Issue 17 : Mar/Apr 2001
Too late! It’s sold: the Dodo, a 40-foot Bristol yawl, to a nice couple from Douglas, Mass., Gail and Roy Swenson.
I couldn’t bear to see her go. Nineteen years of tender loving care. Nineteen years of memories, of adventures never to experience again . . . a boat that lost its captain (my husband) to a heart attack all too soon. Yes, the boat would leave a void impossible to fill, as all boatowners know.
The Swensons waved goodbye from their “new” vessel as I (on a friend’s boat) escorted them out of our harbor. With tears in my eyes, I clicked away on my camera as the Dodo sailed onto the horizon and out of my life. Going . . . going . . . forever gone . . .
Wrong.
Throughout the winter, postcards came, reassuring me that Dodo was very happy in her new home. The cards kept me informed about her new self-tailing winches (oh, how I could have used those!), dodger (ditto), and other extras that were making her very spiffy indeed.
In no time, the new owners became special friends, so special that an invitation came to accompany them on a Labor Day sailing trip to Newport. Newport, a favorite port where my husband and I had so much fun together, a port too far away from the home base for me to get to with my miserable navigation skills.
I didn’t have to be asked twice. So, off to Wyckford. And when I saw Dodo in her new home, looking younger than ever, I knew there was a happily-ever-after story here.
I was permitted to take the helm for almost the whole trip. The day was perfect, the wind divine. And as I sailed into Narragansett Bay, I looked up at the beautiful sky and realized that whoever said you can’t go home again obviously never owned a boat.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
