A maiden voyage

Captain Highliner: "Have you ever been to sea, Billy?"
Billy: "No Sir, but I have been blown ashore many times!"

I can empathize with Billy. I know the feeling from way back when as young boys my friends and I were fixing to get us some sea legs.

In search of a hull

We were still smarting from the Kon Turkey affair and generally roaming our domain in search of a new solution for going to sea. The only secrets in the neighborhood were our own. Nothing escaped our attention. It just wasn't possible to hide much of anything from us. We were everywhere and saw everything. Which is not to say that we understood all that we saw. We pretty much made our interpretations from our own limited experience with supreme disregard for anything but our own priorities. Naturally, this sometimes yielded unexpected outcomes.

However, we were learning to re-examine our surroundings with fresh eyes as priorities changed. We were no longer looking for easy surrogates, we now wanted a boat. So we set out to check out anything that fit the description.

A wide berth to the derelicts

In any coastal community, there are boats of all kinds and inevitably a selection of derelicts. Who knows why boats become derelicts. Some just do. Boats age, owners, too. And not necessarily at the same rate. It is sometimes hard for an old but infirm sailor to part with his old love. There is always the hope that one day he will get better and take the boat out again just like the old days. But all too often the years pass by, none too kindly for the boat which eventually becomes unserviceable unless rescued by someone with a persuasive talent, a big dream and not infrequently, more money than brains.

We had zero money, but sure dreamed big. The jury was still out on the brains. No matter. We became small vessel surveyors. The bed conversion experiment had taught us a thing about caulking. The Kon Turkey affair straightened us out on wood quality. So we struck off boat after boat from our list. We were thorough and methodical. Not a boat house, back yard, garage or storage place went unchecked. Our best bet turned up right literally in our own back yard. One of the gangs grandpa owned an old sharp stemmed, flat bottomed punt. It wasn't used much, if at all, and just sat there under a tarp. All tied up in gramps' dreams, I suspect.

We're in luck

None of that mattered to us, of course. The punt passed our survey. It wasn't clear that we would pass gramps'. We retreated to strategize and lay out our plan of attack. Which was simple: get close with gramps. Gramps liked woodworking and had a considerable shop out back of the house where he spent most of his time. Consequently, we rolled around one day to be neighborly and chat him up, but gramps quickly smelled a rat and threw us out. He wasn't having any four busybodies messing with his tools and getting in the way.

In the end, it was left up to our buddy to go one on one with the old guy. And little by little gramps started to come around. The more personal and sincere attention from his grandson was welcome and effective. The news broke; we had a hull. Although with some conditions.

The refit begins

We had made it clear that we wanted to go sailing. To sail you need a hull with a keel, rudder and sails. The punt was short on all three counts. We wanted to put in a dagger board, but gramps put his considerable foot down. No cutting into the hull. We'd have trouble enough keeping the water out without making another hole. Besides, he saw it coming a mile away. Like as not, he'd be doing all the work.

We got permission for a compromise by putting in two small bilge keels. Nobody could tell us the proper size for these things so we ended up guessing. And in effect put in the worlds smallest bilge keels ever.

The rule of thirds

After the keel job, we got to the hull caulking part. The caulking was done with a grey caulking paste by the rule of thirds. One third on the hull, one third on us and the rest on the ground. These proportions were a little hard to take for gramps, but there wasn't much he could do about it.

In rapid succession, we proceeded to paint the hull black and give the bottom a coat of green anti fouling. Both to the rule of thirds. There were four upset mothers receiving home their brood that evening after a hard days labor in the boat yard. The clean up operations took on major proportions. But we didn't pay much attention. Tomorrow was another important day in the project.

The crew shapes up

We had been making good progress up until now and were beginning to assign each other to crew positions. Quite early on it was clear that the boat owner's relation was going to be skipper. In reality, it meant being helmsman because he wanted control of the tiller. The rest of us were simply deck hands for now.

A rudder and spar goes in

Our next move was to get a rudder and spar going. Gramps came through on the rudder and the skipper assisted with getting a whopping great hunk of pine shaped and fitted with home made pintles, gudgeons and a straight stick of a tiller. A mast showed up from somewhere and we rigged our spar with galvanized bailing wire for stays and shrouds.

Project sail

We were close now, but still missing a vital ingredient: the sail. We racked our brains. The obvious and expedient solution was immediately and firmly nixed by the home front. The bed sheets were to stay on the beds, don't even think about it. This had us stumped for a while. There just wasn't anything around not already nailed down or otherwise protected by threats of unbearable repercussions.

