‘Captain Ron’ Was Real: Learn the Story Behind the Famed Flic

Inspiration for the Character Actually Drove a Trawler

Peter Swanson Apr 22

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Captain Ron was real. I knew Captain Ron. Correction: Several of them.

Movie Ron is an archetype, a subset of “Florida Man,” a dude defined by daily headlines down here. No exaggeration, Florida breeds more Rons than it does Pink Flamingos.¹

It should surprise no one, then, that Captain Ron the movie is a true and accurate depiction. “All books are alike in that they a truer than if they had really happened,” Ernest Hemingway once wrote. (Many books and some movies, he should have said.)

Starring Kurt Russell and Martin Short, the 1992 movie might be pigeonholed as farce, but just because it makes you laugh does not detract from its historical truthiness.

The age of fiberglass brought sailing to the masses beginning in the 1960s. By the late 1980s and ’90s suburbanites like the Harvey family² were finding their way down island—happy campers wearing floppy hats and riding around on clown bikes to the chagrin of dignified local folk.

And who else was there to greet them?

Florida Man

The phrase “Florida Man” was years away from becoming a national punchline. Long before the movie, members of this colorful tribe were making all sorts of mischief.

Think of Florida, as it always has been, a haven for all manner of scalawags, boozers, bongers and bullslingers. Florida Man—it matters not whether he was conceived in situ or has somehow achieved honorary status—Florida Man always seems to have the loudest mouth at the bar.

Like Ron Rico rum, many of those Captain Rons down island were a distillation. They were 150-proof versions of Florida Man. They had been run out of the Sunshine State, sometimes figuratively, other times one step ahead of actual deputies.

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I met my first Captain Ron back in 1999 with a bunch of cruisers at Puerto Blanco Marina in Luperon, Dominican Republic. He was an amiable enough dude—a bonafide graduate of America’s penal system.

Some years later I nearly snorted my beer when a cruising kindergartener (think Martin Harvey) declared that he would “sail anywhere with (Ron of Luperon).”

Martin Harvey: We don’t know how to drive a boat.

Captain Ron: The best way to find out … is to get her out on the ocean. If anything is going to happen, it’s going to happen out there.

Yep, Ron of Luperon had sunk three boats “out there.” A sort-of nautical hat trick. One of them continues to be a hazard to navigation at Sapodilla Bay in the Turks & Caicos.

But sure, pilgrim. You go ahead. Sail “anywhere” with the bold skipper.

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Origins Story

Being curious about the movie’s origins, Loose Cannon contacted the author of the movie screenplay a few years ago. John Dwyer of Austin, Texas, confirmed that the film was actually based on events that happened to his own family during a 1969 boat delivery.

Guess what? The boat in question wasn’t even a sailboat, let alone a Formosa 51.

Dwyer told me his father was a “Mad Men”-style ad exec in Houston, a status-conscious, conspicuous spender who wanted to outdo his boat-owning colleagues.

Dad bought a used Chris Craft Commander at the Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show and convinced his family that it would be an adventure for all of them to bring the boat back to Texas. His broker, however, convinced him that he didn’t have the experience to do it without a paid captain, so Dwyer’s dad hired Captain Ron. (Yes, his name was Ron, and he claimed to be a captain.)

Like movie Ron, this Captain Ron had one eye and—wonder of wonders—a wooden peg leg. According to Dwyer, this detail would have been too ridiculous, even for a movie that was trying to be ridiculous. Ixnay on the eglepay.

The real Captain Ron was drunk so much of the time that the Dwyer family called him “Ron Rico” in honor of the brand he favored.

During the trip to Texas all the boat’s electronics failed, the electrical system experienced multiple failures, and Captain Ron managed to get lost on the Intracoastal Waterway. During a stormy passage in the Gulf of Mexico, the Dwyer family feared for their lives as they were tossed about by heavy seas.

At one point, Dwyer’s dad threatened to throw Captain Ron overboard for hitting on Dwyer’s mom.

Chevy Chase was originally considered for the title role, and the first script was written as an edgy adult comedy. But the Disney studio wanted it to be a family movie instead. As a result, Dwyer turned the big powerboat into a Formosa 51 (referred to as a 60 in the film), and the motivation changed from ad-man-seeking-status to family-inherits-sailboat-seeks-Caribbean-adventure.

Role Reversal

Another fun fact: According to Dwyer, Short was originally cast as Captain Ron and Russell as the dad, but the two got drunk one night and decided to switch roles. The universe has been grateful ever since.

Like the Ron character, the Harvey family is also real. The islands used to be full of dreamers looking to fulfill escape fantasies. Some are still out there, but I worry that we may be running out of Rons.

Those amphibious Florida Men are an endangered species. We’re cracking down on the waterways.

“Where have all the pirates gone?” nautical troubadour Eileen Quinn once asked in her song of the same name. Her answer: “They’re pumping gas in Marathon.”

Think about it: The Rons of the world were already endangered even before the Keys had self-serve gas stations. There can’t be many left.

Or so I thought before I joined some of those Facebook sailing and cruising groups. Therein, I discovered places awash with keyboard Rons, spouting all sorts of braggadocio and abject nonsense. It has taken great discipline to not respond.