June 7, 2003
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How Do You Choose a Boat (or Does It Choose You)?
I recently subscribed to a mailing list for local sailors, and I always like to hear the stories people tell of how they started sailing. Maybe it's simply because sailors like to spin a yarn, but the stories always seem to involve a little bit of romance and luck and maybe fate, too.
Here's a story by a guy on the mailing list:
Date: Sat Jun 7, 2003 7:43 am
Subject: Why I bought a Buccaneer
On a Sunday afternoon I had the opportunity to turn left and go home or turn right and drive a couple of miles out of my way up the road to see what the local sailboat place had in their yard. What I really wanted was a closer look at the 1920s design 17 square meter sloop that he had just rebuilt. The boat had a natural mahogany hull, finished in bright varnish, narrow beam and the sheer line, beautiful entrance and stern rise and overhang that gives me the chills. What a gorgeous piece of work....
The owner is a recluse; a collector of stuff and I had wanted to see the boat before it was removed from the public eye.
I was going to leave, but something held me back.
The mahogany sloop had gotten my mind churning, I remembered my first ride in a plywood Lightning in 1957, I was seven at the time. In 1960 my Dad had purchased a 9 ft sailing dinghy, I was 10 and my brother was 18. Dad had decided that we might want to learn how to sail.
My Father was a sailor in his younger days, recently, in 1959; he had turned to power boating. Part of his courting, my Mother to be, ritual involved a 1936 wooden gaff rigged sloop. I have seen pictures of this boat. Must have weighed a ton and been very slow, but I digress.
My Brother and I learned how to sail that summer. My first solo sail was when I felt the boat lurch, and upon turning around saw that my Brother had slipped overboard. "You can do it you don't need me" he said as he swam ashore. He was like that.
Our family kept, and I sailed that 9 ft dinghy well into my late forties, when I passed it unto another Father and Son.
My mind wandered to the summers that I crewed as rail meat for my Father's friend who raced a 210 on Gull Lake in Michigan and to the times my Brother and I raced Jet 14's "borrowed" from the sailing program at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.
And yet I had never owned a sailboat of my own, it was 1996. I turned back to the yard. What I saw mostly were pregnant boats; major compromises between keeping their occupants comfortable and dry and their ability to sail well. These boats also give me the chills in a different sort of way.
It was March with a cold rain falling, my then girlfriend, wanted to go home. Over to one side I spied a red boat with a flat, almost reverse sheer and spoon bow. It looked racy. As I got closer my eyes feasted on more and more of her attributes. Foredeck, open cockpit, wide gunwales, reverse transom...........................hummmmmm, I thought. Looked at all the other boats again and then back to the red boat.............several times..................... back to that red boat. My heart raced ........maybe I could buy this boat. I was taken with the boats' design and assumed that her performance would be just as keen.
The next day; Monday, I made an offer that was eventually accepted by the owner. During the course of the purchase negotiations, which lasted a few days; the boat was on consignment and the owner was out of town, I realized that I didn't have a clue where to sail the boat in Indianapolis. There was no water to speak of around Indianapolis; I was used to sailing on Lake Huron in Michigan. I soon discovered that I had two choices a keelboat club on the West side of town and the dinghy club on the East side of town, I chose the dinghy club.
When I picked up the boat I asked them what all the stuff was. Especially, what was that hole in the foredeck? "Oh, thats where the spinnaker goes.............I think" he said. Spinnaker? The boat has a spinnaker?.. "Yeah, it's here in this bag..................doesn't look like it was ever used". Now, how many times have you heard that.
I took the boat directly over to another yard where they Epoxied the deck and hull back together on the port side and did some other minor repairs. Before I picked up the boat I actually paid the yard owner to help me set up the boat and explain to me what all the lines were, certainly there was too much stuff I thought. I was confused for some time how the heck the continuous spinnaker halyard was to be routed.
Something had been bothering me ever since I first laid eyes on that red boat. The boat seemed familiar, but I couldn't put a finger on it. Then POW; Oh yeah......................Jimmy Hobiere a friend of mine who was a clay modeler for Chrysler in the early seventies. As an award for some great work that he had done Chrysler had given him a white sailboat and as the fog cleared from my mind I realized that the boat was a 1972 Buccaneer 18. Jimmy had asked me to help him with the maiden voyage because I had some sailing experience and he had none. The boat had no spinnaker and I distinctly remember that the roller furling jib mechanism was quite an abortion. Jimmy and I had spent 4 hours putting the boat together at the launching ramp. Lots of stuff came packed in separate boxes, it was like putting the kid's toys together on Christmas Eve. By the time the boat was in the water the wind had died. Now where have you heard that before? Jimmy and I drifted and paddled around for two hours.............."sailing".......... in his new boat.
I never went "sailing" with Jimmy again and never saw a Buccaneer again until 24 years later when the red boat came into my life.
She eventually was named "Crufone". This was to be an acronym for the phrase... "Crew-of-one". No one could ever figure it out. Most thought that I usually secured my crew over the telephone; thus, "Crufone". I sold her to Eric Brennalt of Stuart, Florida who races her with the St. Lucie Sailing Club.
That's my story and I'm sticking to it.
Michael Connolly
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