Tag Archives: Andrew’s boat

Streaming the Consciousness of Names

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Now that Mike is finished with the engine refit and we have the boat back in the water, we get to enjoy a rare weekend of downtime. During this soggy March in Washington State, the wettest March on record (oh, ululations of profound joy, right?), downtime really means no driving down to Astoria and no big projects. Just taxes and catching up on indoor projects we’ve left unfinished. Like the curtains. Today I am staying by the warm stove finishing up the dyeing process for the salon curtains and, once again,  thinking about boat names.

Why does it seem like naming a boat is about as hard as naming your first born child? Now that Andromeda is coming to life after her long sleep and heart/lung transplant, we need to conjur up a new name for her. The name ‘Andromeda’, while beautiful, does not really suit me.  Mike likes the name better than I do, but it’s important that we both feel equally good about this name, and this boat. This vessel represents a complete change in how we live our lives and how we see our near future. Just as we are letting go of unused ‘stuff’, clearing out our lives in preparation for the new life we are creating, she needs to be released of whatever has outlived its purpose as well. This includes her historical names. She must be purified in a way, and made ready for the next phase of her life, too.

One of the pieces of clutter to be released: this ancient emergency beacon. We will buy a new one.

One of the pieces of clutter to be released: this ancient emergency beacon. We will buy a new one.

Our first boat was named ‘Saucy Sue’. Like the name of our blog, this was a reference to BlackAdder, the BBC TV show of yore. ‘Saucy Sue’ was a perfect name for our Catalina 27. She was decidedly ‘saucy’ as she bounded along at a right good clip, heeled over well, sails flying. The name conjurs up pictures of someone small and cute with attitude and that pretty much describes that boat.

The Sue being extra saucy!

The Sue being extra saucy!

Our second boat was the Cal 34, ‘Moonrise’.  There was a vintage ’70’s plaque in the salon when we bought her; name firmly burned into the wood in fancy script.  Mike wasn’t crazy about the name, but her name (and her diesel stove) were what told me she was ‘our’ boat. As soon as I saw the plaque I knew. We looked at other boats, but we always came back to her. Probably because he wanted me to love the boat as much as he did, Mike agreed we would keep the name. Her name always made me feel serene, and this is how I generally felt on that boat. Actually, I remember that the minute I set foot on that boat, the stress would start to drain from my body.

Moonrise at sail with a reefed main.

Moonrise at sail with a reefed main. She was such a fun boat.

Our family actually owns two boats, one of which is kept in Bellingham and sailed by our son, Andrew. Andrew’s boat is an Ericson 25 and is named ‘Danger Kitten’.  I love the way he came up with that name, allowing the personality of the boat to emerge before he named her. It’s been the perfect name for this wee boat that is sometimes a challenge to sail safely in windy Bellingham. Keep her in mind if you are looking for a small boat, as Andrew will be selling her in the future to get something a little more appropriate for the kind of sailing he wants to do.  She is a fun boat and he loves her.

Little boat, big attitude.

When we started looking at boats for our next adventure I payed close attention to the names of the vessels. It wasn’t deliberate, it’s just something noticeable maybe because it tells me something about the person who owned the boat before and what they expected out of the boat. I am partial to names that imply mystery, are archetypal in some way, or bird names. Mike likes names that are lyrical, or have some sort of personal significance.

One of the boats we really loved and didn’t buy was a Westerly Sealord named ‘Spellbound’. I love that name because it invokes the feeling we all get sometimes when we are out on the water and the beauty of it hits us just right. It holds us spellbound.  There was another boat of that name in our marina; a big traditional Islander sailboat painted bright yellow. It had been neglected. It was also named ‘Spellbound’ and it had a little yellow dingy named ‘Little Misspell’.  Good thing we weren’t ready to buy or I may have been interested because the name of the boat drew me in. She would have been a major project.

There is another boat in the same marina; a Norseman 447. Beautiful boat! It has circumnavigated several times, i.e. it needs a ton of work, but OH, that hull! The name of that boat is ‘Serenity’. That name tells me how the owners viewed this boat, and what they expected from her. We would probably get along, those owners and me. It’s still for sale, by the way, and the price has come down considerably. Someone will get a great boat if they have the money to put into it. It’s a boat with a cool history, and it would be worth repairing and refitting.

