Magic of the Boat Yard

Intuition’s Bottom Complete – SMC Offshore Team circa 1989

Epic.  That is the best word I can think of to describe in just one word what boat yards are to me.  I have always loved working in them.  The very process of giving back to the boat and maintaining her after she has served me so well has always been a joy for me, even when the tasks at hand are completely and utterly frustrating and sweat inducing work.

I was reminded this year that my first true boat yard experience was accompanying my Dad when our twenty-five foot Irwin, s/v Love Is…, was hauled.  Apparently I helped with the bottom work then at Whitehall Creek’s Boat Yard.  While my memory may fail me maybe this was the beginning of my love affair with boatyards.

My first adventure working in a boat yard that I remember was in college with “The Offshore Sailing Team” at St. Mary’s College of Maryland.  We pulled s/v Intuition out of the water, a Holland 50, to carefully fair the bottom and paint her.  As I remember we were working with a hard paint so we could get a nice smooth racing bottom.  I worked with our student coach, Mark Hergan, during the week for two weeks, while our other team mates joined us on the weekend to help complete the project.  She was a beauty when we were finished.  It was hard work and I was covered in black bottom paint from head to toe a number of times during the project, which I now know was probably not the healthiest baptism, but I loved every minute of it.  It helped cinch my relationship with that boat, and taking care of her was such an integral aspect of respecting and loving the sport of sailboat racing and s/v Intuition.

In between sanding and painting Mark and I took lunch breaks each day.  At the end of the one of our lunch breaks I remember sitting at the picnic table talking about big possibilites – of maybe getting together a racing circuit with our team – raising money, and getting s/v Intuition out in the Ocean for some truly ‘Offshore’ Races…we dreamt B-I-G…while we talked Mark was jotting down notes on his unused napkin from lunch.

That is what Boat Yards harbor; Boats and Big Dreams.  Take a walk around one and you can see boats in every stage of refinement or disrepair.  The yards themselves have many different characters from highly efficient, to run down or possibly just stuck in some era decades earlier.  No matter what the circumstance of the boats, or the yards they inhabit, the yards are always haunted.

Energy is neither created or destroyed, and so while I walk the yards, I am conscious of the visions of the designers and builders of the boats…many of these individuals are dead but their vision and passion are still very much alive in the succinct, manifest of the hulls.  Their vision and sweat embodied in wood and fiberglass; stainless and bronze.

Jubilee being lowered in 2007 in Little Washington, N.C. – our first boat and first launch…

Me and Jubilee – prior to our first launch, McCotter’s Marina, Washington, N.C.

Then there are the layers of history, dedication, and journeys  present in just about every corner of a yard.  I can see and feel it in the perfectly maintained 1920′s motor yacht like the one I had the honor of seeing yesterday featured in this blog post.  As well, as I walk among the stands and see an abandoned boat, her structure sinking and sagging, under her own weight.  I see the deterioration of the lost potential, the sadness of someone who couldn’t let go and entrust her to another who could maintain her.  All of this information in a matter of seconds washes over my senses.

Beautiful 1929 Elco – m/v Toddy

Then there is the spirit of the crew and owners of these yards who set a pace and who take pride in their work, or don’t.  Their energies affect the overall tenor of the boat yard too.  When they are a fine oiled machine and everyone is invested in the work with the same dedication it is enjoyable to witness.  Sailcraft, Inc. is one of these yards filled with motivation and passion for the work.

This week has been filled with so many meaningful interactions at the yard where we are presently working to paint the hull of s/v Alchemy.  We have witnessed the yard’s Office Manager Kathy moving to another State after many years of service and dedication to Sailcraft this past Monday.  She is very loved by all!

Kathy’s last day…

Yesterday, it was fun to hear the original founder of the yard chat with the now third owner and manager about how he had found and installed the main pilings for the travel lift slip, and what it was like way back when.

The day was filled with the steady stream of boats being launched and lifted from the travel slip.  Vessels of 1920 movie set character, and modern day fiberglass beauties were paraded right outside the paint tent we are temporarily inhabiting while we are tending to our own boat.  My hope for every layer of paint that we lay down is that my latest angst after the storm we endured will become just a dull, faded background static, joining that universal human baying in the boat yard, of the sea’s call and a woman’s love for her boat.

Chris spraying second coat

Maintaining the Wet Edge

Second coat of white…