a new boat

Posted By: Richard L.Poletti
Date: 6/23/00 6:03p.m.

Report: outside forum guidelines

MARY'S MATE by RICHARD L. POLETTI The following story was written many years ago, but seems as appropriate today as then. Check some of my more recently written contributions posted earlier. ENJOY Our boat was beyond happy, she was ecstatic as she scampered from trough to crest of the quartering seas. Like a two year old filly feeling the wonder of life on a freshly plowed field, Mary's Mate flirted with the nine knot mark on the meter. This boat loved to sail!! Mary and I had become transfixed spectators to a promiscuous frolic of sail, wind and water when the LORAN's polite beep reminded us that we were approaching a course change for the next leg. Sail trimmed, we settled back once again to watch this fantastic symphony and to reflect back three weeks to when LORAN was the name of a gadget on someone else's boat and Mary's Mate a dim specter in a might-be future. At 46 we had lost sight of a 25 year old dream and had resigned ourselves to a couple of seasons on a twelve foot Sea Devil, a couple more on a Chrysler fourteen and an aborted attempt at owning a large beyond-our-means boat. My oldest son, Mark, noting my lack of zest for living, took it on himself to prove that old dreams are as easily rekindled as oil well fires by arranging a demo on a Tri. That did it!!! Instantly, faded images of Arthur Piver designs took mental form. Mary's enthusiasm matched mine and we vowed that this time nothing would stop us. After a year of looking the huge wave of financial reality crashed on us from astern leaving us with tiny daysailers lumping like permanent storm clouds on the horizon of our destiny. Friends urged us to hang in there. One friend, a self styled real estate trader, who laughingly calls himself my spiritual advisor, gave some salient advice. "If you want it and at your price, shop, shop, shop," said Don Bovia. That eventually turned out to be accurate information, but it wasn't until another tiny sailboat crossed our path that a chain of events leading us to today would begin. Driving the nine miles to Owosso, we noticed a little Sea Devil for sale. It was exactly like one I had sold a few years back, so on a whim we stopped and bought it. The sellers Don and Pat Hiller were charming people who not only shared our enthusiasm for sailing, but also owned a beautiful Danish built Helsen 22. We became friends immediately, sailing with them a weekend later. Don is a brilliant, highly opinionated, and helpful fellow with three fingers missing on his right hand. The remaining finger, normally reserved for handshakes, goes quickly vertical when his excitable nature takes over. I suspect that it takes that posture also as an attitude toward convention or non-sailors. Pat is a pretty, personable, calm and easy-smiling person, who as crew seems to take a lot of abuse from her Captain Bligh husband. Each is a good sailor and together they weaned us from the notion that a fast monohull had to be sailed with the lee rail submerged. Their behavior and seamanship was the strongest influence on our next move. With a lecture from the other Don, my "spiritual advisor" fresh in mind, I began scouring ads for motivated sellers. The day after our sail with the Hillers, I found one that said, "seasick sailor wants to sell". Now here was a truly motivated seller!! We knew the result even before a quick call and a two hour drive to Lake Erie would confirm our intuition. Imprisoned behind a tall fence and shackled to a blocked trailer, she was irresistible. Covered with the grime peculiar to stored and neglected boats was not the Horstman of recent dreams nor the Piver, Cross or Brown of more remote fantasies; she was, God forbid, a monohull. Single hull or not, this sweet thing was whispering unmentionable promises in my ear. My mental paintbrush went wild with white highlights along her clean lines and high freeboard. Never mind the broken centerboard cable, the leaking windows or the amateurishly painted stripe. Forget the careless sprawl of unlashed mast, the spaghetti mix of stays and halyards. Mary and I were again teenage victims of first car syndrome. When the owner arrived we inspected the interior. A virtual mountain of Dramamine obscured the black stain and the musty smell of unchecked mildew. So absorbed at seeing all those pills we completely ignored the leaking fresh water pump, the similarly disposed portable toilet. Instead a vision of roominess, stand up head-room and abundant storage came upon us. After brief bartering ownership changed hands. The dream bubble splattered into a hundred droplets, each with a question attached; how would we fix the centerboard cable, how would we get the boat home? The trailer ------ " omygod the