No greater love . . . 

Photo courtesy Groves DinningThe author and his wife pose with Joi de la Mer, the boat that would later become My Girl. The picture was taken following the vessel’s first restoration, and just prior to launch.

August 2023

By Groves Dinning

Since I built my own Frosty, a 78-inch pram-like sailboat that could fit in the back of a car, I’ve had an itch for wooden boats. And on my bucket list was ownership of a Hinckley sailboat of traditional build by the time I turned 50. So, in 1999, and getting close to my deadline, I found, for sale in Rockport, Maine, a Sparkman & Stephens-designed Hinckley Pilot. She was hull No. 7, built in 1957.

I was intrigued with the design and layout, but her deteriorating condition dictated that much work was necessary to make her seaworthy again. Everything was original, from the old Gray gasoline engine to the electrical system, which was shotgun-fuse and cotton-wrapped wiring. Pulling up the vinyl flooring, potato sacks were laid down, perhaps to absorb moisture. This would be a huge project for me.

Kevin Harris, of West Bath, Maine, surveyor and a Pilot owner himself, worked up a survey to see what I was getting myself into. His first advice was to avoid trying to do this restoration all at once because I’d get burned out. Alternatively, he suggested setting up a 5-year plan that would focus on getting the boat back into the water. Don’t look at all the things that need to be done to bring the boat back to its original beauty, he said. He was so right.

So, I bought her and had her trucked down to Eliot, Maine. Once it arrived my friends would come by and say, “Groves you have bitten off more than you can chew.” I sort of agreed with them. But I was lucky to find a boat shipwright to take on this project and get it in the water.

We made a list of the necessary work and went at it. We replaced the transom and taffrail, and two garboard planks – port and starboard. The old electrical was ripped out and replaced, and we installed a holding tank for the head, which it did not have. The engine was OK, but I knew it was on its last legs. We spruced up the brightwork and launched Joie de la Mer, a name that means “for joy of the sea,” one week before my 50th birthday.

After the launch, I let her lay on the mooring for a few weeks to let the wood swell up and seal without the bilge pump running 24/7. Finally, I took her sailing, and it was like no sailing experience I had ever had. She was quiet, responsive, and tracked on her own; she was a dream come true for a kid from Arkansas.

Every winter I made improvements and repairs. This included replacing the toe rails, adding a McIntosh Butterfly skylight, installing a Westerbeke diesel, buying a few new sails, and putting in refrigeration. By 2007, she was in Bristol condition and the talk of the town – even in Maine at the Hinckley Yard. We cruised the Maine coast for seven years, keeping her in Rockland for the summers. We got as far Downeast as Machias, but we generally just enjoyed the coast and its people wherever we were.

In the summer of 2006 we were in Somes Sound, enjoying the nice August weather. As we rowed the dinghy to the town dock, we were approached by a young man who asked me if I was the owner of the Pilot. When I said yes, the man told me he’d tracked me down through the Hinckley Yard in Southwest Harbor. At this point I got a little suspicious. Where, exactly, was this going? The gentleman inquired about her history, and I was intrigued by his questions. It turned out that his wife’s grandfather was the original owner of the boat, having purchased her from H. R. Hinckley Co. in 1957. He asked me if I would take him for a sail and talk more about the boat. I had some errands to do, so we met back at the dock at 1 p.m. and went for a sail. He knew the ropes, and we felt comfortable with him.

After much discussion about the boat and her restoration, he finally came out with the purpose of his visit: He wanted to buy Joie de la Mer for his wife, so she could give her to her grandfather, who was still alive. A bit taken aback, I said absolutely not.

He came up with the old saying that anything is for sale. To which, I replied, “not this boat.” We kept talking. Eventually he asked what my price would be if I did sell her. Long story short, apparently everything was for sale, and he paid about three times what she was worth. I was astounded. But I could always find another Pilot, I thought, and I did have a daughter entering Wheaton College in Norton, Mass.

They finally took possession of the boat and had it trucked to Greenwich, Conn. I thought this was the end of it. But, as The Temptations sang in “Ball of Confusion,” And the band played on.

Fast-forward to 2017. After hearing the rumor that my old Pilot was back in storage in South Berwick, Maine, I drove there to confirm the news and then dropped by repeatedly afterwards. The former Joie de la Mer, which was now Sugaree, named after a Grateful Dead song, was in rough shape. Planks were opening, ballast was dropping, and it looked like it had been years since she’d seen any routine maintenance. The shipping hold-down straps were still attached, and she was covered with dust. A look around the inside of the boat confirmed that things were more or less intact below, albeit covered in mold. The varnished interior was just the way I’d left it; but the exterior varnish had cracked, and the motor was locked up.

