Tag Archives: boats

The Westerly 39

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S/V Spellbound

Today we saw a boat that is sure to end up on our short list. It’s a 1985 Westerly ‘Sealord’ 39.  I’ve been waiting to see this boat for months and can’t believe it hasn’t yet sold. If the name of the boat could sell the boat, we’d buy this one. The name is ‘Spellbound’, a name which perfectly captures how I feel so many times when we’re out on our boat. If we bought this boat, we’d leave the name as is.

Interestingly, there is an old Island Trader (I think) with the same name docked at our marina. I have always been interested in that boat. It was for sale, but it had be i en neglected for so many years that it needed just about everything. Still, the name of that big yellow boat, and it’s little yellow dingy, ‘Little Misspell’, attracted me. Last summer, tired of being curious, I kayaked over to the boat and climbed out on the dock so I could peak through the ports. I believe that was when I first fell for the ‘heavy teak interior’ look. It might not sail well in light wind, but it sure makes a nice cabin.  I still wonder about the stories that boat could tell. But I’m digressing.

Anyway, we really liked this boat. Now we just need to get Moonrise sold so we can move this process forward. I turn this over to the Universe, knowing that Moonrise will sell at the right time, and that the perfect boat will be available for us when that happens. It’s just nice to see a boat that gives us visions of a future living aboard and sailing.

For a further review of the boat, go here to our boat reviews page and scroll down to the last boat. This one is just below that Cal 39 we looked at, which is also still on our short list. Now we just need to get ourselves up to Vancouver and look at the Spencer 1330 that has been for sale up there for months. Of course, that would probably confuse me and give me too many boat options. I will take the chance.

A Photo Tribute to Moonrise

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I’m beginning to feel terrified. We have all these plans, and they all hinge on the releasing of attachments to land based things for awhile so we can go and see the world. You see, our children are more well-traveled than we are, and we just cannot let that stand. We want to go to Mexico, and Central America, and down the coast of South America, even to Antarctica. We want to go to the South Pacific, to New Zealand, and to the Great Barrier Reef. We want to sail in Europe and around the British Isles. And being the kind of people we are, we want to go to those places on our own terms and stay away from the touristy crowds. We’ve already established that Moonrise isn’t going to be our world traveling boat.  So now, I’m getting terrified because we’ve put her up for sale. We’re about to be boatless, and we don’t know when, or for how long. Yikes! If you are not a sailor, it’s hard to help you understand just how bad that’s going to feel.

It's hard to get shots like this if you don't have a boat.

You cannot get to this awesome sea cave without a boat.

Being boatless means I won't be able to see things like this, which make life worthwhile. I don't want to go whale watching with 40 strangers in orange jumpsuits for 1 hour. I want to spend the whole day watching them from the deck of my boat.

Part of our preparation for the cunning plan has been purging the house of extraneous stuff and this has forced us to reckon with the idea of ‘sunk costs’. You know: the costs you’ll never recover,  like the fact that we bought something for 1500$ and then sold it for $500. That 1000$ difference is just gone. Poof! When Mike began to tally up all the time and money we’ve spent on Moonrise in the four years we’ve owned her, it became crystal clear that we were going to have to find a way to accept the energy we’ve sunk into her as just par for the course. It would have been great if we had known when we bought her that we would someday want to sail the world and needed a boat designed for blue water. But life has a way of being messier than that, and we wouldn’t have been ready to buy such a boat at that time.  So what do we have to show for those sunk costs?

Plenty. When we bought Moonrise we were still pretty novice sailors. Having Moonrise allowed us to gain skills in ways we would never have done on the Saucy Sue (our Catalina 27). Different boats are made for different things. We sailed in conditions we would have shied away from on the Sue, just because Moonrise made us feel safe and secure. We learned we could sail in 30 knots of wind and 10 foot waves, at night, to cross the Strait of Juan de Fuca. You would have had to hog tie me to the mast to get me to do that on a 27 foot Catalina. Then you would have had to clean up after me. Not pretty.

Mike, fueling up for his turn at the wheel during the night crossing.

Three reefs on the main, just a tiny jib up. Everyone harnessed to the boat, no one allowed on deck. We did three hour watches, two people in the cockpit, one below napping.

Andrew at the wheel during the night crossing, checking the compass heading. Don't ask about the scrub brush behind him.

We learned how to work as a crew together.

Mike and Andrew trim the sail. I'm at the wheel.

And we learned how to use our cruising spinnaker.

On days like this, I think Moonrise is the prettiest boat on the water.

