But use Mr. Menchacaâs nickname, Lifeboat Louie, and many City Islanders will chuckle and give you the latest scuttlebutt on this crusty crab, a maritime fixture on this waterfront island in the Bronx.  Even on salty City Island, Mr. Menchaca, 71, stands out for his shipwrecked sailor look. A retired merchant seaman and Navy veteran, he has worked in many local boatyards and lived most of his years on boats here, often, as in his current situation, without electricity, heat or other amenities.  Mr. Menchaca estimates that he has been through two dozen modest floating homes over the years, usually run-down sailboats he has salvaged or bought for little money. These days, his home is a pair of them tethered side by side and anchored offshore just south of the City Island Bridge, in an amazingly pristine natural waterway only minutes from Midtown Manhattan.  âThereâs still a bunch of us water rats out here,â he said. âJust about the only thing I know is boats.â  Mr. Menchaca got his nickname because he likes to convert old life rafts into unsinkable dinghies.  âIâve always liked lifeboats,â he said. âI guess it could be symbolic. Iâve spent my life on boats, and I guess you could say theyâve kept me alive.â  His current dinghy is fashioned from an orange foam life raft chopped in half and customized so that Mr. Menchaca can kneel and paddle it back and forth to shore. Most important, it looks like flotsam, so he can leave it undisturbed at the waterâs edge.  On Wednesday morning, he paddled the craft to shore and pulled it up the rock- and shell-strewed shoreline. He shouldered his green duffel bag and, wearing his orange life preserver and holding his long wooden oar like some ancient mariner, began walking past the stores and restaurants on City Island Avenue.  A lifelong bachelor, Mr. Menchaca has a scruffy white beard and wears an elaborate rosary around his neck with a big wooden crucifix. Clad in sandals, jeans and a windbreaker over several layers of clothing, he waved hello to Captain Mike, a retired tugboat captain who also lives on a moored sailboat.  Inside a deli, Mr. Menchaca leaned his oar next to a Lotto machine, ordered coffee, and recalled growing up landlocked in the Washington Heights section of Manhattan.  He was attracted to the water, and at 17 he got his first vessel â a 16-foot sailboat, he said. Tooling around the Harlem River, he realized he could ride the current out to City Island for better sailing. He learned the tides and currents the way other urbanites learn the bus and subway lines.  âTwo things I wish Iâd done,â he said. âFound the right lady, and learned to drive.â  Mr. Menchaca said he joined the Navy in 1962 and served on the U.S.S. Hollister, a destroyer. In 1965, he became a merchant seaman, and he returned to New York City waters in the mid-1970s, having seen many ports around the world.  For a number of years, he became an active anti-abortion protester, leaving the waterfront periodically to chain himself across the doorways of clinics, and winding up in jail for it.  Mr. Menchaca is known for rowing his sailboats single-handedly, using a pair of long oars called sweeps. His method has brought cheers at City Islandâs annual Blessing of the Fleet in June, and was all the buzz one year in the 1980s when he sailed up to Newport, R.I., to watch the Americaâs Cup and row his sailboat around the place.  Mr. Menchaca, who lives off his military pension and Social Security checks, can talk for hours about life on the cityâs waterways, from sailing up the Hudson, or gliding down the East River to the harbor, to rowing through Hell Gate and Spuyten Duyvil.  With no cooking facilities on board, he buys inexpensive deli food ashore. He can use the outdoor bathroom behind Jackâs Bait and Tackle, and he gets free food and clothing at the St. Mary Star of the Sea church, which overlooks his boats.  An admitted hoarder, Mr. Menchaca tends to clutter up his boats with found items. Sometimes he must lay cushions on top of it all for sleeping space. He relies on layers of clothing and blankets for warmth, candles for light and a battery-powered radio for entertainment, he said.  But really, he said, it beats being a landlubber.  âI try to keep things as simple as I can,â he said. âI guess I got barnacles on my soul.â  Where Heâs From Washington Heights, Manhattan  What He Is Retired merchant seaman whose home is a pair of sailboats off City Island  Telling Detail In devilish winters, Mr. Menchaca has walked ashore, right off his boats, on the solid ice, he said.
Known to City Islanders as Lifeboat Louie, Luis Menchaca makes his home very simply on two boats, foregoing electricity and heat.