Why Further?

The rites have been performed, the gods appeased. The ceremony is complete. The boat is now mine. And her name is Further.

I actually declared her name when I announced my purchase back in November. But the cold weather prevented the local graphics folks here in Annapolis from doing the work until just this past Tuesday. And once they applied the actual vinyl, protocol demanded keeping the name under wraps until a proper renaming ceremony could be performed. That meant as soon as possible because I couldn’t take the boat out (and it has been warm enough lately that the cove and creek leading to Chesapeake Bay have finally thawed) until the old name was exorcised and the new one christened. That the weather forecast for today, four days later, was nice — sunny and high 50s — sealed the deal.

Then I posted a photo of the covered-over transom on Facebook in an announcement of the impending renaming and friends started speculating about what the new name might (or should) be. Some suggested silly names that had been internet memes (Boaty McBoatface…really?!) while many suggested something referencing my late dog, Spooner. One friend remembered my earlier declaration and asked about the name; the showman in me quickly deleted his comment to keep the speculation going.

But Further it is. And Further it shall be. Why?

Well, for starters, I’ve had the name in mind ever since I started daydreaming as a kid about my future boat. When I thought about what I might call her, I kept coming back to what I wanted my boat to do: transport me — physically, spiritually, intellectually — to new adventures, new worlds, new lives. I realized Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters had the same goal in mind when they named their psychedelically painted school bus “Further” and made that the bus’ destination sign.

Bob Weir of the Grateful Dead (house band for the Merry Pranksters’ Acid Test parties) sings:
“The bus come by and I got on, that’s when it all began
There was Cowboy Neal at the wheel of a bus to Never Ever Land.”
The song refers to Neal Cassady, legendary inspiration for Jack Kerouac and the Beats, now leading Bobby, the Dead and the Pranksters as they sought the next level of human consciousness. And they sought it on board Further. Well now I’ve found my bus and with her I hope to seek out MY next level, through the grace of Mother Ocean rather than any man-made drugs. (I can assure you: music will be a big part of the journey on Further, and a lot of that music will be Grateful Dead.)

As the Pranksters hoped LSD and their bus would do for them in the ‘60s, so I hope my Further will take me to faraway realms and bring me back safe and sound in the 21st century. And I hope you, my friends, will join me in the coming years in exploring this watery planet. I WILL need crew; I WILL need help. I can’t do it alone. Stay tuned for more details as they shake out, but stage one on the journey is to finish sorting out Further and get my sailing legs back while here on the Chesapeake. In May, we’ll return home to New England: I’ve reserved a mooring on the Merrimack River in Newburyport. I’ll go back to living at home on Plum Island and do a lot of daysails and short cruises in Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Maine (maybe even Nova Scotia). And then, next fall, well, you’ll just have to tune in and see. Or better yet, come along on the ride to Never Ever Land.

Note: Special thanks to Chris and the folks at Accent Graphics in Annapolis. I showed Chris a photo of the bus, Further, with its destination plate and he created the font for the graphic used on the boat, Further.

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Take To The Ship

Say hello to Further

The eyeglasses weren’t the only long-impending event to recently — finally — occur. To paraphrase Andy Samberg (caution: VERY explicit language): I own a mother@#$$#@ boat!

That’s right: After 35-plus years of dreaming, scheming, reading and gaining some small bit of experience, I finally grew enough of a pair to drop some serious coin and buy a sailboat. And my first reaction was, naturally: HO. LEE. $#*T!

The boat dream goes way back to my youth. I learned to sail at summer camp and then my family had a Hobie Cat I sailed off the beach at Plum Island during the summer. Too many surfing magazine stories about tropical idylls and too many Jimmy Buffett songs cemented the image in my head of a wind-borne escape to warm, turquoise waters with perfect waves and no crowds.

And I came close a couple of times to approaching the dream. When I came home after playing hockey in Europe, I had a little bit of money saved up and I found a 1950-something Hinckley yawl in South Carolina for sale in magazine (the World Wide Web had yet to be invented). I asked my mother for the ten grand to make up the difference and, knowing full well my dream, she immediately said no. Can’t say as I blame her but boy, what might have been…

Looking aft from the bow during the sea trial in early November

In the fall of 2011, after an amazing summer of crewing for my friends Boogie and Marlies in the WAY North Atlantic (there are tons of posts on that time contained herein; see the archives in the right-hand column), I began surfing boat listings online. Boat porn, as it’s called, became a serious addiction, but it almost paid off right away when I found not just one of the boats I’d dreamed of since I was 13, I found THE boat: the exact one I’d seen in photos and stories was available. I made an offer that was accepted, but upon doing a survey (an inspection), I learned that there were issues with the hydraulic centerboard. I pulled my offer and the yacht broker turned into a serious dick, yelling about how it was no big deal. Several months later, I was once again aboard a boat with Boogie and Marlies, this time in St. Maarten for the Heineken Regatta. As it turned out, we were in a slip in a marina next to the guy who had been the project manager on the aforementioned dream boat when that Rhode Island company had been going full-bore in the 1970s and ‘80s. I told him what the survey had revealed and he exploded (in classic Yankee style) that what the broker had suggested as a fix was “goddamned stupid” and that the broker “didn’t know what in the hell he was fucking saying.” So I felt like I’d dodged a bullet, but I was still kinda bummed.