Then there was ‘Flying Gull‘. I love the name, I still love the boat. That’s the name of the big Sparkman and Stevens sailboat we almost bought a year ago. It was a boat meant to break hearts and it certainly broke ours. We do not regret our experience with that boat, but I will always have a sore place in my heart when thinking about her. If we were going to sail only in this area or up the inside passage, that boat would have been pretty much perfect.  And the name? Think about how gulls just ride the wind effortlessly. They are awesome to watch. Who wouldn’t want a boat that could fly like a gull? To be honest, when I look at photos of that boat I still want to cry. Even though I do love Andromeda and am very pleased that we bought her. Flying Gull will always have a place in my heart. I have to look away.

Flying Gull. The boat that broke our heart but prepared us for Andromeda.

Andromeda has had several names. She has been ‘Aquarius’, and ‘Walhachin’, at least. The name ‘Walhachin’ is engraved on an owner’s plate just above the ladder into the cabin. The name ‘Aquarius’ is still written on the propane tanks.  We know the previous owner named her Andromeda because this name had special meaning to him. But he did not perform the naming ceremony and I have never felt as though this boat felt like an ‘Andromeda’ to me. That’s a feeling that is hard to put into words, but there it is. Perhaps she is confused about her name.

Sailors are a superstitious lot, but if people have believed for centuries that boats have ‘consciousness’, then there’s a reason why. Although ‘Andromeda’ is a perfectly beautiful name and is also associated with a rather picturesque galaxy far far away, for me, the word ‘Andromeda’ brings up images of a young girl tied to the rocks as a human sacrifice to the gods, then rescued by her hero. Um. This is probably not the best image to associate with a boat; this image of human suffering. If feels heavy to me, like it’s a name that has to be lived up to.  I’d like a name that implies playfulness and a lightness of spirit,  a name that brings up images of being easy on the sea, of adventure, exploration, and of gratitude. It needs to be different from most other boat names, but also easy to say and easy to understand.

Andromeda looks somehow brighter after her new engine refit.

I like bird names such as ‘Osprey’, ‘Pelican’, and ‘Puffin’, but none of them are really right for this boat. She is blue, so ‘Bluebird’ comes to mind, but she is really too big for that name. I’ve also thought of ‘Blue Swan’, but her sister ship is ‘Black Swan’, so that might be weird. It also might be cool. I don’t know. There is a boat in Astoria named ‘Peacock’. That’s a pretty cool name, too.

I feel grateful that we had the means and opportunity to buy this boat as she is so much more than I ever thought we would have. And she is graceful to look at and I love the color of her hull. So I think of the name ‘Grace’, then ‘Gracie’ which is a more playful version, then ‘Gracie Blue’ which kind of rolls off the tongue. Mike likes the name ‘Fetching’, but I’m on the fence on that one. Seems more suited to a sleeker, lighter boat, although I admit that when we finally had her on the water, she was quite ‘fetching’.

I figure that like most things, the answer will come to us when it’s ready. We’ll just get her out on the water, bring her to life, and let her speak to us. From her heart to ours, the right name for this part of our lives will emerge.

A sweet little Westerly we looked at in Vancouver, BC. I have no idea what this name means.

A sweet little Westerly we looked at in Vancouver, BC. I have no idea what this name means.

Official Diagnosis: Crazy-Pants

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I should simply have left the country for this part of the boat selling process. It has been determined that I am constitutionally unable to keep my heart from interfering with the whole thing. It could look to outsiders as though I am still too attached to Moonrise to part with her, but I don’t think so.  I think the reasons have just as much to do with fear of making the wrong choices, with knowing the future is filled with unlimited possibilities, and with always looking for the ‘why’ in the things that happen. Oh, for sure, sometimes I am just too ‘deep’ for my own good, you know? Some of us around here, and I am naming no names, simply think TOO MUCH. As Freud said, sometimes a sex dream is just a sex dream (or something like that). And I will not even go there. But I do wish all the voices in my head would be on the same page.

Andrew was with us when we sailed Moonrise home from her moorage in Olympia.

Andrew was with us when we sailed Moonrise home from her moorage in Olympia.

