What is it About Boats?

Enriching our lives using boats

Article by Jonathan Lewis

All my plans this spring went up in smoke.  Driving cross country to the Chesapeake with boat in tow to attend a wedding cancelled because of a groom getting cold feet.  Route change to New England in time for my wife’s college reunion morphed to an airline flight to ensure a punctual arrival. Her return infected with the new coronavirus variant put us both out of commission for weeks. We cancelled our plans to join the North Channel Trailer Sailors on Lake Huron for a two week small boat cruise beginning July 27.  Maybe another Northwest adventure was in order with a stop in Port Ludlow for the Small Boat Festival?  

Our Townsend Tern was sitting impatiently on its trailer in our yard in the mountains of California, urging us to get motivated and slip her into the water for a month’s long adventure. Her numerous attributes that add up to a near perfect boat for our purposes were being countered by our temporarily failing health, the country-wide insane heat, and the distances required to reach a suitable splash location.

In June, when I should have been sailing along a curvaceous coastline and anchoring in skinny water in protected coves, I was in bed under the covers and cursing COVID, nasal swabs and perpetually positive tests. What’s an old salt supposed to do?

I had my iPad in hand and enlisted the electronic marvel to peruse various boating related sites (including Small Craft Advisor.) My downfall arrived when I was ensconced in an electronic missive from WoodenBoat which included several pages of classifieds. I certainly wasn’t in the market for another vessel. One perfect sailboat sitting idle was sufficient, but it’s always fun to look at her competition. A brain slightly fogged by my current malady may have contributed to my synapses firing in rapid and irrational bursts, but fire they did. I was captivated by a nine-meter sharpie that was inspired by Commodore Munroe’s famous Egret. However, this was no ordinary sharpie. This simple hull form was a yacht—dressed to the nines. Two carbon masts, two ash wishbone booms and two varnished mahogany companionway slides with grain to die for. Another one-of-a-kind craft to drool over.

The only problem was she was located in the Netherlands. How was I going to present this unique but unnecessary floating work of art to my clear thinking better half? The only remnant of her COVID was a cough. The last thing we needed was another boat. The canoe, rowing shell and Achilles inflatable are collecting dust and as I already stated, CarriMal, our beautifully designed and crafted Townsend Tern beckons immersion. I called to Betsy in the other room and she arrived bedside imagining I needed additional nursing care when I showed her the tablet’s screen emblazoned with a pixelated image of a doubleended showpiece with a blue hull and varnished mahogany.

My wife appreciates boats and was immediately captivated, as I exhaled my hurriedly constructed pitch—the fact that this boat was located in Holland was perfect. We’d been wanting to spend more time in Europe, as we’d done in our youth, and what better way to explore the various waterways, small towns and canals than on our own boat? Romantic visions of tulips, windmills  and wooden shoes wandered into the conversation. Our recent illnesses had driven home the preciousness of our relatively healthy remaining years. The boat comes with two folding bicycles that stow in custom compartments. Carpe Diem! We can keep the boat there as an annual magnet and sail CarriMal in the States offseason. Perfect. Somehow my radical ramblings translated into rational reasoning and the prospect intrigued her. Now, I should insert that this is the same woman who consented to, “Well, we’ll just stick our noses out and see how it goes,” then having to join me in hand-steering a racing boat for a rigorous six days and 900 miles from the Bahamas to the Virgins.

It has only been a few short weeks since our conversation and I’m pleased to report that the Sharp-End is under contract and our sea trial isscheduled for the beginning of August. The ability to enrich our lives using a boat as the catalyst is simply remarkable. They are awe-inspiring instruments that illicit a symphony of emotions, and a new duet is about to commence. •SCA•