Sail - July 2018

SAIL MAGAZINE

PHOTO BY

SHUTTERSTOCK

(ABOVE)

bent plywood to create our own El Toro sailing prams.

Following our father’s perfectionist lead, we ensured that

the slot in each screw head was aligned fore-and-at, that

the inal pre-paint sanding was done with 360 grit (and

tested for smoothness with the back of the hand, not the

ingers or palm) and that the brush strokes were imper-

ceptible. A few custom touches like laminating the tiller

with contrasting woods put the inishing touches to it.

Once you set out from shore in a crat you’ve made your-

self and nothing goes wrong, you’re hooked for life.

Before long I graduated to a 16t centerboard Snipe

and then an 18t Mercury keelboat, thrilled by competi-

tions on my home waters and at Stillwater Cove in Pebble

Beach. Later, I crewed on the 46t Amorita in the ierce Sir

homas Lipton Cup competitions on San Francisco Bay

before moving to the East Coast. We soon discovered the

magic of cruising Maine, purchased a cottage on an island

and found boats to sail, and have now spent every sum-

mer in Maine since 1974.

Beyond day sails and overnighting, each sum-

mer when our three kids were still with us featured

a family cruise along the Maine coast. As SAIL read-

ers well know, such experiences are unparalleled in

calling forth both the functional interdependence and

the abiding patience required to sustain life afloat for

people confined within 35ft of each other nonstop,

around-the-clock, for a week or 10 days.

Much more importantly, however, only such experi-

ences could occasion what happened in the cockpit one

day as we were gliding down Eggemoggin Reach on an

absolutely perfect sailing day. Our then-teenage daughter

Shannon suddenly burst into tears. We immediately asked

what was the matter, and gathering herself, she sobbed, “I

don’t think I’ll ever—ever in my whole life—be as happy

as I am right now.”

Over the years, we’ve delighted in sailing other venues, from the Chesa-

peake to the Windward Islands in the South Paciic, and we’ve had a full

share of the inevitable enduring joys and momentary terrors that all sailors

live for. (“Live for” terrors? Sure. I’m not the only sailor who is enlivened by

what I call “the hint of menace” ever-present in saltwater sailing.)

In the last few years, though, as age has taken its toll on my balance,

strength and appetite for stress, I have found myself less frequently

yearning to “go down to the sea in ships” and more fondly remembering

the tranquility of lake sailing. And so it was that last year I sold of the

last of my coastal cruising boats and found a derelict Rhodes 19 that had

been let uncovered for years to serve as a collection bin for rotting leaves

and a haven for little critters seeking shelter. Improbably but appropri-

ately, it was named Wharf Rat.

Propelled by the notion that both the boat and a new owner might

have a dance left in them yet, I acquired her and plunged into a resto-

ration project that conjured up all the boyhood gratifications of creat-

ing a craft to be proud of. After stripping off all its wood, I delivered

the hull to Stuart Marine in nearby Rockland, where she had been

built in 1992. Many months and dollars later, the hull was returned

to me better than new. Meanwhile, I was happily toiling away in my

barn, grinding down decades of neglected varnish and blemished

wood to restore the brightwork, refurbish the spars and fittings and

doing whatever else was within my skill set. And of course the boat

needed a new name, one that fit both her easygoing nature and my

own purpose for her. She is now called Peace.

During our last sail of the summer—a warm sunny day with a fine

breeze piping and the slight chop of Lake Damariscotta slapping her

hull—I suddenly felt a deep surge of nearly tearful emotion that made

me wonder, like Shannon on Eggemoggin Reach, if I could ever be

this happy again. s

The author’s saltwater boats

included a pretty Nonsuch...

... and a Cape Dory 30