Issue 15 : Nov/Dec 2000
Mystic, our C&C 30, is no youngster. I always say she’s a 1976, although I realize there is a discrepancy of a couple of years. I thought the hull was built in 1976, and she was completed in 1977. Instead, while writing her registration number for a customs inquiry on our vacation I realized, to my dismay, that she’s a 1975 completed in 1976. That’s like learning you’re really one year older than you thought you were. I had similar dark thoughts when I turned 50 not long ago.
I can freely use the word “old” when referring to our boat. She has needed and recently received a paint job, her ports have lost clarity and are due for replacement, her electrical system was set up for an era without electronics, and her interior is dated. I could draw similar parallels about myself, but I hesitate to go there. I’m not afraid of being 50, but I won’t bore you, gentle reader, with my symptoms of aging.
As I sat alone in the cockpit on our overnight passage across Lake Superior after clearing customs at Isle Royale, I thought of the sailor I met on the dock earlier that day. He had seen our magazine a couple of times, he confessed, although he couldn’t remember the name of it even after hearing us say it. I think it was even printed on my hat. “This Old Boat . . . Old Boats . . . something-or-other,” he stammered a couple of times when introducing us to a member of his crew. “Old” wasn’t a term he was comfortable using. Not his boat. Not now.
But his gently aging Catalina was manufactured in 1985. By our definition of “10 years old and older,” his boat qualifies for membership in our community of sailors. But not by his. When he bought his boat secondhand a few years ago, she was less than 10 years old. A few years have slipped by. There’s a bit more gray in his hair, too, but he hasn’t noticed the years. I’d say he’s in denial.
Some see this magazine or just hear the name on the Internet and sign up. They’re in, and they know it. Others choke on the word “old.” When and how did it happen they wonder. The interiors of their 10- to 15-year-old boats are not dated. Their electrical systems can accept a few more gee-whiz electronic additions. They don’t need to repaint. Not yet.
The rest of us have to be gentle, but firm, with these people. In us, they have a ready-made support group standing by to help them accept the inevitable. We’re even here for those whose boats are not yet of “good old” status, but rather on the threshold, say eight and nine years old. They need all of us, and we’ll be here when they realize they need the combined wisdom we all have been accumulating about maintaining and upgrading our gently aging craft.
As I said, when they need us, we’ll be here. But first they have to deal with reality: Good Old Boat means cruising sailboats 10 years old and older . . . and that includes their pride and joys also. Give them a copy of this magazine (or ask us to send them one, if you can’t part with yours). Tell them there’s information in there that may be of use to them. Tell them this isn’t about classics; it’s about your boat and mine, and all the other boats nearby on the dock. And it’s about all the big and little things we do to keep them sailing and enjoyable. Then tiptoe away while they mutter “old, old, good old,” quietly to themselves. When the emphasis shifts from “old” to “good,” they will have made the transition.
They’ll thank you for it.
Thank you to Sailrite Enterprises, Inc., for providing free access to back issues of Good Old Boat through intellectual property rights. Sailrite.com