For years I stopped by the boat. I thought: Could I restore her a second time? Most people get wiser as they get older. Not me. I was recently retired, though, and knew I had the skills to do it. I tracked down the boatwright I’d used during the first restoration and discovered that he’d also retired and was not interested. I found another boatwright and hired him on a consulting basis to keep me out of trouble.

During this timeframe no storage fees were paid on Sugaree. She’d more or less been abandoned. I negotiated with the yard to buy her back, contingent on whether or not I could fix the ballast issue myself. They agreed, and let me work on her even though I didn’t yet own the boat. I spent over two months making the ballast repair. Finally, in 2021, I bought her back.

I remembered surveyor Kevin Harris’s advice: Make a list of what needs to be done immediately and ignore the stuff you’d like to do. I made the list and started tackling the major projects first.

In August of 2022 I thought she was ready to be launched. First things first: I changed the name Sugaree to My Girl, after the Temptations classic. The first time, I didn’t even bother stepping the mast. I wanted to see how badly she leaked. Even with the bilge pump running nonstop and the assistance of two other 110-volt pumps, the water kept rising. We pulled her back out.

A few repairs later we relaunched with an additional four-inch trash pump on standby, powered by a portable generator. This time was much better, and I was able to motor to my mooring in New Castle, N.H. I stayed on the boat for a few days just to monitor the systems. I kept testing the main bilge to make sure it could work on its own. After a week or so it seemed like everything was OK.

Around this time there was a memorial race for one of my dear friends of over 40 years. The racer in me could not resist. I know he would have wanted me to enter the race. I checked the weather forecast, which called for light winds up to maybe five knots. So I entered and got a crew together.

Remember that I had not sailed this boat in almost 17 years. With an abundance of caution I entered the non-spinnaker class, where I was supposed to be the slowest boat in this fleet. We got to the racecourse and did some practice tacks, and she sailed like I had never left her helm. The crew was excited, but reminded me that My Girl was no J/24. “Steady as she goes” would be the day’s mantra. I then noticed that the wind was picking up.

We were first across the starting line and first to the windward mark some 10 miles away. We rounded the mark and started reaching to the next one. In the meantime, the wind had gotten up to 12 to 15 knots, and I really began to worry. Then one of the crew came up from below and said we had water over the floorboards. Fully aware of what was happening, I cracked off to sail directly downwind, hoping the flatness of the boat would slow the leak. It didn’t. Though we were leading the fleet, I had to radio the race committee to say we were withdrawing due to a water issue.

We started the engine and headed back to the mooring. Luckily, being a local sailor, a buddy of mine – the Kittery, Maine, harbormaster – heard my transmission and called to see if I needed help getting back to the mooring. I asked him to stand by; that I would see how far I could get.

The water kept rising until it was up to the flywheel of the engine, and then I knew I needed assistance. Just then, the water hit the starter, and the engine went dead. My friend came out with a four-inch pump and towed me back. The night before, I had taken off my portable generator, but still kept the other 110 pumps on board. A lot of good that was going to do.

After a few days at the dock the water receded to comfortable levels, so I put her back on the mooring. A few days later, I got a phone call, at 7 a.m. It was from the Coast Guard saying that the boat was sinking, and that Good Samaritans were bailing her out. A couple of weeks earlier, I’d signed up with Sea Tow as an insurance backup plan, so I called them and they responded immediately with their pumps.

By the time Sea Tow arrived, the water was over the cushions. It was time for more drastic measures, which meant hauling her. I did an interior hull inspection and discovered that water had been flowing in just forward of the stern post and back through deck drains that exited below the waterline.

I called Hinckley for advice. I spoke with one of the restoration managers, who said that, under the stress of the shrouds, forestay and backstay, the boat had pulled up, causing the horn timber and stern post to separate. Back in 1957, I was told, they used horse-hair adhesive, and the structure had come unglued. I was going to have to extract the two silicon-bronze, half-inch bolts, remove that old adhesive, reglue that section, and then replace the bolts. The Hinckley man said I would never have figured that out unless I had known specifically to look for it.

So back to the Shady Tree Boat Yard, and back to my list. It was a little shorter than the previous one, but I could see the light at the end of the tunnel – and the light was not attached to a train. All in all this has been a great challenging project for me and I don’t regret one minute of it. Well, maybe the sanding and caulking.

And we hope we see you this summer on our old stomping grounds Downeast.

Groves has been sailing since he was about 14 years old, after getting bored with competition water-skiing on the lakes of Arkansas. He has a USCG masters license. He sailed a Sunfish, and raced a Mutineer, Lightnings, Thistles, Flying Scots and Lasers in Arkansas, the Florida Panhandle and Keys, the Mississippi River and the Gulf of Mexico. In 1976, he settled in the Portsmouth, N.H., area, sailing an Ensign, a J/24 and a Pearson 34. And, as they say, the rest was history.