At Long Last Rosie

On Dreams Finally Fulfilled

Article by A.G. Monaco Illustration by Joseph Buchanan

It is a dark night and I’m switching lanes in heavy traffic to make a left-side exit. That I’m pulling a boat on a trailer with no lights makes this a stressful maneuver, but I’m not worried. What should move this situation from stressful to terrifying is my wife’s silence. She stopped speaking to me just north of Alexandria, Louisiana, about three hours up the road. This all started just a few weeks earlier when what should have been a pleasant sail with my oldest child ended up pointing me on a course of marital brinkmanship.

I already have a sailboat. It may not be much but it’s mine; it’s simple to rig and easy to sail and it doesn’t leak. Considering that it’s wooden and quite old, that last factor—being free of leaks—is a big deal. I was in love with that boat until my oldest son arrived. He had just moved east from Southern California and in an effort to show him the beauty of Louisiana I took him for a sail on Lake Pontchartrain.

Pontchartrain is not your ordinary lake. In fact it’s not a lake at all—it’s an estuary with lovely little towns on one side and America’s capital of overindulgence, New Orleans, on the other. Pontchartrain covers about 630 square miles making it a sizable body of brackish water bisected by the world’s longest bridge. It is a challenging place to sail in large part because the average depth is only 12 to 14 feet. When the wind is just right for sailing its shallow nature causes the surface of Pontchartrain to rise up and deliver bone-jarring, multi-directional swells that pound small boats and their occupants.

On the day I took my son out for a sail the gusts were in excess of fifteen knots, but our two oversized bodies were more than enough to keep the dinghy flat, though nothing could make it comfortable. The pain delivered to my back by the boat’s oak ribs was excruciating. To make matters worse, my son had grown inconsiderate living in Los Angeles, and had taken both of the boat cushions to lessen his discomfort, leaving me to take the brunt of the pounding without any protection. About the time the boom nearly twisted off the mast and the wind started throwing water over the bow, I knew it was time to head back in. As we pounded through the “chop” my son was asked to assist, but beyond being movable ballast he was worth little. His lack of initiative required that I use my “commander’s voice” to motivate him. In return the complaints started flowing from his mouth—“Dad, do you find this fun?” “Dad, are you doing this right?” “Are you sure this is a safe hobby for a guy your age?” And then finally “You know old man what you need is a better boat.” Needing the ballast to counteract the boat’s heel I resisted the urge to toss him overboard just west of Slidell.

We got back to the Lake Pontchartrain Yacht Club where my son proceeded to tell Paul the bartender how he had not been out on a boat with me in decades and now he remembered why: “My Dad is too cheap to own a good boat.”

Upon getting married in 1978 my wife and I moved to an apartment on the beach in Milford Connecticut. Seeing all the sailboats out on Long Island Sound I immediately purchased a book on how to sail and then, after reading the first three chapters, I bought a sailboat. It was a Howmar “Phantom,” a little faster and far less well known than the Sunfish. I named her Phantom Rosie. Despite flipping the boat and dumping my wife into the Sound, my first sail aboard Rosie caused me to fall in love with sailing.

So a few years later with a down payment in my pocket I was headed to a sailboat show in Stamford CT. I was ready to move up to the boat I had long been obsessing over. I was going to purchase a bright yellow 1982 West Wight Potter 15, the boat of my dreams.

Well not quite… that morning the reality of adulthood crept into my life. With just one short announcement my dreams of overnight anchorages in the Thimble Islands and trips trailering the boat to Barnegat Bay were shattered. That particular morning “original Rosie” (my wife) announced that she was pregnant with my first child. We still went to the boat show, but all I purchased was an XXL T-shirt in anticipation of her future wardrobe needs. Emotions of joy and sorrow hit me that day and in a way my heart was both filled and broken.

After the birth we moved inland to Westchester County, New York, where other children came and job and family pressures took the place of sailing. I occasionally took Rosie out on a lake in a state park, but having to dodge the fishermen and the fools on various inflatables, it was more depressing than exhilarating. Then it was on to Oberlin, Ohio, where I sailed the now neglected Rosie only once on a lake filled with even more fisherman in aluminum rowboats. By the time we got to Edwardsville, Illinois, the affair with Rosie was over and I bought a bicycle. I told myself I could never sail a “glorified Sunfish” in the commercial traffic of the Mississippi River.

So my little Rosie just sat neglected in the backyard until by chance she made her way to the Jersey Shore. There a nephew learned to sail on her and then being a jaded youth he “dumped” her for some “stink pot” with a built in cooler and a twenty-five horsepower Mercury. For a while I wondered where Rosie ended up and whether anyone was caring for her, but eventually I just forced her from my mind.

