I had a moment of staring down the project. As usual.
Steve Brown of South Park Marina always assures me that it is all right to sell because I work too damn hard as a CNA. Who has time for a boat with all those pick-up shifts?
Then I show up and take a gander over to where she is. This yard is full of old vessels that people pay for month after month and never splash.
I stare down the Spencer. There is a complete universe out there of boats that could be mine with the same cash. Many of them are nicer. I often shop for them on Craigslist.
But I know in my soul that if I sell her now, I’ll only take pity on her in a couple of years and buy her back, and she will be full of mold.
It is the lesser of two evils to have this boat that I take care of at least with a new tarp every year.
And who knows? This might be the year the deck gets finished, the toe rails replaced, and something done about the companionway doors.
So I stand down, and Steve assures me that that is okay, too. Look at everyone around here trying to sell their boats. It never works out.
And someday . . . someday . . . SOMEDAY I’m going to get this boat in the water.
But someday isn’t coming this year.
I have enough cash to do one project a year.
I know my soul. I am a Capricorn, ruled by Saturn. Saturn says, WHAT IS THE MOST DIFFICULT AND IMPORTANT PROJECT HERE? Not, what is the low-hanging fruit.
It is the fiberglass on the cabin that was patched up with epoxy.
My readers will know what I think of epoxy. It is easy. Yes, there is a hole, and, yes, you can mend it, for now, with epoxy, but you will only be kicking the can down the road. In a decade, that epoxy will turn pull away from the wood and be an intractable cement that does not hold but does not go away. Then you will be staring it down with a hand scraper, which is illegal at South Park Marina. No, we have to lie about our tools. What we have here is a Festool vacuum sander, for rent for $45/day, not raw muscle.
Someday I’m going to get caught, but I will ALSO have a Bosch die grinder with a pile of 2” techno pumice heads and a vacuum that will solve problems with less muscle than I can afford.
I can hear my grandfather calling in from the grave. It will take three Bosch die grinders to complete the job, and didn’t Bosch just discontinue your favorite die grinder?
Woe is me!
My grandfather taught me to always buy the best tools. He was a house painter who could walk away from any jerk — he was that good. The only paint he used in the fifties was Pittsburgh Paint. You’re not gonna touch it with the cheap stuff.
I know what is coming. I will be buying Andy’s supply list on Boat Works Today for $20 and getting that very roll of fiberglass, that very can of gel coat, that very paint.
And it will be my color of paint. A girl paint.
Why not be ridiculous with all those dings and roofing tape? We are going tie dye with the cabin. Accents not in zebra but I think leopard or something. We need animal prints. Not just pink. Then the pirate hats.
A former owner of the vessel, E. J. Johnson, saw the ad on Craigslist — and who doesn’t always keep an eye on Craigslist for the boats? it comes with the job — and contacted me with this beautiful photograph. He assured me that Little Wing was, in fact, NEVER just a dirty guy fishing boat for a couple of decades. He knows 3 or 4 of the former owners, and they were NOT all guys. In fact, he sailed her around Vancouver Island in 2008. I have his very log in my files. He made good time and, if that were me on that trip, I would be stopping short of all those exploits in the Strait of Juan de Fuca with the lethal conditions and visiting my brother in Port Angeles where the boat should stop in once in a while as she’s tootling around the Hood Canal where my ancestors would have put in with boats.
It is not a “yacht.” It is an eco-friendly method of transport to fish, hang out with your own thoughts, and get to the store for bread and milk.
