Sailing as a Lifetime Teacher

by Ken Van Camp

T. Neumann loves sailboats. He loves building them, sailing them, and improving them. He even loves repairing them. He builds boats from wood, first cutting, bending, gluing, filing, sanding, and painting them, watching them take shape into seaworthy vessels capable of withstanding the forces of nature. He loves sitting in boats made with his own hands and feeling them glide through the water using only the wind or the strength of his muscles pulling on a paddle or wooden oars. He loves improving his craft, making them easier to set up and sail, and coaxing every knot of speed out of their hull and rig. And finally, he loves the satisfaction of knowing how to fix any problems that may arise.

But it wasn't always that way. When T. (short for Theodore) was in college at Tulane University in New Orleans, he joined the sailing team and traveled cross-country to compete in the thirteen-foot Flying Junior, an international one-design racing class.

On a cloudy day on nearby Lake Pontchartrain, Neumann was practicing with a classmate on one of the school's Flying Juniors. At over forty miles wide, Lake Pontchartrain is the second-largest inland saltwater body in the United States. The wind increased quickly and capsized their Flying Junior. Neumann and his crew quickly righted and bailed the boat, but the metal rudder slipped out of its gudgeon and sank. With no rudder, no paddle, and no motor, the pair was stuck. They were several miles from shore with no radio or other means to signal for help. “I stuck my leg over the back of the boat and used it as a rudder,” Neumann said. Keeping the boat on course was a challenge, but after several hours of sailing with this unconventional steerage, the pair reached safety.

The mishap was one of many lessons Neumann retained. “Over the years, I've had all kinds of things break or not work properly or get stuck.” He found there was no better solution than to know his equipment, and there was no better teacher than the process of building and repairing boats.

Later, in the 90s, Neumann decided to build his own sailboat, and after months of research selected the eleven-foot Shellback, a glued-lapstrake plywood sailing and rowing dinghy that he named Scaredy Cat.

In Virginia, Scaredy Cat rested on her trailer in his backyard. One stormy night, a branch broke off an overhanging tree, puncturing the boat and leaving a gaping hole in the bottom. “Being a wooden boat, it was fairly straightforward to fix," he said. "You cut a hole out and you patch it.” A few years later, another storm picked the boat up off its trailer and tossed it across the yard like a stuffed doll, leading to severe damage and more patches.

When he and his wife Karen moved to Florida in 2016, they brought Scaredy Cat with them. Although twenty years old, the boat looks new. An observer would be hard-pressed to find where she was patched.

During the pandemic, Neumann built a sixteen-foot Snowshoe sailing canoe. It was made from a mahogany frame braced with Kevlar roving strands and then covered in Dacron, the same construction technique used in small airplane wings.

Sailboats talk to their owners in myriad ways. Neumann listens and prepares for the next storm. •SCA•