The Boats We’ve Known and Loved…

Les and I have been bumping around boats for quite some time.  I’ve been doing it longer than her.  For me it started in the bathtub with a candle powered steam engine tin pop pop boat.  Way down this blog there is a picture of a similar boat and a YouTube link for how they work.  For  Les, her boating exposure started soon after she met me.  For the past eighteen years we’ve been living aboard boats.  Sailboats to start with and after we got serious about it we’ve converted to powerboat platforms as our preferred option.  There are many reasons for that change.  Put simply:  In a sailboat for the most part you are sitting at or below the waterline and get accustomed to identifying who is coming down the dock to see you… by viewing the activity through a porthole.  That’s at knee level. So you get to know people by their knees.  In a powerboat you are sitting well above the waterline and can look out a window and see the entire approaching corpus including their face.  Nuf said.  Some say we’ve moved over to the dark side.  We say the opposite. There is much more light poring through the windows of a powerboat.  So… we are now living on the light side.  We are houseless from a land lubberly perspective, but that is what we prefer.  We can move our sea based house just about anywhere our house can travel by unhooking the power cables and dock lines, setting a course and just motor away.  Somewhere else.  Somewhere with a better view, a better marina, a different country.  Or just because we can and are in the mood.  Try that with a land based house.  Oh sure… there are RVs that can flit about, but that is not the same now is it?

Our first exposure to the boating life started in the early 80’s… Last century.  Last Millennium if you want to be pedantic about it.  A lifetime for some, but for Les and I, it has been a mere series of linked episodes of apartment, condo, house, boat, house, house, and then… just boats.

The first boat that we bought together was a Santana 22 built by Shock.  It was designed by Gary Mull to sail and race in the San Francisco Bay.  One of its design parameters was to be able to stand up to a stiff breeze.  San Francisco is known for that.  It had multiple mainsails, jibs and spinnakers to conquer just about any wind speed and direction.  We learned a lot on that boat sailing in light and heavy air.

We found ourselves to be in the dank throes of foot-itis. Our Santana was a bit too small. So… after a bit of discussion about not being able to stretch our finances to buy a larger boat and keep our land based abode, we decided to vacate the abode and buy a larger boat and live on it. Problem solved. We found one, or rather, it found us. Our first full time liveaboard vessel was a Westsail 32 cutter.  It is known to be stronger than a brick shithouse kind of boat.  It sails slower than most, thus it’s famous moniker, “Wetsnail”, but that didn’t bother us. She was a thing of beauty, inside and out. And… she was a simple enough creature:  Hank on sails no roller furling, a long laminated wood tiller, no electronics to speak of, no autopilot, icebox refrigeration.  She was a simple sailing machine, but she was robust.  We never worried about the state of the wind and seas while gamboling about.  Many have circumnavigated the planet using such a vessel as their tool.  It was comfortable enough for young-uns like us who were way more flexible then, compared to… now, and you could heat it up with a simple hurricane lamp.  It was Southern California don’t cha know and not much added heat was needed.  Those were the days my friends.  We thought they’d never end.  And… they really haven’t for us.

 For the most part, Westsails all appear to be the same on the surface.  But… many were built by amateur first time boat builders who’d been sold the escapist fiddle faddle about tossing their land based lives overboard and sailing around the globe.  Some did.  Most didn’t.  That type of sailing is hard work and not for the faint of heart. Due to the amateur nature of many of the builders, most of them appear suspiciously home-built.  Ours didn’t.  She was factory built by one of the production managers.  It was one of the nicer ones finished off with lots of teak and a nice ash headliner.  Our Westsail had the fitting moniker of “Quiet Answer”.  We kept her in Long Beach, California and sailed / motored her out to Catalina at least once a month.

