A 1979 Ericson 36 cutter provides all the accommodation and adventure this couple needs
Issue 15 : Nov/Dec 2000
Sky Lark, a 36-foot Ericson cutter, suits Alan Hauch’s dream of cruising the Bahamas with his wife. “We love the big aft cockpit and all the equipment,” says Alan, 51, of Ormond Beach, Fla.
“Our previous boat, a Catalina 27, was a bit snug when our two teenagers cruised with us,” he says. “So when my 72-year-old friend had a motorcycle accident and had to sell Sky Lark, I went right over with my checkbook.”
Last year, in accordance with his decades-long goal of retiring at 50, Alan sold his business, Atlantic Concrete, and now can devote more time to boating.
“We can’t sail for long periods until our children finish college,” says Angel, 48, a petite brunette who has sailed since her childhood in Tampa. She looks forward to more cruising, now that she has retired from teaching math. “Alan’s good to sail with,” she says. “I don’t know how many wives are as lucky as I am.”
Alan has owned boats since he was a kid — sometimes four or five at a time. He and Angel began sailing together some 20 years ago in the U.S. Virgin Islands, where Angel taught math at the College of the Virgin Islands and Alan was a mechanic for Antilles Airways. In his spare time he used his mechanical and carpentry skills to keep other people’s boats running, with the provision that he and Angel could sail them on their days off.
Back to earth
“We had a fun year, but we had to come back to reality, make a living, and raise a family,” says Alan, a Michigan native who met Angel at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Florida. “Since then, we’ve owned various boats — power for a while, then a succession of sailboats,” culminating with Sky Lark.”
They usually keep Sky Lark at a dock on Treasure Cay, in the Bahamas, ready at a moment’s notice for short-term cruising among the Abacos. “The Bahamas are similar to the [Florida] Keys, but with even more gorgeous water, fewer people, and better lobstering,” says Angel, recalling earlier cruises in their Seafarer 35 and Catalina 27.
“When we kept Sky Lark at Halifax Harbor [in Daytona Beach], most of our sailing was on the Intracoastal Waterway; it took two hours to reach the ocean inlet with a favorable tide,” says Alan. “Now we board the plane at 8:30 a.m. in Daytona, and are on the boat by 10.”
The couple fly to the Abacos more than a dozen times a year, planning their trips to avoid hurricanes. Sometimes they take their 17-year old daughter, Kristen, and 16 year-old son, Brian; otherwise Grandma takes over at home.
“We prefer sailing in the winter when the winds are best and the water is still warm enough,” says Angel. “During summers in the Bahamas, the wind dies at midday. If you’re not anchored by then, you just float.”
Regardless of the season, they always save plenty of time to swim, waterski, sunbathe, catch lobsters, beachcomb, and enjoy family and friends who join them.
“We spend 80 percent of our time in the large cockpit,” says Alan. “That’s Sky Lark’s biggest plus.”
Clipper bow
Bruce King, a co-founder of Ericson Yachts, designed the 36-foot Marconi-rigged cutter to provide ample cruising accommodations in three cabins without sacrificing appearance, sea-kindliness, or sailing speed. Sky Lark’s topsides combine a traditional clipper bow and sweeping sheer with a cutter rig, flush deck, and a 12-foot beam. Underwater, the Ericson 36C has a fin keel, deep skeg, and large outboard rudder.
Sixty were built on the West Coast from the mid-1960s until the mid-1980s while the company went through a succession of owners. The Hauchs are the third owners of hull #4, built in 1979. Alan exchanges e-mail messages with other owners.
When the Hauchs bought Sky Lark in 1996, the cutter was complete, right down to the knives and forks in the galley. However, Alan immediately pulled out and replaced every propane line, then built a storage box for two propane tanks at the rear of the cockpit. The box vents overboard for safety and serves as a backrest for the helmsman. They also scraped, re-caulked, and re-oiled all the cockpit teak and added self-tailing winches on teak pads to improve the sheet leads.
Down below, Alan added 110- and 12-volt circuit breaker panels, depth and knot meters, GPS, a gas on-demand hot-water heater, and more insulation around the refrigerator/ freezer. The stereo system he installed throughout the boat includes Bose speakers. Angel kids him, “They’re too good for our house, but not for Sky Lark.”
