It is a hot Sunday afternoon in late July, and I’m walking across the dusty back lot of a small boat yard in southern Maine a dozen miles from the ocean. Ahead of me in the shimmering heat is a large metal-clad storage shed whose dark-green panels creak in the sunlight as I approach. While the place was buzzing with pre-season activity only weeks before, there is no one else but me around the yard on this prime sailing day in the midst of a very hot summer.
Around the lot’s perimeter is an assortment of boats in various stages of repair and decay. Some are well-protected in the building sheds, while others wear only the last shreds of long-forgotten tarps and torn shrinkwrap. A few of the lucky ones are in the midst of major upgrades, soon to be relaunched and enjoyed, while others are among the sad and nearly forgotten vessels that may never see blue water again.
It is easy to feel the loneliness of such a place in this season, with the bone-dry gravel and the motionless and nearly neglected boats – so completely out of their element on the hard, dry ground. Even the grandest of yachts can lose their dignity on a day like this, when, by all rights, they should be sailing. With the attention of their erstwhile stewards focused elsewhere, they appear as forsaken wards, their lonely futures only barely secured to the ground by rusting metal stands as they teeter on blocked keels against the dusty wind.
Through 25 of my 62 summers, I have owned a classic wooden sailboat. I own one now. But it became clear to me today that this will be the first of all of those summers when I will not sail. I readily admit that I am having a bit of a struggle coming to terms with that realization.
I have had a few late launchings before; some years, work and family took precedence over the boat’s needs. But up until now, I always got her in before July. There was one launch in very late June, however, when too much time in the springtime boatyard sun required a couple of emergency pumps to keep her afloat in those critical first two or three post-launch hours.
Most seasons, I have observed a concerted policy of seasonal care in tune with the needs of the vessel – an early launch, late November haul-out, and winter storage in a damp shed with a dirt floor. In the early years, I would spend the first night of every season aboard, with one hand in the bilge while I slept, just in case the pump couldn’t keep up.
As time went on, my faith deepened as the boats proved that they would remain afloat without incident under my care. A late-night drive to the cove to put the headlights on the boot-top came to suffice, especially for the double-planked Aloft. Most years, the late-season haul-out took place in cold, snow squalls or howling northwest winds, and a real sense of relief prevailed once she was finally on the trailer.
The whole enterprise ordered my life and that of my family, with its rigid calendar and obligations of seasonal upkeep. Nothing really worthwhile comes easy, it seems.
But the real truth is that I am to some extent suffering under a delusion: I have no real right to own a big, classic, wooden sailboat: I’m not rich and it can be a struggle to keep these boats going strong and looking sharp. These old classics were built for people who could simply pay the yard bill at places like Concordia, Grave’s, Dion’s and Hinckley’s. More than once I have mortgaged the future and raided a retirement account in exchange for another grand season of sailing and cruising on one of them.
And I’d do it all again the same way, because of the joy they have given me, and the lessons they have taught. But the old boatyard adage still echoes in the back of my mind every time I write one of those big checks: “If you have to ask how much it will cost, you probably can’t afford it.”
Through the sister framings, hull refastenings, keel-bolt replacements and centerboard repairs, the boats and I have relied on local craftsmen for the really hard parts. Most of these folks have since become very good friends. But without the funds to pay to have it all done, I have tried to do as much as possible myself: bottom and topside sand and paint almost every year; cove stripes, boot-tops, decks, varnish, transom lettering, plus the myriad other small projects and repairs that keep a cruising boat going. And let’s not forget that we must have a proper tender alongside as well, so we might as well build one of those over the winter.
In light of the magnitude of the whole endeavor, I have made some aesthetic compromises along the way. Many of these were experiments of which I know the likes of Elmer Dion or Llewellyn Howland would not have approved. But I learn my lessons the hard way. Once I tried a season with a painted cabin on our Hinckley Pilot, but that was a bridge too far, and I scraped it all back down to mahogany again the next winter. Likewise was the experience the year that Aloft sailed without a boot-top. That saved a whole day of tape and striping paint, but the stripe went right back on again the next spring. It just wasn’t right. I have reduced varnish to a minimum where possible, and I don’t paint the decks every single year any more. But I stick more to the basic plan of the original design these days. Those guys knew what they were doing.
I once told myself that if there ever came a year without a launch and a good long cruise, it would be time to admit that the whole thing had become too much for me. But that kind of simplistic pronouncement is part a young man’s game that suits me less and less as the years pass. Resignation and acceptance have recently joined gratitude among the concepts in need of deeper understanding.
Back at the yard, I fumble for the key, and finally open the door of the shed where Aloft waits patiently in vain for our annual ritual. It is reassuringly cool in here, even in the midday heat of high summer. From 50 feet, at least, she still looks terrific, and she still stirs my soul. At 55, she is yet destined for big ocean swells in spite of my poor treatment this year. Never mind the need for sanding and paint and varnish and caulking. The fundamentals prevail: sweet sheer, strong shoulders (as her wide beam runs especially far forward), surprisingly tiny transom, tumblehome amidships, gentle curve of the stem, glorious teak trim.
In the darkness of the shed I can yet imagine her sailing this very afternoon toward Monhegan at hull speed on a beam reach, the long bow wave curling back and running aft to a single trough along her shiny white hull, and finally rising to exit smoothly in a chorus of soft bubbles back to a welcoming blue/green ocean.
I check the jackstands, take a peek into the cockpit, sight along the bottom in search of proud planks or excessive seam gaps. And, to my relief, all seems well. She is holding together in spite of my inattention. I tell myself that she might eventually forgive my neglect of the past months. Either way, I trust that she will allow us to reconcile and move ahead (hopefully in the new year – less than six months away now), growing still older together, with grace expressed in equal measure. The challenge is all mine.
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