There's a New Boat in Town

There is a new boat. And the yard ain’t givin me past October 15 to get her in. 

So go in she will, come hell or high water (preferably the latter, say the readers who boat).

Welcome to the start of my blog.

My partner Tash served the journaling of our adventures well but has decided land lubbering (or, at least, non-ocean sailing) is for her now. And so, your humble servant will scratch paper occasionally to fill in the void. 

[Cue the classical track Aquarium by Saint-Saens]

To set the scene, Will is an aspiring aesthete, desirous of living on salt water and out of doors air. He is musing about whether their Freedom 36 sailboat is the right one to take out in the wide oceans. While bringing Nirvana back to Maine from Florida, a bad/good thing happened in the inlet to Fire Island inlet: the USCG buoy marked channel was 8’ shallower than marked. The bottom came up real quick! 12 hours later our valiant Coast Guard is moving said buoys to better locations as it is clear that a blue boat and bluer sailor are aground in the middle of previous said channel. 

Keel caught between a hull and a hard place, it is a hulluva battle but the hull loses, takes on water, and Independence Day liberates our narrator from any further decision making: their boat is totaled. While the night was frightful, with a “new” moon (meaning there’s no glimmer of light), and punctuated by Fire Island’s finest trying to find me a hotel (and discovering all that were to be had rented rooms by the hour), I lobbied to be taken back to the boat. I slept on the beach near her. But it was not all dark and nightmarish. In the morning I found myself amongst angels as I was the object of much cooing and attention…in a plover sanctuary on Democratic Point once I realized I was awake. 

This was not Nirvana’s just end, but it allowed us to move on. [Edit Aquarium to end at this moment of salt tears shed by the shared-helm helmspersons over the phone].

The next monthful of Sundays saw me car cruising New England [Cue The Lake by Rene Aubry] and finding a 1985 Brewer 12.8 (meters) in Staten Island, in a place called—of course—Moonbeam Marina of Great Kill, moonbeam being a touch of light; a kill being a Dutch word meaning “water channel,” and I thought of the parallels with the two terms “channels” and “moonbeams” my fate had of late. 

“Nirvana” was the years spent with my partner, as well as our last boat’s name. “The Now” is wherever one finds oneself, often in that inexplicable place which, in my case, is in my new boat, and that is what I’ve named her. As beautiful, spare and refined and organized as Nirvana (and her mistress) was, The Now is unkempt and layered with 2 years of grime. But she is loaded with blue water features, seems mechanically sound, and the grime was just a perfect disguise to scare away those suitors who had no vision to woo her. 

No reflection on her, she was cheap. 

And the seller, Cross, a 27 yo who was on the boat frequently with his friend, the son of the late owner, has gone out of his way to make the boat right and see her perform again.

The ten Brewer 12.8’s that were built were for members of the NYYC, a tony bunch who wanted Ted Brewer to improve the Whitby 42 with their ideas for a better long-passage sailboat. While I’m taking a chance that the boat will sail well, now that she’s (almost) cleaned up I’m sure she won’t lack for suitable suitor sailors.

One of the points of the “documentary“ book we are reading, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, is that doing your own maintenance changes your perspective of your love object. I saw a bit of this while owning VW Bugs but it really is driven home in a house with a fluid foundation. At least all the “house” systems are old school analog and frequently yield to a smattering of physics which is about my waterline.

Getting her ready is painstaking work and slow, revealing what is charming and funny about the name of a boat we saw “Life at 5 Knots.” True, you could almost walk as fast to your next destination; truer, what’s the rush? 

Being on land can seem very odd to me now. Too much asphalt and plastic. In between my half-week trips to Staten Island, Tasha and I adventure from her home in SoPo Maine. We are having great fun while trying to forge a relationship of “apart” and “present”. We continue to love each other, which is wonderful. Nature, walking, great food, and our conversations are still the soundtrack of our ongoing Play “Will Tash?” reviewed, by no one you’d know, as a mashup of the Middle Way meets delicata squash.

Who knows what’s next? If I don’t, it fits my definition of an adventure. So let’s begin.