Boat Forum / Cruising / December 2004

WARNING: SEMI-TOPICAL RANT...

I have mixed feelings today.

I just got beat to the "offer" stage on a 41 foot steel pilothouse
ketch that was for sale at a reasonable price at my club...more or
less under my nose, but I didn't see it until another buyer was close
to offering the PO's price. Buying now is two years too early for me
(gotta finish the mortgage!), but when I start shopping, I'll have a
five year old son and possibly a one year old or younger. I plan on
going when Son No. 1 is six or seven, and to "boat school" like the
Stuemers until the boy is 12 or 13 and to circumnavigate in the
interim, living off writing (yes, I know, but I'm already a
journalist, so I think I have a shot at travel writing) and "diesel
and repair money" from renting out our house.

So that means a few things: I want a cutter-rigged ketch. I want
steel, stable and Perkins or similar "big iron" diesel. I want a
pilothouse or a hard dodger, and preferably center cockpit. I want a
skeg hung rudder, and a modified long keel. I want 38-45 feet, and
room for a small workshop. The hull must be super clean and all
structures must have unbroken epoxy or similar coatings to inhibit
rust...foam tends to disguise things.

After that, I'm not picky...the interior can be crap, nice or even
absent. I would prefer to modify than to build, but the fact is that
my best shot at something appropriate is a half-finished Roberts-style
boat done nicely by an old guy who had a clue but has lost interest,
gotten sick or died.

Surprisingly, there are dozens of boats around like this. Some are
superbly done and sail nicely, but have interiors of plywood and
outdoor carpeting over 2 X 4 benches <G>

That's the boat for me, as it would take two years and $20,000 to do
the interior to my tastes, which are more systems than entertainment
oriented.

All this is to make a safe and comfortable passagemaker that will
mitigate somewhat a less-experienced wife and small kids, who
nonetheless will probably stand half-watches and do navigation by nine
or ten years of age.

The wife is already a keen Great Lakes sailor, but is weak in
terminology, brute strength and familiarity with engines. All that can
be remedied with time and drive, and she's the daughter of a boat
builder and fearless about the foredeck and going up the mast.

Here's a suggestion: let the wife helm and dock as often as possible.
It's good confidence building, and the real art is in sail-tweaking
and navigation, anyway <G>.

Everything's a risk, including going nuts and driving yourself to an
early grave in a compromised office job. My wife and I have decided
that the risk of taking kids offshore during our "prime earning years"
is very much worth it when compared to the regret of not doing it at
all, or not being able to do it in our sixties due to age, illness or
family duties. I'm 43, she's 30...we want to be gone by the time I'm
47 and she's 34 and back (if ever) when I'm 53 or so.

My mother died at 68 in 2002, never having travelled much, despite
having had the money, because there were always obstacles, real or
imagined. My father at 80 is now alone and pretty much fixing to die.
I suppose if he leaves me their estate I could buy a house or two and
become a land-locked tinpot slum lord, but I think the best tribute to
their memory is to "carpe diem" and get a steel boat and give my
kid(s) the kind of childhood very few children experience, one full or
learning, adventure and real responsibility.

The late Diane Stuemer may not have been the best sailor, but she
learned enough to survive, and her kids had an enviable few years at
sea. Her husband, maybe less so, but I doubt he'd trade it for all the
fixed alternators in the world.

Don't give your kids Gameboys. Better a sextant!

So get the boat and go, my friend.
R.