JOHN WAYNE’S FLOATING ESCAPE – THE WILD GOOSE

Hi there friends. Today I want to talk about Wayne’s different part of his life, The Wild Goose. Picture this. You’re the biggest movie star in America in 1962. You can buy anything. Mansions, Ferraris, literally anything you want. What would you buy? John Wayne bought a rusty World War II warship and spent $3 million turning it into his home.

 But here’s the crazy part. 2 weeks before he died, he sold it. after swearing he never would. Why? And what happened on that boat during those 17 years that made it more important to him than any movie he ever made. Want to listen more? Here is the story. 1962. John Wayne has everything Hollywood can offer.

 Fame, money, recognition, but he’s exhausted. The cameras, the scripts, the expectations, the constant performance. Movie star life sounds glamorous until you realize you never get to stop being John Wayne. Have you ever felt that? Where success becomes a prison where you can’t escape what everyone expects you to be? Wayne feels it every single day.

 He already owns a boat, small one, called the Norwester. Takes his family out on weekends, fishing trips, short escapes to Catalina. But it’s not enough. The Norwester is too small for his growing family, too cramped. Six kids at home, chaos everywhere. He needs something bigger, something that can take him far away from Hollywood, something that feels real. Then he hears about a boat.

A friend mentions it casually. Former World War II mind sweeper, 136 ft long, built in 1942, served in the Illusian Islands during the war. swept mines at Atu and Kiska. Patrolled dangerous waters. Real warship built from 3 in of vertical grain Douglas fur. Same shipyard that built Jacqu Kustoau’s Calypso.

 Wayne goes to see it in Seattle. It’s a mess. Rusty military. No luxury. Just steel and wood and decades of saltwater damage. The owner, Max Wyman, a lumber millionaire, has sailed it around the world for 7 years. Toahiti, Bora Bora, Hawaii. But now he’s done with it. Most people would walk away.

 Too much work, too rough, not glamorous enough for a movie star. Wayne buys it on the spot. $110,000. But here’s what nobody tells you about that purchase. This isn’t a yacht. This is a warship. No stateaterooms, no comfort, just bunks and engines and naval equipment designed for combat. Wayne doesn’t care. He sees what it can become.

 He spends the next year pouring money into it. $3 million in 1962. That’s massive money. Today, that’s $30 million. Think about that. He could have bought 10 mansions, 50 cars, anything. Instead, he renovates a warship, adds five stateaterooms, one for him and his wife, Par, four more for the kids, raises all the ceilings because he’s 6’4, and keeps hitting his head on the original military overheads.

 removes bulkheads to make it feel open, spacious. Installs a fireplace in the main saloon, a poker table made of koa wood, a wet bar that seats 12, a screening room where he can watch 16 mm films. But here’s what’s interesting. He keeps the naval equipment, the original wheel, the compass, the telegraph, the battle mural commissioned for the walls.

Why? because he wants it to feel like a ship, not a floating mansion. A real ship with history, with purpose. The boat already has a name, Wild Goose, given by the previous owner. Wayne loves it, doesn’t change it. Wild Goose. Perfect. And then he makes a decision that surprises everyone in Hollywood. He moves his entire family from his 5 acre ranch in Enino to Newport Beach, buys a waterfront house.

 Not because Newport Beach is fancier, not because of the view, because it’s 2 minutes from the harbor, 2 minutes from the wild goose. Let me ask you something. When’s the last time you rearranged your entire life for something that made you happy? Not for work, not for obligation, for joy. Wayne does it without hesitation. The boat matters that much.

 Now, here’s where the story gets interesting. You can’t run a 136 ft warship alone. Wayne needs a crew. And the men who work on the Wild Goose, they’re not just employees, they become family. Captain Pete Stein, chain smoking, tough as nails, drinks J&B scotch in his morning coffee, argues with Wayne constantly, loud disagreements about navigation, about speed, about everything.

 But they’re best friends. When the boat’s docked, they drink together, laugh together, fight like brothers. Pete is loyal, fearless, and reckless. 1969, San Diego Harbor. Wayne isn’t on the boat. Pete takes Wild Goose out alone. He’s drunk. What happens next? Nobody expects. Pete runs the Wild Goose straight onto the jetty. Full speed.

