Unbuilding a boat
(This is a good, sweet, but painful story—OYB readers are tough, tho, so you’ll be OK.)
(Reprinted from “Messing About in Boats,” the world’s best little boating magazine–$24/24 issues/yr (kicks my butt!), 29 Burley St., Wenham, MA 01984-1943.)
by John Smith
My dad, like many other dreamers of limited means, built himself a boat. Since this was done before I came along, you’ll find no references to the building of that boat in this article. That’s okay though, because there seems to be a limitless supply of articles concerning people building boats. One less from me shouldn’t make much difference.
I do remember the “Electron.” It was a 23′ cruising sloop.
While it was not exactly a sports car among sailboats, it was quite spacious inside, it was seaworthy, and it gave me many fond memories of sailing on Raritan Bay and Long Island Sound. However, there seems to be an abundance of articles on cruising, so I’ll not get into that either.
If every boat ever built was still with us, they probably wouldn’t all fit. The sad fact of life is that all boats eventually meet their demise.
This is the story of the rather unique demise of our beloved “Electron.” It is the saga of “Unbuilding a Boat.”
Although it wasn’t nearly as fashionable then, my dad was unemployed. He was having no luck finding work. The family fell on the expected hard times. The “Electron” cost money to keep even when we weren’t using her, because she was not a boat that one could bring home and keep in the back yard. That meant that wherever she was, she ran up a bill for just being there.
The immediate solution to this problem was to sell her. Numerous advertisements were placed. But nobody bought. I don’t think anyone ever “designed” the “Electron.” As fond as we were of her, no one else seemed to want her. And she kept running up bills
My parents then reached a painful decision. There was only one solution available; disassemble her.
Herein started our unusual family saga. While I went to high school every day, my parents went to the boat yard. Each evening they would come home with various parts of the “Electron” on the car’s roof rack, and I would help them stack it all relatively neatly in our back yard. We saved as many fastenings as we could. All the hardware was stored in the basement. We figured that if family finances improved, we would make rebuilding our boat as easy as possible. It was kind of like having a kit boat sitting there. Just waiting to be put together.
It would thrill me no end to write here that times got better, we put the “Electron” back together, and that my children are now enjoying the boat as l did when I was their age. However, we are dealing with real life. Finances and health soon made it apparent that the “Electron” was going to remain the various piles of lumber in our yard.
Another painful decision then faced the Smith family. Realizing that we’d never rebuild the boat, we decided to put its remains to the best use possible. We sold the lead. What used to be bunks are now basement shelves. Various other pieces were used to make work benches both in our basement and my grandpa’s garage. Much of our beloved sailboat lives on in many useful forms.
Lumber past what we could put to useful purposes we cut up and used for firewood. While there was an admitted sadness to this, we all agree that these fires were quite special. While the warmth of the flames filled the room warm memories of the “Electron” filled our hearts. We recalled the sea gull who landed on deck and stayed there for hours like he was our pet. We remembered…oh heck, this list could go on forever. Even running aground was a fond memory in front of the fire.
There is no more “Electron.” There are no more fires. But even our painful, practical decisions were tempered by a bit of sentiment. We kept the bowsprit. It remains mounted over the fireplace where so much of our boat was burned. This bowsprit does nothing to warm the room, but it sure warms our hearts.
Reprinted from “Messing About In Boats,” a small magazine for small boat buffs who are sick of the commercial abuse of their activity. It has a candid, non-commercial style that’s beloved by tuff old boaters everywhere, and respected and supported by the myriad members of the fascinating small boat trade. It’s published by Bob Hicks, longtime newsletter small-mag pro. $20 for 24 issues/one year, 32 pp., 29 Burley St., Wenham, MA 01984.
(650 words)