It all started with two things: finding out through our bank that we could actually borrow the money for a boat without having to put anything down (never mind all you financial geniuses out there who have just sucked in your collective breaths), and hearing my son say these words, “I have been in some scary situations with Danger Kitten. She’s a really lightweight boat for the winds in Bellingham.”. My mother’s heart opened the door to fear for my son. Profound fear. The kind that makes me really focused, really fast, and not necessarily in a good way.

And before you suck in your breath yet again and utter words such as ‘these are learning situations’, ‘sounds like he is getting good sailing experience’, or anything of that ilk, let me remind you that you do not know my son. Or his history. When he was a child, we quickly recognized that it was our job to keep this kid from doing something that would have life altering, if not life stopping, consequences. This is a kid who wanted to build a metal forge in the backyard at age 7. And he did it. This is a kid who spent years of his life making things that would shoot other things. I know that many little boys, and some girls, like to shoot things. But when I say my kid’s drive was extreme, that it included making his own pressurized airguns, and that it included building huge medieval siege weapons in our back yard (and they were accurate and worked!), you will simply need to believe me. There was no way to stop him without killing his spirit. And we knew what we were watching was a very potentially dangerous kind of genius. Dangerous to himself. We focused on doing our best to keep him safe, and we said ‘no’. A lot.

Andrew has many fond memories of sailing Saucy Sue, our Catalina 27

Andrew has many fond memories of sailing Saucy Sue, our Catalina 27.

And we failed. We failed completely. He had a very bad accident when he was 12 and was being creative. It had life altering consequences, although you could never tell by looking at him. And apparently I have still not forgiven myself for that. I thought I had, but clearly not. Because when Andrew talked about how his little boat responds to the high winds on Bellingham Bay, I began to get afraid for him, even though I know he is a cautious sailor. Ironically, it was his bad accident that got our family into sailing in the first place. I do not want that irony to become a bitter one.

So when he began to make noises about wishing he had chosen a heavier boat (which, by the way was my advice from the beginning), I began to think about how we could make that happen so that he would be safer and I could sleep at night and not worry about him. We bought him that boat, like I bought him the supplies that ended up hurting him at age 12. He named the boat Danger Kitten. Do you get it?

Danger Kitten. As clean as boat as you could ever hope to find on Craigslist.

Danger Kitten. As clean as boat as you could ever hope to find on Craigslist.

Please do not bother me with your rational thinking processes. I’m a mother. If rationality had anything to do with it, I would never have given birth in the first place.  I know that many good things have happened both in spite of and because of that accident. Yes, we do know how to make lemonade from lemons. I know Andrew did not let that stop him from living a full and enjoyable life. It did not take away his courage for living.  I know we would never have discovered a love of sailing had we not been compelled to bring our family together after such an experience.  I also know that his being safe in this world is not up to me, or his dad, or even his sister anymore. But at the end of the day, I am just grateful I have my son all in one piece.

So, this is where the whole life view thing comes in and the whole ‘looking at the possibilities’ comes it. I began to wonder if the reason we didn’t yet have a buyer for  Moonrise might be because we needed to let Andrew use that boat while he was up in Bellingham, and then sell it later. Since Moonrise is paid for, and we don’t technically need to sell her in order to buy another boat, it seemed to make a lot of sense. Like a car that’s paid for, that boat is worth more to us than it’s going to be worth to anyone else. We know that boat inside and out. We know it’s as safe a boat as you can get for the kind of sailing we do around here. He could safely take that boat up to British Columbia, or even Alaska. We know it handles great. Moorage for Moonrise would be only a little bit more than moorage for Danger Kitten. You see how that thought process quickly got out of control.

Mike and Andrew on Moonrise, a fun and safer boat in wind such as this.

Mike and Andrew on Moonrise, a fun and safer boat in wind such as this.

Generally Mike and I can rely on each other in terms of talking off ledges. But this time, I must have been fairly persuasive, and, of course, Mike gets afraid for Andrew, too. In times like these we become like boats that are so heavy they cannot sail out of their own way. Tired of the drama of all the boat things going on at once, he took Moonrise for a sail and while out on the bay, cleared his mind of detritus and found that he could see the wisdom in letting Andrew use the boat for his last couple of years in school. We’ll still be here, and then we could sell the boat at that time and use the money for a refit on whatever boat we had. He came home and was certain of his decision. We felt the stars were aligning behind this. Boy, were we wrong. That’s the problem with stars.

