Opening the door to a new paradise
Issue 94 : Jan/Feb 2014
You don’t have to cross oceans to enjoy sailing and you don’t have to sail around the world to have grand adventures. As my husband, Dave, puts it, “I can scare the crap out of myself in an 8-foot dinghy in 4 feet of water 100 feet from shore.”
Somewhere in the world of sailing, the joy of small boats has been overlooked. To be a “real” sailor anymore, it seems you need a bigger boat than you can handle, more gadgets than you need, and an itinerary that leaves no room for spontaneity or fun.
When we set off as vagabond sailors, we sailed a 34-foot Creekmore. With her full keel, powerful rig, and solid hull, she is a go-anywhere boat. And go we did. After more than a decade of bluewater sailing and wandering from island to island, we sailed back to Florida. We dropped off our youngest son on his mother continent, scanned the horizon, and thought, “Now what?” That’s when Walküre found us.
We weren’t really looking for a different boat, just a different adventure. But when we saw Walküre for sale in the local boatyard, we realized that she was exactly what we needed. Our new adventure would be defined by the capabilities of the newest addition to our fleet. When we bought Walküre, we bought into a new kind of sailing dream.
A Bolger AS-29 (AS stands for Advanced Sharpie), Walküre is not what comes to mind as a cruising boat if what you have in mind is conventional cruising. I understand the lure of clear water and secluded palm-fringed beaches. But, after a while, even paradise starts to show its faults. Now that we were back in the home country, what we dreamed of was gunkholing in shallow water. We were ready to appreciate the kind of anchorages we previously sailed right by because of Eurisko’s 5-foot 6-inch draft. Another kind of boat entirely, Walküre draws 13 inches and — with masts that we can step ourselves in minutes — she fits under any bridge higher than 8 feet. Suddenly, the parts of the East Coast we had missed started to sound exciting. We looked at charts with new eyes. Every few minutes Dave would say, “We can go here. And here.” Florida Bay, the Great Dismal Swamp, North Carolina’s Outer Banks, and the Delmarva Peninsula are all accessible for us to explore as we never could before.
Although we haven’t changed at all, I’ve noticed a change in how people talk to us and look at us now that we are sailing Walküre. We aren’t seen as “real” sailors anymore. “Well, you certainly can’t cross oceans in that thing,” some say. Maybe not. But we can go to deserted islands and up small creeks to towns that haven’t been overrun by cruisers, and we can put her on a trailer and sail almost any lake in the country. That doesn’t earn us the respect that our bluewater Eurisko used to, but we’re OK with that. We know that for what we want to do, Walküre is perfect. To us, having the right boat for the job is more important than being “real” sailors. Aboard Walküre we’re learning that being in too big of a hurry to sail away means you might be sailing right past a different kind of paradise.
Connie McBride and her husband, Dave, have been cruising for 12 years. They are still sailing the right boat, whichever one that may be. You can read about their adventures at 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