trailer"; in my trance I had completely forgotten to check the trailer. A panicked look revealed questionable tires, broken tail lights, and no wiring connecters. Nothing serious, but we would have to leave work a little early tomorrow to make some repair. Our earlier euphoria returned as the four cylinder Buick stretched the speed limit while mental notes on our need list occupied our attention. Tomorrow's task would require crimping tools, lights, wiring harness, stainless cable, cleaning tools and solutions, an air compressor, grease gun, voltmeter, the list grew long. Two obstacles remained: #1 lack of a tow vehicle, #2 lack of a boat hoist. Tony, our youngest son, solved problem number one by volunteering his nice, but slightly used van. Bob Trout, owner of Trout's Marina of Monroe, Michigan, offered his hoist as a solution to problem number two. We slept well that night knowing that tomorrow would be a piece of cake. By noon the next day, Tony, Mary, and I were on the road to Monroe. We believed we could get the boat home before dark and thereby eliminate the necessity for trailer light repair. Upon arrival, we checked with Mr. Trout concerning hoist availability. Due to high winds, a lot of fishing boats were coming in and the hoist was unavailable until 7:00 or 8:00 P.M. So much for making it back before nightfall!! Working at top speed we broke off rusted bolts, installed new lights and wiring, secured the loose mast, sorted out stays and removed the blocks supporting the trailer. Immediately the tires squashed flat. Ha!!! I had anticipated this by bringing my 12 volt air compressor. Midway at inflating the second tire the compressor burned up. Already it was past five o'clock so the probability of getting new tires was greatly diminished but air and repair might be possible. Tony and the van departed with the tires while Mary and I attacked the mildew and disorderliness in the cabin. We had created some small semblance of order when Tony informed us that the tires were in place making the trailer ready to go to the hoist. A feeling of relief that I had as Tony and the boat were being lifted was short lived; the centerboard had failed to drop. The rust accumulated from disuse yielded only to the persuasion of a ten-pound sledge hammer. Two hours later the hoist was lowered. We had successfully installed a new and working centerboard cable. Through all of this Mr. and Mrs. Trout couldn't have been more gracious, giving help, advice and tools. They even kept the marina open well past closing to accommodate us. We could not or cannot thank them enough. The cautious, 35 m.p.h., five hour drive home left us exhausted the next day, but for two weeks of evenings and weekends we more than made up for lost time. Every last square inch of surface area was scrubbed and polished twice; the interior was re-carpeted, the teak cleaned and oiled. With Don and Pat to help the mast was stepped and sails set in our wind protected back yard. When we finally were able to take a satisfied look at our brand "new" 1976 Aquarius 23, it was all out party time. All went well at the weekend launching. As our boat kissed the water she slid easily from the grasp of the trailer. Mary's Mate (so named because by now Mary was certain she was married to a boat) strained at her tether to go to her new home across the cut. Now was my turn to be a star. With my most seaman-like stance I posed center stage for the benefit of all the people who were watching the "new guy". With a flourish I reached back to pull the starter rope and pulled and pulled and pulled. When I was sufficiently exhausted, the motor became compassionate and sputtered to it's highest speed. With the motor adequately warm I coolly reduced speed, shifted to reverse, cast off the bow line and moved about ten feet before the outboard again balked. Possessing uncanny ability to sense the limit of my endurance and the proximity of hull bashing rocks, the motor fell into a predictable routine of start, go ten feet, stall, while the marina crowd rolled on the ground in a less than charitable welcome for the "lubber". Motors and I do not get along too well normally, but this was ridiculous. Although my embarrassment blocked coherent mental process, I was able to concoct a no-stall technique of roar, shift, roar, shift which caused blameless Mary's Mate to lurch a short distance forward and a shorter distance aft. We were at least making some headway when another problem surfaced. In retrospect it seems of little importance whether the vee cut of the transom was too narrow or the head of the motor too wide, the result was the same; 5 degrees steerage to port and 2 degrees to starboard was all that I was permitted. To compound the charade, I had neglected to seat the inboard rudder in it's well. Excuses