A burlap main

Then one day I came across something while generally tearing our place apart for the umpteenth time in search of sail material. We were living with my grandma at the time and the gravity of the situation had spurred me somewhat deeper into her domain than I normally dared to venture. What I found was the biggest burlap sack I had ever seen. This thing was huge. Big enough for a sail. Maybe. Would burlap do the trick? I had never heard of a burlap sail. Neither had the rest of the crew. Dire straits call for desperate measures. If we were ever to get to sea before the summer was over, we'd better not get too particular about raw materials at this stage. I was tasked with procuring the sack.

Working on grandma

This called for some diplomacy. Grandma was generally just about the nicest person I knew and generally wasn't one to say no to a request. But this one stopped her in her tracks. I wanted what? She had never heard of anyone making sails from burlap. Besides, that was a good sack useful for many things. Could come in handy one day, that's why she had kept it for so long. Not that anyone could ever remember it being used for anything except collecting dust in the basement.

What was our plan, anyway? Well, we sort of had in mind a Bermuda main, a triangular sail. So wed cut up the sack? Nothing doing. We were stalemated. Then my dad told us about a different type of rig using a rectangular sail with a sprit stake supporting the diagonal. A sprit sail! Great! Hey, maybe we could just borrow the sack, tie it on without cutting. I could bring it home every day. Things began looking up. We pushed the offensive and grandma relented. We had our main and I became its custodian. I would present myself to the sail owner in the morning, take delivery and return it for inspection later in the day. I didn't mind. There were usually a treat or two thrown into the bargain!

Launching day

Finally we had all the gear. The moment arrived that we had all been waiting for. The boat was ready for its maiden voyage. We carried the boat and all the gear down to a small beach which we thought would give us some shelter to ease off from land. On the right hand was a stone pier with a bath house at the end extending at right angles. On the left was another bath house. In between was a small dog leg shaped channel to take us out.

Norwegian steam

We quickly rigged the punt and shoved her in. Lo, it floated! Nary a drop of water seeping in. Gingerly we climbed aboard one by one and took our positions. The skipper with the tiller, the look-out in the bow and the remaining deck hand and I on the middle thwart. Our back-up power supply was good old Norwegian steam so the two of us in the middle were stuck with an oar each to take us out through the channel and into the trade winds.

An inauspicious beginning

The skipper got busy giving all kinds of orders with the look-out providing a running commentary on the general course heading replete with estimates of what we'd hit when and who would drown first. None of which helped us oarsmen as we were none too well coordinated. Despite vigorous rudder action and much stroking, we only managed a couple of circles and not too much progress. Something had to be done.

Rowing by numbers

We oarsmen tuned out the skipper and look-out and decided to row by numbers. A one and heave, a two and heave. That got some results. We picked up speed and were tracking true. Straight for the pier. The look-out woke up with a warning cry which got the skipper exited. He gave full port rudder, turned us on a dime and nearly sank us as everyone slid off their seats to the gunwales so water started sloshing in. Only a fast body movement by the skipper saved us from a complete capsizing.

Luckily, we suffered only wet feet and quickly bailed dry our good ship. Then we lined up our heading and started picking up the stroke count. We were getting the hang of it now. We cleared the outer bath house and moved on into clear waters. We checked the wind direction and got in position to set the sail with the wind from behind.

We hoist our main

Our sprit sail was carried folded up against the mast and lashed in place with a sail tie. To set it, the look-out reached aft and pulled the sail tie while the skipper grabbed the main sheet. The sprit stake fell away from the mast and opened up the sail. The wind did the rest and we could feel the tug as the sail filled. The skipper eased the sheet and the water was making little sounds as it rippled by our hull. We were sailing! We shipped the oars and just sat there enjoying the motion. The wind wasn't very strong so our speed was scant. But it sure beat rowing. We could go places in this thing.

Not quite like a wind jammer

After a while we started contemplating a course change to experiment some and maybe start back tracking. The skipper pushed the tiller to leeward and slowly brought the boat up into the wind. We had heard about sailing to windward and figured we'd zig zag our way back home just like the old wind jammers. As we were coming about, something unexpected happened. We held our course heading, but we quickly became aware that we were back sliding. Drifting with the wind. Not making any progress toward our destination. What was going on?

The truth must out

Reality had intervened. Our feeble attempts at bilge keels were altogether inadequate. We simply lacked the necessary underwater keel surface for windward work. It dawned on us that we had better plan our expeditions to start out rowing against the wind and sail back.

A great summer

No matter. The important thing was we had our boat. The day was warm and we could make landfalls along the way home to rest up and relieve the oarsmen. The adventure had just begun and it was surely going to be a great summer.

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