Independence is the best gift for a youth
Issue 76 : Jan/Feb 2011
If our priorities define us, then my husband, Dave, and I are irresponsible, capricious, and more fond of boats than money.
A few Novembers ago, we sailed back to St. Croix for the fourth time with our annually depleted cruising kitty. As usual, within a week, Dave and I were employed and our son David was bored.
At 14, David decided this particular boredom could best be remedied with a small sailboat that was easy to singlehand yet rugged enough to sail with friends to Buck Island — the local daysailors’ Mecca, 5 miles upwind from our anchorage. Thinking this would make the perfect Christmas present, Dave and I sent out a request via the coconut telegraph.
While wandering around the boatyard, we saw a friend who had not yet heard of our search. He turned to his brother, whose wife manages the yacht club, and asked, “Do you want to sell yours?” We surveyed the boat while he verified with his wife that it was indeed for sale. We arranged to exchange $600 for the boat the next evening. So, just five weeks before Christmas, leaving ourselves with only $200 in the bank, we bought our son his first sailboat, a Catalina Capri 14.2.
Open secret
We hid the present in plain view. Since Dave works on other people’s boats for a living, we told everyone, including David, that Dave was repairing the little Catalina for its owner (which was technically true). Only five people knew the boat had a new owner and they were sworn to secrecy — no easy promise to keep on a small island.
The first day, Dave took a grinder and removed the entire cockpit floor while I gasped in the background. Was it really that bad? As he pulled out the rotten water-logged stringers, I was reminded why he works on boats and I tend bar. Dave gave the mast step the same violent treatment. He removed all the rot from the boat, then rebuilt and painted the pieces.
We pieced together the rig, had used sails sent down from Bacon Sails in Annapolis, bought running rigging, and set up a mooring and anchoring system. Dave made a boom tent so David could stay dry if he were ever anchored in the rain or overnight.
On Christmas Eve, with a rainbow to windward, a friend helped us launch her. Then Dave and David’s big brother, Nick, sailed her to her mooring: our boat’s temporarily redundant 35-pound CQR. After the boys were asleep, we rowed to the Catalina and tied on a giant red bow. The stage was set. Not since I was a child have I been so eager for Christmas morning.
Knowing this would eclipse all other presents, we saved it for last. I had printed out pictures of the repairs and put them in a small album, which I wrapped. David opened the gift and flipped through the pictures, not sure what he was seeing, until he came to the last page where I had inserted a note, which read, “So, David, what are you going to name your boat? She’s all yours. Merry Christmas!”
Realization
He stared at the note for several seconds before he looked at me and whispered, “Really?” After we assured him that he was not still sleeping, he ran on deck to look at her, floating behind us. He and Dave rowed over so Dave could show him how to rig her, how her boom tent was designed, and the items we had gathered and stowed for him.
Since Christmas turned out to be too windy to fully enjoy sailing a small boat, David asked for a second set of reef points and spent the day gathering life jackets, a flashlight, bailer, and various other goodies to personalize his boat. What she needed now was a name. For David, a Jimi Hendrix fan, that was easy: Stone Free. To ride the breeze . . .
We believe the purpose of money is to provide ourselves and our children with happy lives relatively free from stress and worry. To this end, we work a few months a year at jobs we enjoy to earn the money we need to enjoy not working the rest of the year. The money we spent on Stone Free has brought David more happiness than anything it could have done for us. It was indeed money well spent.
Connie McBride , her husband, Dave, and their three sons have been living aboard their 34-foot Creekmore, Eurisko, for 10 years. Now that two of the boys are in college, Connie has time to post experiences and wisdom gained from their cruising life on her website www.simplysailingonline.com.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