Crash. The impact tears grapefruit sized holes in the hull. The keel is mangled. Both propellers bent. $70,000 in damage. The US Coast Guard launches an investigation. Pete could lose his captain’s license. Wayne could lose the boat if it’s ruled unseaorthy. Everyone expects Wayne to fire Pete immediately. Cut losses. Move on.

 Wayne doesn’t. He pays for all the repairs out of pocket. Tells the Coast Guard, “Pete’s my captain. Accidents happen.” But here’s the part that breaks your heart. During the investigation, Pete Stein has a massive heart attack. dies before they finish the inquiry. Wayne loses his best friend, his captain, his brother.

 At the funeral, someone asks Wayne if he regrets keeping Pete on after the crash. Wayne’s answer, wouldn’t you know it that old Pete would beat the rap by dying. That’s grief disguised as humor. That’s how men like Wayne handle loss. Have you ever had a friend like that? Someone who drives you crazy, but you’d never abandon them. Wayne understood loyalty isn’t about perfection, it’s about presence.

 After Pete dies, Bert Menshaw becomes captain. But Bert’s story that starts years earlier, late 1963, a young guy named Bert is working a crane in England. Freezing cold day, miserable job. His brother Ken calls from Gibralar. I’m in Gibralar with John Wayne on his yacht. Would you like to come work on it? Bert doesn’t even think.

 He just runs, quits his job, flies to Gibralar, steps aboard the Wild Goose. First day, Wayne meets him, looks at Bert’s brand new deck shoes, deliberately spits on them. “Good luck,” Wayne says with a grin. Bert stays for 16 years, becomes Wayne’s last captain, his confidant, babysits Wayne’s kids, teaches young Ethan how to tie knots, how to read the water.

 Ethan Wayne remembers. I woke up and went to Bert until I went to sleep. He was like a second father. Ken Mshaw, Bert’s brother, becomes the engineer. Keeps the engines running perfectly for 18 years. But here’s the funny part. Ken gets seasick every single time they leave harbor. Every time for 18 years. Walks around the engine room with a trash can just in case.

 The crew jokes about it constantly. But Ken never quits. Wayne never fires him. That’s loyalty. And Billy Sweat, the cook, makes incredible meals, roasts fresh fish, lobster dinners. But don’t mess around in Billy’s kitchen. He keeps discipline with a hand towel, snaps it like a whip, leaves welts if you cross him. Wayne’s kids grow up with these men.

 They’re not servants, they’re family. Ethan and his sister Aisa eat meals in the galley with the crew. Fight over chicken drumsticks. Billy breaks up the fight with that towel. Everyone laughs. The kids sleep in bunk beds with EW and AW carved into the wood. This isn’t a yacht where rich kids are separated from staff.

 This is a home where everyone’s equal. Now, let me ask you something. When’s the last time you felt truly at home? Not in a house, but truly home, where you belong, where you can breathe. For Wayne, that’s the wild goose. So, what does Wayne actually do on this boat? Everything Hollywood isn’t.

 Every evening at sunset, they perform a ritual. It happens at exactly 6:00 p.m. Every single day for 17 years. Wayne and the crew gather on the aft deck. They lower the American flag slowly, fold it with military precision, 13 folds, triangle shape. Then young Ethan loads the small cannon, packs it with gunpowder and wet leaves.

 Boom! The sound echoes across Newport Harbor. Everyone in town knows it’s 6:00 p.m. Duke’s home. Then drinks, stories, relaxation. Wayne has rules. The brass ring on the ship’s wheel, polished every single day. Mirror shine. Don’t touch it. Touch it and you’re in serious trouble. Kids aren’t allowed in the liquor room.

Wayne’s strict about that. But everything else, the boat is freedom. Wayne loves standing in the pilot house. Even though he has a captain, Wayne likes to bring the boat into harbor himself. He comes in fast, horn blasting. Everyone in Newport Beach knows that sound. Duke’s home. He swims off the boat constantly.

