60s and ‘70s, she looked everywhere for a book on boating safety for children. None were to be found.

“I was a Girl Scout leader and active in the school, and safety has always been a concern of mine,” recalled Cache, 60, a Costa Mesa resident whose quest took her to scores of bookstores and libraries over the years. She even enlisted friends in her search, asking them to check out bookstores when they were on vacation. No luck.

“One night at the dinner table I said, ‘Someday I’ll have to sit down and write a book myself,’ ” said Cache.

She did write a children’s book about boating safety, spending more than three years in the early ‘80s researching and writing it. She had no idea her children would be in their 30s and 40s before she’d finally see it published.

But now--15 years and hundreds of rejection letters later--Cornell Maritime Press has published Cache’s 32-page children’s book.

“Captain Tugalong” ($12.95) teaches boating safety to children by telling the story of a retired old tugboat, Captain Tugalong, who passes on his knowledge of boating safety to the sleek new sailboat, Sun Dancer, who befriends him. With color illustrations by Howard M. Burns, the book covers the basics of nautical knowledge: nomenclature, safety equipment, rules of the sea and methods of handling emergencies on the water.

Cache, who says she’s never owned a boat but has always loved the ocean, began working on her book after coming up with her main character, “this dilapidated tugboat that’s falling apart in the water. It took me three years to come up with the story and do the research because once I got into it I wanted it to be technically correct all over the world.”

In doing her research, Cache met with the Coast Guard, the Harbor Patrol and boat owners, in addition to reading every bit of information on boating safety she could find.

“I was writing the story and as I got all the facts, I wove them into the story,” she said.

Once the book was finished in 1984, Cache began sending out query letters to publishers.

She doesn’t remember how many letters she sent out, but the trickle of rejections turned into a flood--enough letters to fill two large cardboard boxes.

The rejections came on postcards. They came with a big “NO” scrawled across the top of her returned query letters. And they came in letters from publishers who politely said it wasn’t their type of book but encouraged her to keep trying.

She did.

“I didn’t care if I was 110 years old, I was going to see this book published,” she said.

But her “Captain Tugalong” manuscript remained tucked away in a desk drawer from 1984 to 1996. “It sounds funny when I say it out loud, but that’s what happened,” she said.

Then, in 1996, Cache struck gold.

The editor from Cornell Maritime Press in Maryland--”in business since 1938,” Cache notes--sent her a letter saying she wanted to read the entire manuscript.

“Captain Tugalong” is officially aimed at children ages 7 to 12. But because Burns’ colorful illustrations are “so delightful,” Cache said, “it’s a book that even children who can’t read yet can enjoy. I’m saying it’s [for ages] 5 to 95 because I’ve had phone calls from adults saying they finally learned what the boating terms mean and it helped them.”

Unlike most books that have a glossary in the back, “Captain Tugalong” defines each boating term on the same page on which it appears.

Cache said she placed special emphasis on explaining Channel 16, the universal emergency radio channel.

“My dream,” she said, “is someday some little kid, because she knows the story, turns on Channel 16 [and says], ‘My mommy’s in the water crying and I don’t know what to do.’ That would make me feel so good, and I know that’s going to happen. If children are read a story enough, they memorize it.”

Cache’s children, now ages 34 to 41, may be too old for “Captain Tugalong.” But her 10-year-old granddaughter, K.D. Bell of Huntington Beach, isn’t.

“She’s probably my biggest fan,” said Cache, who has been invited to speak at her granddaughter’s elementary school. She’s also been asked to discuss her book and boating safety at author festivals in the Newport-Mesa, Westminster and Long Beach school districts.

Until “Captain Tugalong” began sailing into bookstores in October, there apparently was still a need for such a book.

A few months before her book was published, Cache called all the bookstores in her Orange County yellow pages:

“I just asked the one question, ‘Do you have a children’s book on boating safety?’ They all said, ‘No, I’m sorry we don’t.’ ”

Cache will sign “Captain Tugalong” at Barnes & Noble in Fashion Island, 953 Newport Center Drive, Newport Beach. 2 p.m. today. (949) 759-0982.

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She’s a Jewish woman who survived the Holocaust as the wife of a Nazi officer.

Susan Dworkin, co-author with Edith Hahn Beer of “The Nazi Officer’s Wife,” will speak at a noon brunch today at the Jewish Community Center of Orange County, 250 E. Baker St., Costa Mesa.

$10 for JCC members; $15 for nonmembers. (714) 755-0340.

Also Coming Up:

* Robert Puff will discuss and sign “Anger Work: Stomping Your Way Down the Path of Healing” at Borders Books and Music in the Block, 20 City Blvd., Orange. 2 p.m. today. (714) 385-1025.

* Artist Steve Simon will do a painting demonstration and sign his book, “California Through an Artist’s Eye,” at Barnes & Noble, 791 S. Main St., Orange. 2 p.m. today. (714) 558-0028. Simon also will sign at Barnes & Noble in Metro Pointe, 901 S. Coast Drive, Costa Mesa. 2 p.m. Friday. (714) 444-0226.

* Kent Braithwaite will sign “The Wonderland Murders” at Borders Books and Music, 1890 Newport Blvd., Costa Mesa. 3 p.m. today. (949) 631-8661.

* Kara Oh will discuss and sign “Men Made Easy: How to Get What You Want From Your Man” at Barnes & Noble in Metro Pointe, 901 S. Coast Drive, Costa Mesa. 2 p.m. today. (714) 444-0226.

* H. Norman Wright will sign “A Friend Like No Other: Life Lessons from the Dogs We Love” at Insight for Living Bookstore, 1041 Pacific Center Drive, Anaheim. 11 a.m. Saturday. (714) 575-5464.

Send information about book-related events at least 10 days before event to: Dennis McLellan, O.C. Books & Authors, Southern California Living, The Times, 1375 Sunflower Ave., Costa Mesa, CA 92626. Or e-mail to dennis.mclellan@latimes.com.