Retired from newspapers and television, currently sailing Thelonious II, a 1984 Ericson 381.
I spent the first two weeks of ownership divesting. For a few days I wasn't sure I would ever get to the inside of the hull of the new Thelonious, it was so packed full of past needs and future spares. The Previous Owner (PO) was getting out of yachting, and apparently had no use for 13 years of assembled gear. I brought a few cardboard boxes and all my boat bags, figuring to clean things out in a day or two.
A week later I had filled nine carloads with his stuff, which now filled my garage. Some say you don't just fall in love with a new boat, you marry the previous owner forever. For a day I was irritated that the boat had not been emptied, as I requested of the broker. But soon I came to know a life in gear, and be touched by it. The handwritten note left on the table felt sincere: "Take care of her and she will always bring you back." He had left behind all his boat tools, a complete set of what I have also accumulated, all neatly stored. There was a trove of spare parts--five impellers, joker valves, Racor filters, grease guns, hundreds of stainless screws, bolts, nuts, shackles, O-rings, breakers, wire, heat shrink, just in case. Spares were stored, misplaced, restored. Three barbeque grille gas canisters crammed in a settee locker, but two others rusting under the galvanized chain in the forepeak.
Several bottles of wine in the teak locker I found welcome. But two more were hidden away, lost deep in recesses, where I almost painted one before I realized what it was. He had, as we all do, his own inventions and idiosyncratic tweaks. I scoffed, of course. But in the elaborate 50-pound side platform he had created to ease access to a dinghy, I sensed the infirmity of some family member, and his solution. My superiority faded into embarrassed recognition. In the 50 carefully filed equipment manuals, most obsolete, I saw a familiar character trait. I also saw someone who kept everything for the boat, on the boat. And a determination not to run out of anything. There were a hundred AA batteries on board, of which 30 were rechargeable, requiring three separate chargers. There were five installed cigar lighters--one for each of the five West Marine portable inverters.
At home, I spent a week sorting all this stuff, identifying what was bounty and what was trash. I filled half a dozen garbage drums. I hesitated often, since there was a time when I was young and broke and would've jumped at a B&W chartplotter with rail-mount antenna that was state of the art in 1998, and still worked. But each day I became more resolved. The old chartplotter had value, but what value? Who would I give it to, with charts far out of date? I began to throw the PO's life away faster and faster, hand over hand, determined to move forward and not look back at a history that wasn't my own. But at breakfast, hearing the roar of the county garbage trucks hefting my heavy cans towards oblivion, I put down my coffee and shook my head. It's hard to throw stuff away that was once shiny, just because it no longer is.
Then I loaded his mainsail and 135 genoa, still serviceable, and 11 of his old life jackets (My own 12 is all I need), and drove to Minney's Yacht Surplus in Newport Beach. The buyer was apologetic. They were good sails, she said, but Minney's already had far too many sails in inventory: so, $200 for the lot. It was like attending the funeral of somebody you don't even know. Any funeral has meaning because one day it will be your own.
With the boat completely stripped to factory level --just bilge, decks, bare spars, no upholstery--it still didn't seem mine. But the past was over and the future could begin.
I ripped out every non-structural bulkhead some prior owner [or the factory] had painstakingly put in . The vertical one in the photo below was tabbed to the hull, completely blocking access to the rudder tube. I hacked the tab out with an angle grinder and a Sawzall, crammed in a lazarette locker with a roaring shop vac. It felt so good I immediately moved on to the long wavy line of huge stainless lag bolts securing the clumsy helm locker baffle, then the enormous piece of plywood that, inserted into the lazarette, had turned it into a freeway underpass storage locker. I probably could have rented that space for $30 a month.
....
Encouraged by my first unimpeded view of the Universal 5432 diesel, I ripped out an entire elaborate ventilation system consisting of three electric blowers, wired ineptly, and 20 feet of drooping dryer hose, all of which further occluded access to critical areas below the cockpit that I feel need easy and frequent inspection . I noticed that the more I thumbed my nose at somebody else's belief in the need for diesel ventilation, the better I felt. It was getting to be my boat. And if we overheat, I won't eat crow--I'll just call it my recipe for blackbird pie.
There's lots to do. The rigger is off building stays and lifelines, the hatches are off being cut and formed, the boat is a mess of dust and acetone, soap and Brightside. The biggest storage locker belowdeck has in it a plastic insert originally intended for an outboard locker, the sloping side of which wasted half the available space.