 Doesn’t matter where they are. Mexico, Alaska, Catalina. Wayne dives in fully clothed, swims to shore, has lunch with locals, talks, laughs, then swims back. Climbs aboard dripping wet. Nobody cares. But here’s one of the wildest things they do. Summer trips to Alaska, Pacific Northwest, British Columbia. They sail right up to glaciers, massive walls of ancient ice, blue and white and impossibly beautiful.

 Wayne drops anchor. He and the crew grab fire axes from the emergency locker. They take the Boston Wher dinghy to the glacier base. Then they climb on ice with axes. They hack off chunks of ice, some pieces the size of basketballs, some the size of car tires. They haul them back to the wild goose, store them in the massive freezers on the aft deck.

 12 ft of freezer space filled with glacier ice. Why? For cocktails. That ice is thousands of years old, compressed, dense, doesn’t melt fast, doesn’t water down the whiskey. Wayne serves it to guests for months. That’s 10,000y old ice in your glass. Treat it with respect. Tell me honestly, have you ever tasted 10,000-year-old ice? Have you ever done something that absurd and wonderful just because you could? That’s Wayne’s philosophy on the wild goose.

 Do things that make no sense to anyone but you. They sail to Mexico regularly. The Sea of Cortez in the 1960s. Cabo San Lucas is just a fishing village. No resorts, no tourists, just locals and boats. Wayne pulls into a dock. Local fishermen come over. They don’t speak English. Wayne doesn’t speak Spanish, but Wayne has t-shirts, lots of them, and Playboy magazines.

 He pulls them out, shows the fisherman, hand gestures, laughter. They trade t-shirts and magazines for piles of fresh lobsters. That night, Billy cooks them. Butter, garlic, lemon. The whole crew eats like kings. No money involved, just exchange, just humanity. When’s the last time you traded something instead of buying it? When’s the last time you connected with someone without sharing a language? That’s what the wild goose gives Wayne.

Freedom from transactional Hollywood. Freedom to just be. They go to Catalina Island constantly. That’s close. Easy weekend trip. Wayne has celebrity friends visit Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr., Jackie Gleason, Ronald Reagan, Richard Nixon. They play poker at that KA wood table on the aft deck.

 They fish, they drink, they talk about life, not business, but mostly it’s family. And here’s where everything changes. Late 1964, just after the renovation is complete, the wild goose looks perfect. Gleaming white hull, polished teak, the floating Taj Mahal, people call it. Wayne’s dream has finally come true. Then he gets the diagnosis. Lung cancer.

 Golf ball-sized tumor. Doctors remove part of his lung. Surgery successful. But the message is clear. You’re mortal, Duke. Wayne comes out of surgery with a new philosophy. He calls it beating the big sea. But more than that, he realizes something. Before cancer, the boat was a hobby, a luxury, something nice to have.

 After cancer, the boat becomes a priority, a necessity. I thought about dying, Wayne tells close friends. Now all I feel is life. From that moment on, Wayne spends every possible minute on the wild goose. Movies pay the bills. The boat is the life. That’s why Ethan misses school. A journalist asks Wayne, “Why does Ethan get to skip school to be on the boat?” Wayne’s answer explains everything.

Because I’ll lose him later as a teenager, and I won’t be there by the time he comes back. Wayne knows. He beat cancer once. It’ll come back. Time is limited. So he grabs every moment. Movies then boat. Movies then boat. That’s his rhythm for 15 years. His daughter Marissa remembers years later. For a long time, whenever I dreamed about him, we were on the boat.

 Ethan says it clearest. When my father was happiest, on the wild goose. Not on movie sets, not at awards shows. Not shaking hands with presidents. on the boat with his family, with his crew, with the ocean. But here’s what most people don’t know about Wayne’s final months. January 1979, a journalist named Barbara Walters comes to Newport Beach.

 She’s doing an interview with Wayne, not in a studio, not in Hollywood, on the Wild Goose. Wayne agrees because he trusts her. Years earlier, when Walters was struggling as the first female co-anchor on network television, Wayne sent her a telegram. Don’t let the bastards get you down. She never forgot that. Now she’s here to honor him.

