More Photos Below!Gallery
We drove up to the Leelenaw Peninsula and Sutton’s Bay last week to see friends and to drop off some of Martha’s artwork at a couple galleries.
Man, there’s a lot of engaged folks up there. –Intentionally making the effort to be there and to contribute on a local scale to the localness.
Whenever we visit Sutton’s Bay I have to dive off the tall pier of the local dock into the deep blue bay. Dang, that’s refreshing. (But illegal—keep your eyes peeled!)
The Inland Sea Institute makes its home there but there are also quite a few nifty local boats. This place attracts them. And once they’re there, they attract me—I just gotta sniff ’em out.
It’s actually a very small marina and harbor. Maybe 50 total boats.
Of course beauty is in the eye. The background for my eye is that I prefer simplicity and reasonableness for people of moderation (say, trailerable). I also note that any boat in the hand is better than one that’s unreachable—if ya got it or have access to it, use it, and be happy. Even so, I have to give props to boats even when they’d be high maintenance or beyond reach. Still, if I saw one that was similar but pared down, I’d go for that instead. Saltier, t’would be. Like, brightwork is trouble—but plain teak—sigh. And lapstrake indicates craft—but plywood spells accessibility and thrift to mortals. And every additional foot-length of waterline about doubles the cost and overhead and halves the actual outings one would make…
As we drove around up there I even spied, be still my heart, the beached, rotting hulk of someone’s dream Junk, high on the Hill. It even had the high poop deck and the wide, square bow. But there was daylight showing thru. I think it was along M22 in or near the town of Arcadia, south of Benzonia. To see such a boat, even as a corpse, gives some nuts a stir.
Last year after Martha’s art fair there we went to a local beach and a Phil Bolger sharpie sailed on past. What a gorgeously quirky boxy type of boat that is! By the way, Bolger rocks. Here are some sites dedicated to his sensible, thrifty sailboats:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phil_Bolger
bolger.wikidot.com/bolger:mediumsailboats
(Actually, it’s hard finding an adequate website for this legendary designer. Odd situation.)
Anyway, while we were in town for an hour I snapped a few pics of boats that caught my eye…
A little high tech never hurt anyone. Looks like a fast, fun, useful Cat.
Can a bay and a dog take someone’s mind off of electronica? I think so…
Simple, compact, yet with some style.
Now that’s a bright black.
Cat boat.
One could give it all up for something like this. A scary thought. Boats are baaad.
Detail of Pilot Cutter.
I’m thinking this would be a gaff-rigged pilot cutter.