As it happened my career would take me back to Ohio and it was in the city of Akron where my interest in sailing was rekindled. One day I came across the nearby Portage Lakes. After seeing the many small sailboats skimming across the beautiful lakes I began to look for a boat to sail. It wasn’t long before I fell in love with a new “Rosie.”

Rubber City Rosie is an antique wooden dinghy that had been carefully restored by a chiropractor in Flint, Michigan. More interested in woodworking than sailing, he sold her to me at a bargain price. This “Rosie” is so beautiful to look at you almost forget that she is uncomfortable to sit in, impossible to point close to the wind, and very slow on all other points. Still, she quickly became the new boat in my life and my passion was reignited. I was in love again and I was back on the water. We spent a wonderful year sailing together as a member of the Portage Lakes Yacht Club on Turkeyfoot Lake. Even though every Interlake on the lake easily passed her by as did every Snipe, every Lightning, every Laser, every Sunfish, and the occasional drunk in an inner tube, she was still the loveliest boat on the water. Each weekend I would go out to the lake and sail her and each time people would compliment her beauty as they sailed past.

As fate and my career as a college administrator would have it I moved again—this time to Louisiana. I found a yacht club on Lake Pontchartrain “only” an hour from my home. Launching her on weekends my beautiful Rosie was once again complimented by everyone as “just the prettiest little boat.” But this time she was sailing on a much bigger, much rougher, and much meaner body of water. If her wooden ribs were hard on my back out on the placid waters of Turkeyfoot Lake, they were sheer torture on the rough and tumble Pontchartrain. I had loyalty to this boat and I thought I was resigned to be with her forever. I’d learned my lesson after Phantom Rosie—the boat you have is still far better than the one you will never get. I had finally forced the idea of a West Wight Potter out of my head ... until the day I took my son out for that dreadful sail.

Had it not been for his awkward timing I would have owned a Potter 15 and long ago satisfied the dreams that those little cruisers are designed to fulfill. How dare he complain about my Rubber City Rosie. She was beautiful! I was furious for days after that sail. I had trouble concentrating at work, and sleeping at night. My wife suggested counseling—I instead chose to treat my malaise with Bourbon and craigslist.

One day in a near drunken stupor while looking at the listings for used sailboats, I found her —a yellow, 1982 West Wight Potter 15. More than 30 years after seeing her for the first time and 1400 hundred miles from the spot where I fell under her spell, I was about to be reunited with the vessel of my desire.

All I needed was to convince my wife to drive four hundred miles round trip to look at a thirty year old boat….

The plan though simple was brilliant —avoid all mention of boats. I told the wife that we would drive up to the historic, little city of Natchitoches, Louisiana where I would buy her lunch at one of the town’s elegant restaurants, and together we would stroll down the main street and browse in the antique emporiums and little shops. Upon arrival in town I would also suggest we first stop by the lake and look around.

The minute I saw her floating in Sibley Lake I knew I was leaving today with that boat. When I attached her to my hitch I also knew I had a problem. It was impossible to park a boat anywhere on the narrow streets downtown. Driving slowly on the quaint cobblestones, right past the shops and restaurants I explained to my wife that we would someday come back. Out of what I thought was her own unselfish joy that my dream had come true she seemed at a loss for words. Then after offering her dinner at McDonalds, I heard her mumble what sounded like—“I swear to God, I will smother you in your sleep.”

The joke is on her—I am too excited to sleep tonight!

The Potter is filthy inside and the cabin needs refurbishing but she doesn’t leak and her sails are in terrific shape. Soon with a little effort I will have her clean and ready to sail. I realize that no boat could ever live up to three decades of expectations but on the day that Merci Rosie launches I will be as happy as I was on the days my wife gave birth. Perhaps happier.

It doesn’t matter how well she points or whether I ever sail her very far—I finally have her. Now I am just trying to get home and dreaming of the day I finally get my girl out on Pontchartrain and point her east. I am also blocking out the thought that I need to part with Rubber City Rosie. Maybe a separation is inevitable but I like to think that she deserves more from me than a quick goodbye. Why not own more than one sailboat—wind costs nothing? While I suppose my wife will have a thing or two to say, those concerns are for later. Now let’s just hope that my new Rosie and I can get through our first sail together without dumping my wife Rosemary (who hates being called Rosie) overboard.

The sweetest of dreams are the old ones that are finally fulfilled. •SCA•

A.G. Monaco is an administrator on the campus of Louisiana State University. If his wife will let him he hopes one day to sail out of sight of land.

First appeared in issue #84