So now the crazy gets worse. Mike calls Andrew and says we want him to use Moonrise. I call our listing broker and tell her we are taking the boat off the market. And I get this stunned silence in response. Initially, that confused me because I had just been telling her a couple of days before that we were considering this move and would let her know as soon as possible, so I figured she would be disappointed, but not exactly stunned. The silence was a disturbing response. Her eventual reply? “I think I might have a buyer for you. Are you sure?”  If this wasn’t a family-friendly blog, I would be posting some mighty unladylike words here. Let’s use symbols instead: ***##$^&#(@)$)($%&%&*$(*&#(@#&*(*&$*$&*(^!!!!!  And the real clincher is that the buyer is out here from Vermont and is going back on Tuesday. He doesn’t really have the time to give us a couple of days to think about it.

Alert readers will recall that when we made the offer on Flying Gull, there was also a sense of urgency, that there was no time to waste. Why is this seeming to be the pattern in our world lately? I will have to think on that one. There’s probably a lesson here somewhere.

This kind of crazy, daytime TV-esque drama is something we are not accustomed to in our house. We needed a break. We needed food so we went to dinner where I proceeded to eat unhealthy things, a sure sign that I am knocked for a loop. Mike had crunched the numbers again and it’s just a financially better decision to sell the boat. We need to deal with Andrew’s boat separately. Well, duh.  I know all the money geniuses who read this blog will be breathing their collective sighs of relief. You go right ahead if it makes you feel better.

Andrew kept Skippy from jumping off the boat to get to the sea lions. Even our dog is crazy.

Andrew kept Skippy from jumping off the boat to get to the sea lions. Even our dog is crazy.

So now we have succeeded in jerking our broker around, jerking the potential buyer around,  and, worse than both of those things, jerking our son around. And, of course, we feel jerked around by ourselves. If we weren’t driving this train, we could get mad at someone but the sad truth is we are completely in charge. We are flippin’ ridiculous. All because when fear creeps in, rational decision making runs out the back door. Brokers just don’t get paid enough to deal with crazy people. And from the outside looking in, we look all kinds of crazy.

So we are sorry to have jerked everyone on the tail end of our chain. And especially sorry to have raised our son’s hopes, only to dash them, but again, I look for the reason in all of this. And I discover that I have some work left to do in letting go of my mother’s guilt for a son’s mishap. So maybe it’s worth it if I can clear my heart of this for once and for all. That will not put my son in a safer boat, but it will put my heart in a safer place, and that’s all to the good when it comes to choosing boats and letting go. So, I’m working on it.

But don’t think for one minute that the question of Danger Kitten is a settled one. We’ll be looking for a pocket cruiser to replace her. She’s an excellent little boat but not for sailing where he wants to go. He’s in the same position with her as we are with Moonrise.  He’ll continue to enjoy her until we find the right one, knowing her limitations and respecting them. We will take our time and enjoy the search, I hope. It will have a galley, and an enclosed marine head, and it will have either a full keel or wide fin keel. And it will be under 30 feet LOA and will be built to cross oceans. Like his parents, Andrew wants to sail far over the sea. If we could afford to buy that little Flicka I recently reviewed, that would be cool.  But we’re looking below that price range..well below it. I know the right boat is out there, and it will appear at the right time. Keep your eyes open for us, okay?

Andrew adjusting a sail on Moonrise a couple of years ago.

Andrew adjusting a sail on Moonrise a couple of years ago.

Days of Sloth

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It’s the week between Christmas and New Year’s Day, a time when people reflect on their lives and what they’ve accomplished over the year, setting goals for the future. The dark days of winter are, I’m sure, created in order for us to have time to be introspective, thoughtful, mindful of how we live our lives. And I intend to do just that. After I’m finished resting and relaxing.

Hermione knows what I’m talking about. What a face!

Yes, indeed, I have hit the days of Sloth full force with my resting ways. Today I have accomplished the following: a shower, throwing wrapping paper from Christmas into the recycle bin. That is all, really. And I am completely satisfied with my level of usefulness in the world. My needs this week, in terms of being at all useful to others, are small.  And in this slow-moving, deliberate living I have embraced of late, I have, indeed, had some time to think, even if I haven’t given it much notice.

The ultra cool Space Needle in Seattle. I stuck this in here because it’s a groovy photo I took this season. Some day I will buy myself a really awesome camera and learn how to use it.