After 3.5 blissful (for the most part) years of living aboard I bought Les some English riding lessons.  Why not.  I had boats, she’d had horses and rode western style.  She’d always wanted to learn to ride English, so… I bought her English riding lessons as a non-boating oriented birthday gift.  What was I thinking!!  Well… Les decided that I needed a few lessons too.  I’d never really ridden a horse.  My first lesson was on one of the older lesson horses Telund.  He was a very nice peaceful fellow and knew how to teach neophytes how to interact with and how to speak horse on a rudimentary Dick and Jane level.  On my second lesson, Robin, the barn owner and instructer, put me up on her retired jumper, Robbie.  After I warmed him up riding around in circles at walk and trot, she had me take him over a jump.  It didn’t go well.  He went up and I didn’t.  That breathtaking disharmony between the two of us and the unexpected upward thrust of the saddles pommel mashing into my genitals… stopped the parade for a bit. After catching my breath… I went over another jump.  This time… it went well and I was hooked.  Soon after… boots, britches, bridles, lead ropes and other equestrian paraphernalia began to invade Quiet Answer and started to displace foul weather gear.  Around that time, Les started large drafting projects associated with school and had to work in a borrowed garage.  Picture Bob Cratchett with his fingerless gloves and too few lumps of coal… and you will understand her predicament. So… we decided that becoming landlubs would suit our new equestrian and student project space needs a little better.  We traded the Westsail for a Columbia 30, a Bill Tripp design, plus some cash and bid Quiet Answer goodbye… leaving someone else to chase the urge to conquer the globe.

We kept the Columbia, which had no name (and we never named her), at the Downtown Long Beach Marina, got an apartment in Costa Mesa, then eventually bought a small house in the city of Orange near my day job.  By then we had two horses, a one ton dually truck, a horse trailer, saddles and boodles of horse related equipment.  Horses took over our lives at that point.  But… that is a different story line, eh?  I took a partner in “No Name” who eventually bought out my share.  That  was the end of boating… until it wasn’t. That passion for me never quite dissipated. It just went on sabbatical for a bit.

As equestrian activity began to ebb for me at least, we began a search for the next vessel. And… after driving a boat broker or two a bit awry, we settled on a Choat 37 with the moniker of Limbo.  It was a well equipped offshore race boat and quite famous in the San Diego racing community.

It was not a good liveaboard. That wasn’t within its design parameters. It did serve as one for me after we sold our last land based house in 2006. 

At that point, Les was commuting up to Moorpark to work with her brother drafting up takeoffs for his custom cabinetry business.  She would come home on the weekends and never quite found a comfortable place to hang.  For me it served its purpose and when she finally decided that the commute to Moorpark no longer made sense… we traded Limbo in on a real liveaboard:  A new center cockpit Hunter 45.  We named her Prana.  That seemed fitting at the time…

We were thrilled with the modernity of it all.  Scrumptious aft cabin.  Generator.  Ample water capacity, and reasonably good sailing characteristics.  And… COMFORTABLE for Les and I and our little dogs!  That started a trend.  We liked the boat, but the cockpit was… well… not the most sumptuous spot to hang while in port.  So… we traded that in on an aft cockpit Hunter 49 that we named Heron.  Oh my.  We went back to Alachua, Florida and saw her at the factory and knew it would work for us.  It was an excellent So-Cal liveaboard…

We lived aboard Heron for nearly 4 years, first at the Kona Marina and then at the Coronado Kays Yacht Club.  But… it was after all, still a sailboat, and Les was swerving towards switching to a powerboat.  And finally, after much hand wringing and consternation (on my part) about making that switch… we did so and bought our first powerboat, a Hampton 49.  Compared to a single deck 50 foot sailboat, It essentially had 3 decks.  Lowest deck:  50 feet of Engine room and living quarters with two staterooms and 2 heads..  Mid level deck:  50 feet of Main salon, galley, pilothouse and foredeck.  And… on the top deck: 30+ feet of flybridge steering station with comfortable seating for 7 or 8 peeps plus dinghy storage.  All combined:  130+ feet of living space combined.  Hmmm.  50 foot sailboat or 130 feet of living space on a 50 foot powerboat.  Well I get it… you can’t live in the engine room on a powerboat, but there is sooooo much more comfortable space.