 They sit on the bow of the wild goose front of the boat where the anchor rests. Wayne wears a wig for the camera. He normally doesn’t wear one, but this is television. They talk for hours about his career, his faith, his regrets, his beliefs. Wayne tells her, “I’ve spoken to the man upstairs many times. I’m not worried about what comes next.

” Walters notices he’s thin, weak, but he’s still Wayne. Still strong voice, still direct eye contact. It’s his last television interview. The next day, Wayne goes to the hospital. Routine gallbladder surgery. They say they find stomach cancer advanced, inoperable. Wayne never leaves the hospital. But here’s the thing that breaks your heart.

 2 months before that interview, Wayne did something nobody expected. Easter weekend, April 1979. Wayne takes the wild goose to Catalina one last time. Captain Bert Mitchell notices immediately. Wayne is different. Thin, pale, can’t eat, can’t drink alcohol. That’s not Wayne. They anchor in Emerald Bay, play cards, back gammon, jin rummy. Wayne tries to act normal.

 On the way back to Newport Harbor, Wayne calls Bert to the pilot house. Just the two of them. I don’t have much time left. Bert doesn’t know what to say. What do you say to a man who’s been your friend for 16 years? Wayne continues. Thank you, Bert, for everything. They don’t hug. Men like Wayne don’t do that.

But Bert understands. Two months later, June 11, 1979, John Wayne dies. But before he dies, he does one final thing that explains everything about who he really was. He sells the wild goose. The boat he swore he’d never sell. The boat he spent $3 million renovating. The boat he moved his entire family to Newport Beach to be near.

 Why? To avoid burdening his family with the cost of maintaining it. He sells it for $750,000 2 weeks before his death. His last act of love. His last sacrifice. Think about that. Here’s what gets me about this entire story. Wayne had everything. Money, fame, power, could buy anything in the world. But what made him happiest? A boat.

 Time with his kids. Meals with his crew. Sunsets. Cannon fire at 6:00 p.m. Swimming to shore wet. Hacking ice off glaciers. Trading t-shirts for lobsters. Simple things. Real things. Not Hollywood. Not performance, not cameras, just presence. He built a life outside the chaos and he protected that life fiercely.

 Moved to Newport Beach just to be 2 minutes from the harbor. Took his kids on the boat, even when it meant missing school. Spent millions turning a warship into a floating home. Because memories matter more than movies. Because being there matters more than being famous. Because 17 years of sunsets with your kids is worth more than 17 Oscars.

 Do you understand what we lost? Today we bring the chaos with us everywhere. Phones at dinner, emails on vacation, work follows us to the beach. Nobody unplugs. Nobody escapes. Wayne didn’t have that choice. 1962. No phones, no internet, no signal in the middle of the ocean. just people, just water, just time.

 And you know what? I think that saved his soul. The wild goose wasn’t just a boat. It was a boundary. A line Wayne drew between who Hollywood wanted him to be and who he actually was. On land, he was John Wayne, the movie star, the icon, the image. On the Wild Goose, he was Duke, the dad, the friend, the man.

 If you had a boat like the Wild Goose today and took your family out for a week, would it be the same? Or would everyone be on their phones, checking emails, posting photos instead of living the moment? We have all the technology, all the connection, all the tools. But somehow we’re more disconnected than ever. Work life balance isn’t a luxury anymore.

It’s survival. Spending real time with family isn’t nice to have. It’s essential. Wayne understood that in 1962. He rearranged his entire life to protect it. Maybe it’s time we brought it back. Tell me in the comments. When’s the last time you had real family time without screens? And if you remember the ‘ 60s or ‘ 70s, tell us what we lost.

 Because I think the people who lived through Wayne’s era understand something we forgot. What would your wild goose be? What would you buy if you could create your own escape? And would you have the courage to actually use it? Or would you let work, obligation, and screens steal it from you? Think about that.

 Because 17 years of sunsets, 17 years of cannon fire at 6:00 p.m., 17 years of glacier ice in your glass and lobsters on the deck. That’s not a luxury. That’s a life. And Wayne lived it fully until his very last breath. And if you want more stories about the values that built the West, hit that subscribe button because they sure don’t make men like the Duke anymore.