I built an insert box to solve that. I could say I got it right the first time. In fact, let's say I am saying that, to dodge the humiliation of three tries at a design that would optimize the space but still fit through the hole. In mechanical engineering school they ought to give freshmen this design problem and see how they do.
....
It being my boat at last, I gave myself a pass.
A week later I had filled nine carloads with his stuff, which now filled my garage. Some say you don't just fall in love with a new boat, you marry the previous owner forever. For a day I was irritated that the boat had not been emptied, as I requested of the broker. But soon I came to know a life in gear, and be touched by it. The handwritten note left on the table felt sincere: "Take care of her and she will always bring you back." He had left behind all his boat tools, a complete set of what I have also accumulated, all neatly stored. There was a trove of spare parts--five impellers, joker valves, Racor filters, grease guns, hundreds of stainless screws, bolts, nuts, shackles, O-rings, breakers, wire, heat shrink, just in case. Spares were stored, misplaced, restored. Three barbeque grille gas canisters crammed in a settee locker, but two others rusting under the galvanized chain in the forepeak.
Several bottles of wine in the teak locker I found welcome. But two more were hidden away, lost deep in recesses, where I almost painted one before I realized what it was. He had, as we all do, his own inventions and idiosyncratic tweaks. I scoffed, of course. But in the elaborate 50-pound side platform he had created to ease access to a dinghy, I sensed the infirmity of some family member, and his solution. My superiority faded into embarrassed recognition. In the 50 carefully filed equipment manuals, most obsolete, I saw a familiar character trait. I also saw someone who kept everything for the boat, on the boat. And a determination not to run out of anything. There were a hundred AA batteries on board, of which 30 were rechargeable, requiring three separate chargers. There were five installed cigar lighters--one for each of the five West Marine portable inverters.
At home, I spent a week sorting all this stuff, identifying what was bounty and what was trash. I filled half a dozen garbage drums. I hesitated often, since there was a time when I was young and broke and would've jumped at a B&W chartplotter with rail-mount antenna that was state of the art in 1998, and still worked. But each day I became more resolved. The old chartplotter had value, but what value? Who would I give it to, with charts far out of date? I began to throw the PO's life away faster and faster, hand over hand, determined to move forward and not look back at a history that wasn't my own. But at breakfast, hearing the roar of the county garbage trucks hefting my heavy cans towards oblivion, I put down my coffee and shook my head. It's hard to throw stuff away that was once shiny, just because it no longer is.
Then I loaded his mainsail and 135 genoa, still serviceable, and 11 of his old life jackets (My own 12 is all I need), and drove to Minney's Yacht Surplus in Newport Beach. The buyer was apologetic. They were good sails, she said, but Minney's already had far too many sails in inventory: so, $200 for the lot. It was like attending the funeral of somebody you don't even know. Any funeral has meaning because one day it will be your own.
With the boat completely stripped to factory level --just bilge, decks, bare spars, no upholstery--it still didn't seem mine. But the past was over and the future could begin.
I ripped out every non-structural bulkhead some prior owner [or the factory] had painstakingly put in . The vertical one in the photo below was tabbed to the hull, completely blocking access to the rudder tube. I hacked the tab out with an angle grinder and a Sawzall, crammed in a lazarette locker with a roaring shop vac. It felt so good I immediately moved on to the long wavy line of huge stainless lag bolts securing the clumsy helm locker baffle, then the enormous piece of plywood that, inserted into the lazarette, had turned it into a freeway underpass storage locker. I probably could have rented that space for $30 a month.
Encouraged by my first unimpeded view of the Universal 5432 diesel, I ripped out an entire elaborate ventilation system consisting of three electric blowers, wired ineptly, and 20 feet of drooping dryer hose, all of which further occluded access to critical areas below the cockpit that I feel need easy and frequent inspection . I noticed that the more I thumbed my nose at somebody else's belief in the need for diesel ventilation, the better I felt. It was getting to be my boat. And if we overheat, I won't eat crow--I'll just call it my recipe for blackbird pie.
There's lots to do. The rigger is off building stays and lifelines, the hatches are off being cut and formed, the boat is a mess of dust and acetone, soap and Brightside. The biggest storage locker belowdeck has in it a plastic insert originally intended for an outboard locker, the sloping side of which wasted half the available space.
I built an insert box to solve that. I could say I got it right the first time. In fact, let's say I am saying that, to dodge the humiliation of three tries at a design that would optimize the space but still fit through the hole. In mechanical engineering school they ought to give freshmen this design problem and see how they do.
It being my boat at last, I gave myself a pass.