The cutter’s equipment included a watermaker, icemaker, single-sideband radio, central AC and heat (a heat-pump unit in the forepeak), a 12-volt windlass, and a 24-hp Bukh (Danish marine diesel) with what Alan considers great access, under the companionway. A Wind Bugger wind generator runs the lights, autopilot, and 12-volt refrigerator/freezer, aiding their self-sufficiency.
Comfortable cruising
A cooler in the cockpit, barbecue grill on the starboard quarter, and a new Bimini/dodger combination covering the spacious cockpit make for comfortable tropical cruising. (On Treasure Cay they also keep a 22-foot Mako for water-skiing and a gas-powered golf cart for land transportation.)
Sky Lark carries a 22-pound high-tensile Danforth and a 45- pound CQR on the bowsprit, 300 feet of chain, and a 35-pound Bruce anchor for use only in sand.
“The boat is small, but well-thought-out,” says six-foot-plus Alan, who particularly likes having the head in the center of the boat instead of jammed in the forepeak. Otherwise, the layout is traditional: forepeak cabin with V-berth that can accommodate Angel’s 6-foot, 4-inch brother; main saloon with settee-berths and folding central dining table (“able to seat a crowd with the wings out”), galley to starboard, head with shower to port, and master cabin aft with double berth, navigation station, hanging locker, and separate head access.
“It’s great that we can close off three cabins to provide privacy for family and good friends,” Alan says. “And the aft cabin has the best sea berth by far. I can sleep there through anything.
“Sail handling is easy,” says Alan. “The sails are all inboard and there’s no doghouse, so you can work anywhere on deck — even standing on the Plexiglas hatches, for they are plenty strong.”
The Hauches think Sky Lark has only three weak points. The V-berth is suitable only at a dock. Alan would like more storage and sail lockers. And they both wish the cutter drew a little less than five feet.
No damage
In 1999, Alan rode out Hurricane Dennis’s 80-mph winds aboard Sky Lark, tied to her dock in Treasure Cay, Bahamas. “The most dangerous place in the world for a sailboat in a storm,” he says. “The winds were fearsome, but luckily we suffered no damage.”
Hurricane Floyd hit harder later that year, causing mostly cosmetic damage. Afterward, Alan and his brother-in-law sailed her back to the States for a facelift.
“That was a wild ride,” says Alan. “We ran into an unexpected nor’easter and for 16 hours went slashing up the Gulf Stream toward Cape Canaveral. The rain was nonstop, white-out conditions. We lost the autopilot, then the GPS, so we couldn’t hide out under the dodger. We had to sit out in all that rain, hand-steer, and look for ships. We saw five, the farthest was one mile away. When you see a ship that close, it’s too damn close.”
After four days they made port safely, then hauled Sky Lark at Seven Seas Marina (in Port Orange, Fla.) for serious upgrading.
Commuting almost daily to the boat, Alan replaced the original headliner with a new vinyl one, installed new Formica galley counters, removed the cupboard doors throughout the boat, replaced their caned inserts, then made and installed new teak veneer fronts.
Two-month project
Working together, the couple refurbished the mahogany cabin interior and all the teak, from the cabin sole to deck trim. The project took two months. “It was interesting to take the boat apart to see how it’s made,” Alan says.
“After all our work and with new cushions, dodger, and Bimini, Sky Lark’s truly our thing of beauty and joy forever,” says Angel.
The Hauchs added two new sails — a battened main, and a heavier staysail with reef points (by Beach Street Canvas, of Daytona Beach, who did Sky Lark’s canvaswork 15 years ago). The full inventory includes a roller furling jib, a cruising spinnaker, a drifter, a storm trysail, and a still unused sail for heaving to. With a weatherfax (using their laptop computer and single sideband radio) and autopilot connected to their GPS, they are ready for serious cruising. “Right now, Sky Lark is our home away from home,” says Alan. “After the kids leave, we’d like to cruise for two to three months at a time. Not sell our house and sail around the world — just leisurely cruises in the islands.”
In her previous life, newspaper reporter Mary Maynard Drake and her then-husband, George Maynard, built Scud, an engineless replica of Capt. Joshua Slocum’s Spray, in their backyard and sailed it around the world with their three children from 1973 to 1978. Later, she and her husband, Bob Drake, sailed his Cape Dory Typhoon and a 23-foot Sailmaster on Fishers Island Sound before they moved to Maine. Mary prefers writing about boats and boaters and sails whenever possible, often in the Grumman aluminum 15- foot outboard boat they rigged with a windsurfer sail. Bob takes the photos.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
