The Builder Chapter 8
It has been a while since I started this series and I haven’t written about it for some time, so I need to get in at least one more story. Dad finished building the mast and boom sometime the following spring in 1973. He then made the rigging and stood the mast up. It was probably summer before he was able to sail it for the first time.
As I said in a former post, Dad was a dreamer. Part of his reason for building this boat was to cruise. Dad wanted to sail this boat to Florida, then around Florida and up the east coast. He had read of some folks who had sailed or motored up the Hudson River, through the Erie Canal to the Great lakes, then into the Mississippi and down to New Orleans, and he wanted to do that. That is a pretty ambitious agenda and he talked about it often during the building process. I knew what he wanted to do and I think Mom knew as well, but she didn’t think he was serious. Sailing halfway around the United States was not on her list of things to do in retirement. She had grandbabies to spoil and she wanted to travel, but not in a 30 foot sailboat that would be subject to the wind, waves and other weather that may come along.
Somehow Dad convinced her that they could do it and eventually they loaded the boat with all the stuff they would need. The trip would last more than a year, but I don’t think that fact had sunk in yet. They set sail intending to navigate the Intracoastal Waterway from the house to Florida. They stopped in Galveston for a night, but as they traveled eastward they discovered that the canal was a lonely place. There were few places to stop for fuel or supplies, it was hot and sticky, and the ever present mosquitoes that could not be escaped made life miserable. They made it halfway to Baton Rouge when they decided to turn back and return home. After reading one of Mom’s old diaries, we learned that Dad may have hurt his leg somewhere along the way and that may have been the reason. Dad still harbored the dream but Mom wanted no part of it. I think he always regretted not continuing but he didn’t, and would never, attempt to make that trip again.
They did sail along the canal as far as Baffin Bay, south of Corpus Christi, and frequently went day sailing in the bays. Sometimes they would be gone for a month or more but were never more than a week away from the house. Mom didn’t mind that kind of trip so they went every year or so.
One year, I don’t remember when exactly, we were down for a few days and my son Cory came down. He wanted to go sailing so Dad took us out in the bay on the boat. We had been sailing for an hour or so making good time to the southwest. We had a nice breeze and the boat was heeled slightly which was her best way to sail. Cory had been up on the bow and as he came back to the cockpit, he called out to Dad saying, “Should this hole be here?” Dad jumped up to look and there was a large hole in the deck where the shrouds that hold the mast up were located. The plates to which the shrouds connect had come loose and I think there was some dry rot around them. We were in danger of losing the mast overboard. We quickly came about on the other tack, which removed the strain on the rigging, and then doused the sails. We rigged a temporary line to support the mast and began the long motor trip back to the house. The boat was much faster under sail than it was under motor, so the trip took quite a while. Eventually Dad repaired the damage and he and Mom sailed the boat quite often until it rubbed on the oyster shell near the dock and damaged the bottom. Dad wanted to pull it out of the water and repair the bottom but he never did get it done. It sat there on bottom for several years before we finally burned it about 2 or 3 years ago. The boat is history now, but we do have pictures and lots of great memories of the wonderful days we sailed on it.
The hole in the deck where the shroud attached
That pretty well brings the story of the builder to a close. I can never say enough about my Dad. He was honest, he was faithful. He loved my Mom and it showed. He taught us how to live and how to serve. He taught how to work hard and live on what you had. I was privileged to work with him for 7 years as I started my career. I will never forget the things he taught me.
In his final years he had Alzheimer’s and he had trouble remembering things. He could remember stories from his youth and he told them over and over. He could not remember that he just finished the story and he would tell it again. I wish I had written them down because now I cannot remember the stories at all.
