Perspectives I loved her ... but she leaked any years ago, I very quickly and easily bought a 28-foot wooden sloop. I fell for her graceful counter stern, her bowsprit, and her tall rig. I was so much in love that I didn’t bother to poke around much into her past. As I sailed her from her old home in Connecticut to her new one in Massachusetts, I talked to her and patted her and sang to her. I also pumped her. Constantly. Incessantly. When I hauled her out of the water, I still pumped. Rainwater came through the cockpit and cabin. When my (ex) wife first saw her, she cried. To this day I’m not sure exactly why. I do know that it wasn’t the last time either of us cried over that boat. After two years of work on her, she had a new everything except backbone. She’d been replanked, recaulked, refastened. We were
M
broke when we finally put her back in the water. She still leaked. We left her in, bought an expensive highcapacity automatic bilge pump, and decided to get used to things. I settled in with the engine. It hadn’t run in a long time, and I soon learned it was quite happy with the status quo. It was in a state of permanent hibernation. Its vital signs were there: It sparked, it got gas, it cranked. But it wouldn’t run. No one could make it run. So we let it be and decided to get used to things. After all, she was a sailboat. The expensive high-capacity automatic bilge pump couldn’t handle the job. The leaking got worse. At high tide one afternoon, I sailed her across the harbor and tied her to a seawall. The idea of shooting her did cross my mind, but, instead that night at low tide I filled her bilge and
David Roper
North Sails Direct
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14 Points East March/April 2014
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