I’ve been thinking about how this time last year I was on a rampage getting rid of stuff. It’s as though I somehow thought that our cutting of the dock lines was just around the corner of our lives and that I had to hurry up and simplify. Oh, brother.  In so doing, I have complicated things terribly. Whatever you do, don’t believe everything you read about how ‘freeing’ it is to get rid of all your stuff because sometimes that is just a damn lie. And this lie comes home to roost on Christmas day when you have 9 people over for dinner and own only 3 dining room chairs because you gave the other chairs away since they were cluttering up the place. And then you have the neighbors over for dinner and apologize about the lack of chairs, commenting that you don’t know what happened to them and they respond with, “You gave them to our son last year because you didn’t need them anymore. Do you need them back? You don’t have anyplace for people to sit when you entertain.” Right. Like I’m going to take back chairs I gave to someone just starting out in life who can barely make a living much less buy new chairs. How embarrassing.

Oh sure, throwing everything out would be freeing if I didn’t ever need things again, or if I was moving onto a boat, say, tomorrow. But since neither of those things is true, I better slow down or we won’t have anyplace to sit in our own home.

What we have here is a collection of very tiny ornaments. I will NOT be getting rid of my collection of tiny Christmas ornaments. They will go with us on whatever boat we have. They take up almost no room. Without Christmas, there would be no Days of Sloth. And I must have them.

Oh, we’ve de-cluttered the place nicely this year. We’ve made so many trips to Goodwill that they know us by name. But the dirty truth is this: getting rid too much stuff well in advance of making a move to a small place, or a boat, is useless. Why? Because nature abhors a vacuum, that’s why. We live in a 3000 square foot house, more or less. Already with both kids gone most of the time, we feel as though we are knocking around in a huge empty space. Getting rid of things that take up that empty space just creates more empty space, and, naturally, it somehow gets filled with more stuff.  It just feels weird to have big blank areas where furniture needs to be. I took the advice of all the self-help gurus and got rid of all the stuff I didn’t use or have on display. That leaves exactly 3000 square feet of stuff that I DO use and IS on display. The house is too big for just us, but we’re in a transitional phase just now and we’re not getting rid of it anytime soon.

And speaking of that, I’ve been pretty attached to my house lately. Maybe it’s just that it’s winter, and cold and wet but I’ve come to realize that my dreams of being on a boat really do generally include warm weather and sunshine. Not that I don’t want to sail in colder climates. I do, but I don’t intend to be miserable all the time while doing it. So this time of year when I miss the boat and think ‘let’s go sailing’, I look outside, realize that what’s in my head doesn’t match the reality outside,  and then become thankful that I’m warm and dry. Call me middle-aged. Call me a sailing wimp. Whatever. I prefer to think of it as ‘blooming where I’m planted’.

Here’s a photo from the butterfly house at the Pacific Science Center, for those who need a break from the narration. I like how this butterfly totally brings together the colors of the plants. This is how gardeners think in the winter time.

Mike has been more productive today, but then, he has a more finely developed sense of guilt than I have. After all, he did grow up in the south. He and Andrew replaced the brake shoes on two cars today, so he feels like he deserves to be laying on the couch reading one of his many new books he received from Santa this Christmas…books on sailing. Mike received 4 riveting books that are sailing oriented, and we’ll post about them later. For now, suffice to say that while Mike received books on sailing adventures, and Andrew received new sailing boots and a new anchor roller for Danger Kitten, I received kitchen utensils and a gift certificate to the spa. I’m beginning to sense a trend. Now, to be fair, I have been ‘into’ cooking lately, as is evidenced by the luscious Beef Bourguignon I served for Christmas dinner. Still, I believe my point is well taken. I will be reading his books so I dearly hope he is in a sharing kind of mood.

He must be really enjoying this book because I’ve heard a lot of snorting and guffawing, and comments like ‘this guy either has balls or he’s an idiot’. And also things like, “I know what’s going to happen next because we’ve done this. Oh, Lord, at least we know he lived to tell of it.” I can’t wait to read this book.

And so during these days of sloth when I’ve given myself the gift of not giving a damn what I get done, Mike lies on one couch, I type on another couch… you can see where I’m going with this: we simply must buy a boat with two generously built settees. Otherwise, there is no other way this whole plan will actually work.