A family of four dreams big, goes small
Issue 86: Sept/Oct 2012
On a cold November night in 2010, my husband and I attended a liveaboard brunch at a nearby marina. There the seed of an old dream germinated. Years ago, we’d had the desire to live on a sailboat and cruise, but the momentum of land life swept it aside. A house and two children later, we decided to go for it.
Life, we decided, was too short to wait until we were retired. Tig and I also believed that living simply and within arm’s reach of our young children was the greatest gift we could give them in their early years.
As the tides of our will reversed, we found ourselves on a five-year plan to move aboard a boat, and the search began for my husband’s new mistress . . . er, boat.
We pored through reviews in books and magazines together. Tig searched for boats online during every spare moment. He checked while our 3-month-old baby napped in his arms. He checked late in the evening. He checked at every pause in our conversations. I was busy researching yacht brokers, marine surveyors, and how to perform boat inspections. I posted questions on forums and tried to digest all the information that was coming at us as if from a fire hose.
After making a rather naïve initial statement of requirements, we went on a whirlwind tour of nine boats in four days during the holidays. With a toddler and baby in tow, it was not fun nor easy, but we fumbled our way through it.
Narrowing the field
After several months spent doing more research and making more boat visits, we found that we were attracted to boats of the European persuasion and of 1980s vintage. In particular, Tig liked the northern European builders, who have good reputations for constructing the sturdy boats needed to stand up to the sailing conditions in the North Sea. Their boats also tended to have more suitable accommodations for our family when compared with other boats of similar length and vintage. Unfortunately, the hard part was finding these boats at prices within our budget.
One day, Tig casually said, “Well, there’s a 32-foot Contest in Connecticut.”
“Absolutely not,” I replied.
In the beginning, we had arbitrarily picked 38 to 42 feet as the ideal size of boat for our family of four. One book we read advised cruising families to get the largest and most comfortable boat they could reasonably afford. In looking at many liveaboard and cruising blogs, we noted that families do tend to have boats starting in the 40-foot range. Other authors pointed out that an extra 10 feet nearly doubles the annual cost of a boat in higher docking fees and haulout costs, insurance, parts, and more.
Both arguments have their points. As we had no experience with either side, we found ourselves getting tangled up with intellectual pros and cons. We pulled the plug on the noise and decided to make the decisions by looking within ourselves.
Our lack of sailing experience and our budget pushed us toward a smaller boat. It was important that we both felt comfortable handling our chosen sailboat. As we stood on the decks of candidates, we listened for a quiet inner voice to say, “This boat is too big. This boat is too small. This boat is just right.” With that in mind, we settled on 34 to 36 feet as the size requirement. Squeezing our family into a 32-foot boat seemed improbable.
Small is suitable
Tig ended up convincing me to at least look at the Contest 32, a Dutch-built center-cockpit ketch. One cold February morning, we drove to Stonington, Connecticut. The boat was stashed all the way in the back of the boatyard near the train tracks. She was uncovered and had several inches of snow on the deck. Ice floated in the bilge and condensation dripped from the overhead. But the deck looked manageable, the interior was well-crafted, her systems were simple, and her electronics minimal. Even better was the aft-cabin arrangement with its two separate berths that would be ideal for our children. We did not experience the love at first sight many boat owners describe. Instead, it was a slow recognition as something clicked. We thought, “This could work.”
Since Contest 32s are not common on this side of the pond, we had to look into Dutch and German reviews with lots of help from Google Translate. We put in an offer, negotiated back and forth a little, and went into a purchase and sale agreement. We had her surveyed, ran a sea trial, and went for a test sail. Our surveyor concluded that she was “a simple little boat” . . . exactly what we were looking for. Aside from a loose Cutless bearing, the engine ran well and the rigging looked good. The test sail went smoothly. One fine day, we drove to Connecticut and climbed aboard as new owners. Only after we closed did we pay attention to her name. Since it seemed fitting for our journey, we kept her name: Wildest Dream.
Tig was antsy to get our good old boat up to Boston as soon as possible, so we put out a call for experienced sailors. Luck smiled on us as a sailor wrote to say he had sailed the run from eastern Connecticut many times and offered to be the acting skipper. Momentum gathered and we soon had a full crew.
The crew expressed interest in delivering the boat as quickly as possible. That meant that our kids — at the time, 2 years old and 8 months — and I shouldn’t come on this trip. We wanted their first sailing experience to be a leisurely and positive one. This was not the right introductory voyage for them. The weeks leading up to the trip were abuzz with preparations and last-minute repairs.
In late April, the crew set off. Two days later, Wildest Dream was safely docked at our summer marina in Charlestown, Massachusetts. One of the crew described Tig as “a new owner who was the quickest study I’ve ever sailed with.”
Making the transition
Summer sailing season was soon upon us, so the race was on to move aboard. We started a project list with some “must have” items before moving aboard: a propane line that didn’t leak, a working stove, hot water, bilge alarms, and mattresses that didn’t stink of mildew and diesel. Tig ripped out the entire propane line and I set to work cutting new foam cushions and sewing covers for them. We worked around the clock on weekends and after the kids went to sleep.
As we approached the deadline, our list got shorter. We crossed off a few important items and discarded the rest one by one. No hot water? No problem, we thought, we’ll fix it this winter. As we were moving aboard, Tig promised to install the propane stove that night. Seven months after we attended that fateful marina brunch, we became liveaboards.
Once we moved aboard, we had to tackle another problem: my only sailing experience was through dinghy lessons 10 years before, where I learned the true meaning of “swear like a sailor.” Tig liked to joke that a cloud of obscenity still hangs over San Francisco Bay. He had only a bit more experience than I did.
All through the summer, learning to sail was the top priority. We prioritized boat projects based on whether they were necessary to achieve our goal safely. The only major work we did was to upgrade our 6-gallon holding tank so we could handle overnights more comfortably.
Each trip out was a new lesson and brought with it new frustrations. In the beginning, we brought along experienced sailors to teach us. I learned to dock and back into our slip with a baby strapped onto my back. Tig and I tested different configurations of sails in gusty conditions. We learned to anchor under sail and to sail off the anchor. Starting with day sails, we built up to overnights and then weekends. We made sure not to limit our sailing experiences to perfect conditions only.
We made many novice mistakes. We got caught in two squalls and left the genoa on too long as dark skies gathered. In Nahant, we didn’t tie things on deck tightly enough at anchor, causing us hours of lost sleep as Wildest Dream was tossed around like a beer can on a windy night. We also experienced embarrassing docking fiascos. The ramifications of having two small children aboard amplified my fears and caution.
But there were wonderful moments too. The adrenaline rush of the first time we went sailing by ourselves. Watching the sun set behind Calf Island, my daughter’s arm encircling my neck as I told her about the sun putting on its red pajamas and snuggling underneath a Technicolor blanket. Our family serenading a velvet night sky splashed with glitter.
I tuck these tender snapshots into the corners of my mind whenever things get hard, to remind me that we have one wild and precious life in which to chase the stars.
The adventures of Tig and Serena
Read more about how Tig and Serena are living out (and aboard) their Wildest Dream at www.tigandserena.com.
Their reports about delivering Wildest Dream from Connecticut to Boston are at www.tigandserena.com/2011/04/28/go-team-w and www.tigandserena.com/2011/05/02/we-made-it-to-boston.
Serena Li lives with her husband, Tig, and their two young children on their Contest 32CS ketch, Wildest Dream. They spent their first summer aboard sailing around the Boston Harbor Islands. This past summer, they began cruising south along the U.S. East Coast on their way toward the Bahamas.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
