Scraping off 22 years of fond memories
Issue 55 : Jul/Aug 2007
I had been waiting all winter for an excuse to spend some time with my boat. The ice in the Bay of Quinte had started to recede, and a trip over the bay bridge showed that most of the water had softened and had taken on the darker hue it wears all summer. I needed the exercise anyway. Five months’ worth of winter fat needed to come off. I could think of no better place to exercise than under R-Sequel, our 1984 Endeavour 35. She could stand to lose some weight as well. We had been dragging a 22-year accumulation of antifouling paint around Lake Ontario with us. The buildup of her accumulated annual treatments was starting to fall off in spots. The added weight was not a big problem. We never raced and frankly couldn’t care less if we cut a few hours off of our trips, but her spotty bottom looked bad.
When the crane lifted her out of the water last fall, patches of gelcoat showed through the lumpy blue mass. It was time to give her underside a little attention. I left my wife sleeping warm in our bed, loaded up the tools, and headed out on a nippy Saturday morning in March. The forecast called for a balmy 30° F. The southwesterly coming over the lake brought that down to 20.
I donned a white spacesuit over my winter woolies and started at it. I dragged my scraper over half of the boat in a few hours, with the old layers coming off easily. The simple repetitive labor gave me time to dream. With only the rasp of my blade on the gelcoat and the sound of my breath entering and exiting my face mask filters to accompany me, my mind wandered.
The chips of blue paint fell at my feet, a sad end to a product that had served our boat well. Thousands of miles had passed under R-Sequel’s keel and over this protective layer. The waters of Long Island Sound had been her home. Each piece of antifouling she shed today had a story to tell. She had pushed through the aqua blues of Sandy Hook. Rubbed a rock or two along the coast of Maine. This hull had battled with Hell Gate on numerous occasions. She had wintered in the Caribbean, tracing a path through the Intracoastal Waterway and crossing the Gulf Stream, bulldogging the chop created by the powerful current. Bits of the material now at my feet had left a trail of crumbs along the entire Eastern Seaboard.
New home
She had made her way to a new home in fresh water during the summer of 2005. Up the mighty Hudson, through the Erie Canal, and across Lake Ontario. A blue smear was left on the bottom of Schoolhouse Bay at Main Duck Island that summer. A few chips found a home on a rock in a little bay we visited at the Thousand Islands in the St. Lawrence River. For the most part, though, this paint had hung on for the ride. It had done its job for more than two decades and done it well.
It seemed to me that with each stroke I was removing a little piece of history. An important record of this vessel’s travels was being lost, falling to the ground only to be collected and disposed of. Between the atoms of this pile of flakes lay genetic material from all of the places she had been, places I hoped someday to visit again with her. On a microscopic level, R-Sequel carried the sands of most of the areas that define sailing in North America. From Halifax Harbor to Grenada, this paint had repelled the advances of trillions of organisms looking for a free ride. This constant battling has left it tired though. The tenacious grip it had on my hull had loosened over the years. The last few stubborn bits would succumb to the sander.
By spring when we splashed her, she was dressed in six barrier coats and a fresh sacrificial coat of blue. We changed her name at the same time (see Good Old Boat, March 2007). Topanga entered the water as a new entity . . . her memory erased, her scars healed, her youth restored. Perhaps she will repay our labor with years of good service. Perhaps, one day, another younger sailor will be repeating the job I did, creating a new canvas on which he will record his adventures with this lovely vessel.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