While Saucy Sue was a great racer and day sailer, I would not have traveled extensively on the Sue. She just was not a comfortable boat.  Moonrise is the perfect coastal cruiser. We took extended trips on Moonrise, with her comfortable cabin and sleeping arrangements and complete galley. She encouraged us to venture further each year. We were soon learning to anchor in places the guidebooks didn’t talk about, until we finally braved the Pacific side of Vancouver Island and Barkley Sound.

Nothing but big Pacific ahead.

 

The foggy west coast of Vancouver Island.

One of those anchorages that is not in the guidebooks.

Sailing experience is not all we gained for those ‘sunk costs’. We also gained experience working on boats. Moonrise has a lot more to offer her new owners than she did us. We’ve learned how to ‘remodel’ the boat interior, and how to not be too mortified at the idea of cutting into fiberglass and wood. Mike, especially, has really cut his teeth on Moonrise when it comes to working on boat systems and improving them. We know, now, how to have a boat hauled out and how to sand and paint the bottom ourselves.

Moonrise's lovely bottom.

As hard as it is to look at the tally sheet of expenditures on this boat, how much would it have cost us to have someone teach us these things? How would that even be possible? No, I feel sure that this is money well spent in the end. Sure, we are selling the boat, but we are not selling our experiences, our learning. We get to keep those. And we have the memories of being on this boat together in places we would not have seen otherwise.  And those are priceless.

 

Pop Quiz

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The lovely Emerald Lady

Answer this question: What is the coolest part of finally getting into the groove of boat shopping?  Is it A) Experiencing boat lust  B) Thinking about spending a million dollars  C) Wasting time trying to make appointments to look at boats or  D) None of the above. If you answered D, none of the above, you would be correct and win a prize if I had one to give you. The correct answer, for the bonus essay point, is ‘making new friends who live in Boat World’. First we met Lee Youngblood, then we went to a club meeting of all sailing people all the time and won a prize. And now, thanks to Lee, we’ve met sailors, soon-to-be cruisers, Kelly and John Wanamaker and their freaking fabulous Cheoy Lee Ketch, Emerald Lady. We spent the better part of 2 hours on this beautiful yacht talking boats, sailing, how to manifest dreams, healthy cooking in the galley, boat projects using non-boat materials, and all kinds of exciting and wonderful boaty boat things! It was so much fun I was practically levitating as we left!

Now before you go rolling your eyes at me and wondering if I’m just easily amused and all that, let’s consider this: when was the last time you had the chance to sit and visit with people who had the exact same interests as you and were just enough ahead of you in the game to be encouraging but not daunting, sharing wisdom and experience but not being condescending? Hmmm? As I thought. It was last year! Maybe even never!

We wanted to meet John and Kelly because we were told that they bought a fixer boat and turned her into a beauty. And that’s exactly what they’ve done! I can’t imagine how they’ve done it in a year’s time, but this is one lovely vessel and it has many of the ‘necessities’ we’re looking for, including an extremely cool aft cabin with its own hatch! They talked about the plans they have for making the boat even more comfortable in the future and Kelly talked about some of the compromises she made when choosing this boat. (She did use the word ‘compromise’, but I put my inner 4  year old in time out and Kelly remained safe. I was on my best behavior.)

As you enter Emerald Lady, you see this. This tells you something about John and Kelly.

So in an afternoon of visiting with new friends, we came away thinking more strongly about setting a date for departure, at Kelly’s urging. And we came away thinking ‘we could probably handle a boat larger than 40 feet if we wanted to, at John’s urging. We came away thinking that the more we look at boats like that Cheoy Lee, the more we like them because they are so comfortable and beautiful, and they feel like tiny houses, yet still like boats. Just maybe we don’t have to spend a million dollars right up front to get the boat of our dreams. Maybe we can spend it a little at a time. I even started thinking that maybe a big master cabin is not so necessary if you have a roomy and comfortable salon. Then I had to slap myself really hard because I started to get too flexible on that point.

As Mike and I walked away from Emerald Lady, I looked back at her and had a little deja vu moment; you know those times that make you wonder if you’ve lived that moment before, like you’ve just looked through the window into another dimension.  And then I remembered. A few years ago we were sailing in the south sound and spent a night at Harstine Island. There was this beautiful boat tied up at the dock. It had gentle curves and a sweet overhang. It looked like it was a modern version of an old sailing vessel; long and slender with teak decks and varnished brightwork. I remember standing on the dock with Mike, staring, sort of imagining what it would be like to be on that boat. I remember saying, “I would love to have a boat like that.” Walking up to the little store at the marina, we met a man coming down toward the docks. We asked him if that boat was his boat.  “The Cheoy Lee? Yep.”  He smiled at us in a dreamy sort of way.