When it comes to sailboats, bigger isn’t always better.
By Craig Moodie
Issue 155: March/April 2024
“Buy a bigger boat.” That’s the refrain we’ve often heard from friends and family. The reason: Finn, our Barnstable Catboat, might not be the ideal boat for where we sail.
She’s a beauty, no doubt. She’s built from the classic mold of a Beetle Cat. My wife and I have sailed her into her late adolescence, and she’s still as graceful as a feather. She’s become a friend — and family. But she’s only four feet longer than Ringy, our eight-foot dinghy. Surely a bigger boat could handle conditions in Buzzards Bay, a funnel-shaped body of water between Cape Cod and mainland Massachusetts infamous for its sporty summertime sou’westers, with more aplomb.. Over the years, either the wind has begun blowing harder more often or we’re becoming less intrepid about venturing out in our yachtlet in anything smarter than light airs.
Besides, coaming-cracked knees and cockpit-crunched coccyx hurt more and heal slower when you’ve reached old cricket status. What are two sexagenarians doing sailing what was once dubbed “a boy’s boat,” anyway?
The image of two codgers (sorry, Ellen) in a dinky boat, along with a desire to widen our sailing horizons, drives me at times to seek out a different boat in a fever of nautical excitement and fiscal denial: Imagine where we could go — Cuttyhunk, the Vineyard, beyond. Imagine sleeping, cooking, cloudspotting, stargazing, hoisting a glass aboard as we have on other people’s boats. Imagine skippering a sturdy vessel ready for (almost) anything.
With the mantra “Buy a bigger boat” ringing in my ears, I’ve considered boats of different stripes — Folkboats, Cornish Crabbers, and Sea Sprites among them. They may have struck our fancy, but not enough to compel us to strike a deal for any we’ve run across.
The one boat we continued to gravitate to was a Marshall Sanderling, which is a natural upgrade for dyed-in-the-wool catboaters. A Sanderling named Comin’ About was once moored within easy hailing distance of Finn. We used to look on with envy as the owners and their guests lounged in the capacious cockpit — on benches, no less — while we bumped knees and adjusted cushions on the cedar cockpit planks to assuage our tailbones. A Sanderling is the boat for us, we said.
When the fever spikes, I scan the Catboat Association’s listings and forward image after image to Ellen, saying, “This is the one.”
A few years ago, we ran our hands over the hull of a Sanderling for sale called Saunterer, which was on the hard in Chatham, and might have forged ahead but for the price. We continued to talk about buying one, but never acted. Did we hesitate because long ago my mom owned a Marshall Sanderling yet gave her up after sailing her only a handful of times, for reasons she kept to herself?
Then, in April 2023, a phone call came in while we were driving to Easter Sunday dinner. My sister and brother-in-law, longtime sailors whose sailing situation was shifting, were offering us their shipshape and Bristol fashion Rhodes 19 for the sum of one American dollar — including trailering the boat up the Eastern Seaboard to us in North Falmouth on Cape Cod. A free boat, essentially, delivered, and a classic in her own right.
“Yes!” we both said over speaker phone, gushing appreciation and giddy with excitement.
“No!” keened an internal voice as I sleeplessly thrashed around our bed all that night. Let the internal debate begin.
Reasons to take her: Virtually free. Sweet design. Bigger than Finn. More sea-kindly in a blow. Did I mention free(ish)?
Reasons not to take her: Oh, I dredged up reasons, all right. We’d have to move the mooring to deeper water because she drew more than Finn. We’d have to deal with an outboard. We didn’t want to impose on my sister and brother-in-law: Did they really want to divest themselves of their beloved boat when they could make a profit from her? We didn’t know if we’d really like sailing her. We’d have to …
My old conservative Yankee streak widened. One of the main reasons we bought Finn was her workboat pedigree. Even a diminutive catboat — a design from the 1800s used for fishing the waters where we sail — appealed to my pride as a former commercial fisherman. I loved her lines and lineage.
Simplicity was another. No engine to quit on us. No mechanics to hire. No travel lifts. No docks. We could just beach her to work on her or to take on people or gear. Maybe I balked because I’ve reached a point where I have no need for extra headaches. Maybe I don’t at heart want to challenge us by sailing beyond our home waters of Megansett Harbor and Buzzards Bay. (I’ve had a bounty of challenges over my life on the water, thank you very much.) Maybe a world in a raindrop is enough for us.
But did we really need to choose between the boats? Why not keep Finn and take the Rhodes too? We could, of course, but did we really want to add to our flotilla that already numbered a catboat, a dinghy, and a kayak? Taking the Rhodes would mean dealing with another set of burdens. She was lovely — but her timing was off.
One evening I finished buttoning up Finn. We rode on the mooring on mercury-slick water at dead low tide. The sun set warm and golden on my bare shoulders from across the bay. I stood on the rail, watching a couple of quahoggers only a hundred feet away by the exposed rocks, raking for littlenecks. I looked down to see schools of minnows switching back and forth off the stern and a green crab stalk on the silken sand between the bottle-green grasses waving 3 feet below.
Then one of the quahoggers called out, “You’ve got the prettiest boat in the harbor!”
Indeed. How could we not stand with her? A bigger boat might well lie in our future.
But for now, we’re not giving up our (little) ship.
Craig Moodie lives with his wife, Ellen, in Massachusetts. His work includes A Sailor’s Valentine and Other Stories and, under the name John Macfarlane, the middle-grade novel Stormstruck!, a Kirkus Best Book.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
