Issue 143: March/April 2022
OK, so this is a test.
I am kneeling—no, really, I’m in what amounts to a contorted version of yoga’s “child’s pose”—facing aft in the rather narrow passage between the main and forward cabins. On my left, a vertical series of small lockers and the open hanging locker. On my right, the closed head door. In front of me, the newly painted mast step, the gleaming base of the newly painted mast, a strewage of wires, and the open bilge. And the source of my frustration.
I’m trying to run the mast wiring, and it is doing its best to vex me. Four wires, that’s it. One skinny black one (new Garmin wind instruments), one skinny white one (VHF coaxial cable), two fat, flat white ones (anchor tricolor and deck steaming light). How hard can it be?
I’ve successfully run the skinny white one through the pair of small access holes that lead in, through, and out one of the boat’s thick horizontal stringers. And with my success, the inevitable boat catch-22. It’s taking up too much of the hole. No way I can even get the business end of my long screwdriver through there again to use as a messenger to pull one of the fat, flat wires through—the trick that worked to get the skinny wire run.
I’m a regular practitioner of yoga, but damn, my knees are killing me. I don’t want to interrupt my husband, Johnny, with the same old question: Is there a technique for this? He’s engaged in his own battle back by the engine, which is fully exposed and fighting his efforts to give it an upgraded alternator.
So it goes.
We are nearly a year into the restoration of our 1978 Peterson 34, Luna. It’s a gorgeous early fall day, and we thought we’d be sailing by now. You would think, with a lifetime’s experience sailing, fixing, loving, and cursing good old boats, we’d have known better than to figure this wouldn’t take twice as long and cost three times as much as we’d estimated.
But, like most of us, we’re doing this work on the weekends and evenings after the day jobs. You could say it’s our hobby. Some empty-nesters spend beautiful
autumn weekends riding a motorcycle along the Blue Ridge Parkway, say, or enjoying an afternoon of wine tasting with friends at a mountain vineyard, or, I don’t know, actually sailing!
We get up, drink coffee, talk about the day’s hopeful goals, make lunch, pack the dogs into the truck, drive to the boatyard, and genuflect to the god of fiberglass till we’re too tired to do it anymore, pack it up, and go home. Rinse, repeat.
Perhaps, if I use the wire that’s already through the hole as a messenger, it might work? I dig around for a short piece of messenger line and tape it to the wire, then ease the wire back out the hole, grimacing at the going-backwards-to-go-forward-again.
That’s been happening a lot this time around with this dear old boat. More than once, I have grumbled, “Maybe she doesn’t want to be fixed up.” But this morning something occurred to me: She’s been more or less neglected for over 15 years (long story, see “Lost and Found,” July/August 2021). How would my knees and joints and psyche feel if I’d been left for so long, feeling forgotten? Wouldn’t I be a little jaded? Wouldn’t I want to make someone suffer, just a little, for all that waiting? After all the joy and memories I’d gifted?
I’ve taped the fat wire to the thin one, carefully tapering the tape to ease the passage, and hey, nearly through and then—zip—out comes the messenger wire, tape dangling. The two have pulled apart. This time Johnny hears me grouching and comes to help. We retape, work together, him nudging the thick wire forward, me tugging gently on the thin one, and, eureka, we get it. And in no time, we’ve finagled the final two wires through the second set of access holes.
Of course, the tricolor will refuse to work initially, until Johnny susses out the bad connection near the panel. But, it’s another step forward, another job crossed off the never-ending list, a reason to celebrate a little victory.
Along with being a sailor and senior editor of this magazine, I’m a poet, so I think in metaphors all the time. And when you see the world through metaphorically-colored glasses, you realize that even a 43-year-old ex-IOR racing boat has something to teach you about the inexorable passage of time, the pain of transition, the gratitude of love, the grace in compassion.
By the time you read this, we’ll still be working on the list. But spring will be here. And with it, hope.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
