We bought a sailboat!
Yes, I know in these trying times what are we thinking? It seemed like a very good idea at the time (just a few weeks ago).
We’d been going back and forth for months about size and should our sailboat be trailerable or just affordable. And this one came up for sale, in distant Oklahoma of all places, and met both criteria.
My husband drove eight hours one way with the assumption he was buying this boat if it was as good as it appeared to be. I was in full agreement, and likely, in complete denial of the reality of the events that will unfold in my future.
He drove back ten hours with the boat behind him, stopping once to readjust the mast because a niggling thought kept bothering him.
Hurray for niggling thoughts or he would have had a very exciting moment when the mast decided to slide off the boat. But he caught it in time, re-engineered the tie downs, adjusted it for travel and returned home safely.
Even so, I thought the Titanic had landed in our driveway.
I said it was a good idea at the time. It still is, but my husband is a bit of a perfectionist. He has since replaced the system that is used to raise the mast. Prior to his “adjustment,” the mast was raised using a hinge and pin system “woefully” undersized and already showing the future breaking points (metal fatigue or cracks if you prefer). So imagine a hinge that might be attached to a cupboard door and enlarge it until the pin is the thickness of a pencil. That’s bigger, right?
But will it raise a mast of a sailing ship? Granted our boat is only 27 feet long, and the mast is perhaps 35? I’m guessing here and have no sailing experience. It’s longer than the boat.
Now imagine the hinge plates three times as thick, and the pin that holds the two plates together the thickness of a sharpie pen (hey, I’m a writer, I think in units of writing utensils).
That mast is going up and staying up. (I’ve been assured of this and have inspected the new hinge plates. They look hardy.)
Now about the outboard motor.
It’s a fine motor. At 9.9 HP, it will move a sailboat of our length pretty well. It’s lovely, almost new. So what’s to complain about? It’s mounted on a plate with four bolts, nice strong bolts, though the plate is a bit undersized and rated for 120 lbs. maximum.
Guess what our outboard weighs? 126 lbs. I have been assured by a very knowledgeable fellow (my husband) you never set up anything to the maximum range.
That’s not all.
Four pieces of plywood, approximately each three-inches square, were mounted on the inside of the stern to supply support. The same above referenced knowledgeable fellow assures me this is a disaster in the making.
Four bits of plywood is not enough support for fiberglass hulls when holding a 126 lb. outboard mounted at the maximum strength of an undersized plate.
Enter 8×8-inch steel plate mounted in the interior of the stern with a new rated 250 lb. mounting system for the outboard. (Note: probably original outboard was likely 6 HP and would have met the maximum rating well below.)
But his fixes don’t stop there. But I really must at this point.
So why did it seem like a good idea at the time to buy this boat? My husband has sailed before, and I have driven motorboats for many years. This boat was to be our training sailboat.
I will learn sailing on the local lakes, and we’ll both learn how to maneuver a 27-foot sailboat onto a trailer or away from a dock with an outboard mounted on the starboard (right) side with a whole lot of boat between us and the bow.
Yeah, it’s a bit different than the ski boat with the wheel at the midpoint of the boat and plenty of clear viewing out front and a big V8 inboard Volvo centered and pushing one along.
Sometimes, when I’m lying in bed, I think I’ve nothing to worry about because it will be at least a year before my husband will be done perfecting the boat. And then I recall that this boat arrived ready to sail. Summer has arrived. All the fixes are just my husband taking care of hazards in our future. The boat could go out tomorrow as is.
You don’t climb around a ski boat when it’s in motion. You sit, safely, in the cockpit. The only one in danger of hitting the water is the skier out behind.
What do you do on a sailboat? Apparently, you skitter around the deck with maybe a foot of shoe space, sometimes less in spots, stepping over vertical lines and stays while the deck is pitched at an angle (heeled over?) with nothing but some very thin and less than confidence-building ropes running from thin metal stanchion to thin metal stanchion between you and the water (or in our case, the nine-foot drop to the hard ground below since our boat is currently sitting in the backyard).
I say this because I had to do this so I could hold the bolt heads while he stood inside tightening them. How many touch points does one need to work one’s away from the stern to the bow?
Answer: as many as one can create at a snail’s pace.
I hold onto the handrails, and not handrails, like I’m climbing Mount Everest. And we’re on land!
It’s going to be exciting in slow motion.
So what totally logical purchase, perhaps frightening in retrospect, did you make during the quarantine?