aside, the ships fool as helmsman was leading a dignified 23 foot lady through a very undignified hucklebuck that gave the wind it's way and the spectators thigh slapping belly laughs. Mary saved the day with a mooring line pitch that would have made any NFL quarterback proud. Landing squarely on the dock, the line was quickly grabbed and Mary's Mate towed hand over hand to slip #26 while her skipper tried to hide behind his hat. For the next hour or so Mary and I kept busy displaying the best dockside seamanship we could muster. Darkness graciously arrived permitting a sneaky and rapid departure. Next weekend we would vindicate ourselves under sail. Since Pat could not make it that weekend, Don offered to help us debug the Aquarius under sail. Thanks to the attentive hands of an off-duty mechanic, the motor was running somewhat better, but would not be up to 100% until several gallons of gas were run through it's long, unused digestive system. As wind filled her mainsail, Mary's Mate ambled to an easy trot. Jib in place, she broke into a fast gallop. This moment alone made up for all the time and money spent at marine supply counters; we were having fun! Refining our technique on different points of sail, tuning the standing rigging and passing an occasional tea, daylight flitted away. We had already learned that the charts didn't reflect the true lake bottom and the LORAN we had ordered was still in transit, so the job of finding our channel entrance and a deep passage to it was willingly passed to "seat of the pants sailor," Don Hiller. As noted before, Don is a good seaman and he certainly excels at dead reckoning, but in this dwindling light he would need a sixth sense. We all scanned the shoreline for our primary mark, a single tall Cedar tree. This tree had become our only true land-mark, since painted milk jug sentries hide easily in daylight and totally disappear at night. Don, who fails to acknowledge even the possibility of ESP, was very close to proving that he indeed may possess such ability when he was first to sight our Cedar. An instant later, that premiss was blown to bits, when the centerboard thumped an urgent call to the winch. Board up, the pop up rudder grounded and it's pillar became wedged in it's well. As the propeller spun uselessly, Don decided to go over the side to help move the boat from it's perch. Mary went to the bow to shift weight off the rudder and Don went to his knees in mud and to his waist in water. I continued to manipulate the motor and to fruitlessly try to hoist the rudder. In a few minutes, Don had slogged his way to the bow, lost in a darkness that smothered the shiny ridges of wavelets. As he took us under tow, the pressure released on the rudder and I was able to pull it free. At the same instant, the prop managed to chew through the bottom goop and Mary's Mate shot ahead to the echo of a loud thump from the bow. Positive that I had run down my friend, I shouted at the blackness but the motor's angry snarl denied me a reply. White smiling teeth reflecting back the rays from Mary's roving flashlight assured us that Don was O.K. The thump we had heard was Don pushing the bow away to avoid a head-to-bow collision. As he climbed the swim ladder, accusing me of trying to kill him, a set of twin suns illumined the area and the elusive markers we sought; we had missed the channel by a scant twenty feet. The powerful spreader - lights belonged to our new sailing friends from the marina,. Earlier, we had been out - sailed by them quite a bit so the two had returned well before us. I guess we'll never really be sure if they came back in the interest of comradery, concern or because the loser buys the beer. Whatever the reason, after failing to reach us on VHF, (also in the mail), they did come back to look for us. We ALL were glad to have them lead us through that narrow black corridor, even though I could once again be the marina fool. Back at slip #26, I was surprised to find no one cackling behind his hand, instead, all were gracious and understanding. Of course I wanted to believe that this new attitude was born from respect of my seamanship under sail, but the truth is that virtually everyone there had similarly missed the channel. With these past three weeks absorbed in our churning wake and our destination's proximity electronically proclaimed, skipper and crew are again called to action. Sails lowered, we are approaching the mouth of the Au Gres River under auxiliary power. The rhythmic purr of our now reliable motor brings another smile, the first coming when we completed over 11 NM in well under two hours. Today is a time to smile; our new electronics are working perfectly, Mary's Mate has proven to be fairly stiff, capable, and quick; even the new pump-out head doesn't leak.