Being an avid sailor type person, and going through a bit of withdrawal not having a sailboat to whet that appetite… Les let me buy a 20 foot racing sailboat.  It was a Harbor 20 that I named Talisman.  Here is a video taken by the owner of Schock Boats who was in town for a race.  Me racing in South San Diego Bay.  I don’t remember who my crew was on that race.  A CCYC guest  or member catching a ride during a race? Press the link to see a video of me racing Talisman in South Bay San Diego:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rz5tR9aB2bE

And all I have to have to show for it is memories of good racing and a coffee mug.  We sold Talisman to a club member. He is still racing her.

There was enough boat logic echoing through the canyons of our collective minds for us to determine that a slightly larger powerboat would suit our needs better.  I was nearing retirement, and what better way to retire than a migration to a slightly larger boat with a few more amenities like a stand up engine room, more fuel and water capacity.  We found one:  A 53 foot Trawler type powerboat, a DeFever 53 Performance Offshore Cruiser.

Great Northern has two generators:  9KW and 23KW Onans.  We can generate electricity just about anywhere.  We carry 800 gallons of fuel which means we can travel around for about 1000 miles before refueling.  For those of you who roll your eyes skyward and think that driving a stinkpot around the Salish Sea is a global warming travesty… I’ve studied our carbon footprint and for the most part it is well under the carbon footprint of a normal sized family based lub abode.  Clean living and all that abounds.

Well… excluding multiple kayaks, stand up paddleboards and our dinghy… that about covers it.  Most people live on land and when standing on the shore… look out to sea and ponder romantic thoughts about what it would be like to be out there flitting about, not a care in the world.   We are different.  We live life floating on the sea and know for the most part what it is like out here.  Oh sure… we also look towards the shore, but we know from experience what it is to live the life of a lub.  Out here… it can be romantic at times. But… it can also be warm / cold, dry / wet, calm / windy, smooth / rough, clear / foggy, blissful / scary. All in the same day…

To end this march through Les and my boating history I’d like to reveal one of my deepest, darkest secrets:  My first boat!

The back story: There was a grocery store about 4 blocks away from our house in Lakewood Center where I grew up.  At the time, Lakewood Center wasn’t much more than a village surrounded by post war housing just South of Tacoma.  I can’t remember quite what brand the store was… but that was before the advent of huge conglomerates like Safeway etc.  Just before the line formed to flow past the cashier, there was this bin that had bits and bots of odd Japanese sourced trinkets.  That was when “made in Japan” was more a laughable nickname and well before the “Toyota Way” and its 14 Management Principles that held sway over the world manufacturing of automobiles.  Nestled amongst the bits and bots was this little tin boat.  I had to have it.  It cost well under a buck. Every thing in the bin was under a buck.

It was a “Pot Pot” boat and you can still buy them through Amazon or eBay:

You fill a tiny “boiler” with a bit of water and inserted a burning candle under the boiler. That creates steam which is directed out of tailpipes on the transom. As the steam escapes underwater, it makes “pop pop noises” and moves the little niffer around the bathtub on its own power.  If you are interested… this is how they work:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AXupc7oE-g

I was probably 5 years old when I had mine.  Probably a bit younger than the age specific recommendations for todays kidlets.  Hey… back then kids my age played with matches and burned themselves and houses.

Next up came a family boat, a 12 foot Montgomery Ward Sea King aluminum boat with a 5 horsepower Clinton Apache outboard.

Simple engine.  No clutch.  Pull the starter cord and you were off to the races as fast as a 5 horsepower air cooled engine would go… which was really not very fast, eh?  I spend a lot of time in that boat.

Next up:  an 8 foot fabric/plywood kayak that I built in 7^th grade woodshop.

No.  That’s not me.  I was a ginger redhead when I had hair…  It was a simple craft and I paddled it everywhere  I could, including Owens beach, Point Defiance, Salters Point, Steilacoom, Steilacoom lake and the Columbia River.  Did I wear a life preserver… uhhh… I can’t remember.  It was 1963 afterall…  BTW, you can still get the plans.  Compared to our Eddyline kayaks that we currently paddle… it was a Neanderthal boat.  But it was cheap to build and it got me on the water looking back at the shore.

Enough of my reminiscence for now… We just did a short late November, early December cruise up to the Islands and back. Perhaps I will share some of that soon…