I took this selfie while at the helm during the pre-purchase sea trial

I came close on a couple of boats in the summer of 2012 but never pulled the trigger. And when all the shit went down in October of that year — Mom’s sudden passing and Dad falling and breaking his hip — I wound up relieved that I didn’t have the additional burden of a boat. But I kept surfing the boat porn just in case.

And then this summer, there it was. A Dutch-built boat (hey…Boogie and Marlies are Dutch! It’s a sign!) was listed in Annapolis. It was a bit out of my price range but I kept my eye on it now and again because that brand of boat had a reputation as strong, solid, fast boats, and that’s what I wanted. But I couldn’t quite rationalize the expense the owner was asking.

Three weeks before the Annapolis Boat Show, which I would once again attend and help a friend of mine whose company has a booth at the show, the price dropped by almost 25 percent. I called the selling broker and saw the boat the day I arrived in Annapolis. It was nice and it was in good shape. And it was calling to me.

I called an Annapolis broker I’d worked with in 2012 and asked him to represent me — I didn’t want to go into such a deal without an advocate on my side of the table. A few offers and counters, a survey and a trial, and I closed on the boat two days ago on Friday, Nov. 17, 2017. And again I say: HO. LEE. $#*T!

The view forward

The boat is a Trintella 42. It is 42’3” long and is a sloop rig. It has two cabins — so that you married friends can come visit me and you’ll have your own, private cabin — as well as two heads (toilets, for those unfamiliar with the nomenclature), a nice galley (kitchen) and saloon (living room).

She is currently called Glory but I’m going to change her name to Further. Why? Well, further is where I want to go. And Further was the name of the bus Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters drove around for the acid tests in the ‘60s. The bus was their means for searching for higher truths and I’m hoping my Further will be the same for me — without the need for pharmaceutical assistance.

I moved Further yesterday to her new home at a funky marina way up at the head of a creek in Annapolis (my broker said of the owner of the place, “he’s a funkmeister.”) The place has a dozen or so slips, most occupied by folks who live aboard, and there’s a small bathroom/shower in a shed on shore. Wedged in at the head of the creek as we are, there are a lot of ducks and herons and trees and quiet. What there isn’t is glitz or glamour. I like it. I also like the cheap rates and walking access to Annapolis/Eastport lifestyle.

The current game plan is either: a) leave the boat here in Annapolis for the winter and either live aboard or make frequent trips down from Plum Island to work on the boat and get my boating legs back (I needed my broker’s help to move the boat yesterday; who am I kidding…he did the move I just helped); or b) get the boat ready to go ASAP and head down the Intracoastal Waterway to Florida and spend the winter getting my legs back there. This Thanksgiving week will be the time I make up my mind on that front.

Expect to see a lot of the posts hereabouts to involve this major step in my life. And it is just that: a major step. It’s not just a new toy. I’ve had two great dreams in my life: one, to live in Alaska; and two, to sail away. I accomplished the first. Now it’s time to (finally) go for the second. In fact, this second dream took root in my soul a few years before the first. And who knows? After my time in 2011 aboard a sailboat in places like northern Norway, Iceland and Greenland, it may just be that Further is my ticket to combine my two dreams. You may just see me sailing away to Alaska one day…

2 CommentsOcean Fun,

Stormy Weather

Sunday night’s wind blew sand off the beach and into the streets of Plum Island

In the fine tradition of big-ass North Atlantic storms around Halloween (see: the so-called “perfect storm” of 1991; hurricane Sandy, 2012), New England got hit by a doozy of a tempest this past Sunday night, Oct. 29. Spawned by the atmospheric marriage of the remains of tropical storm Phillipe and a cold front moving off the mid-Atlantic coast of the U.S., Sunday’s night storm brought ferocious winds and heavy rains to the northeastern part of the country — including my snug-and-cozy domicile on the quaint little sand dune known as Plum Island.

Oh, baby! Did it blow Sunday night! We had a storm back in March — a standard winter nor’easter — that delivered official winds as high as 77 mph and was as impressive as any I’d ever seen at Plum Island, but Sunday night’s storm was different. For starters, in this storm the wind came out of the east-southeast. That may not seem like a big deal but my home is aligned northeast-to-southwest, so the wider side of of the house bore the brunt of Sunday night’s winds. And those winds, while less than March’s winds — highest velocities were in the 60s — were sustained for several hours, prompting me to actually start to wonder if something major was going to happen to the house. I had fears of the solar panels getting yanked off and taking the roof with it, or the decks (which my brother is currently rebuilding) blowing down, or windows caving in, or…

Monday morning broke sunny and beautiful, but the ocean was a little worked up…

In the end, we had it pretty easy. The extent of the damage was limited to leaks on the windward side of the house and a bunch of shingles on the newly repaired roof being torn off. The former occurred in areas my brother and I had earlier this autumn identified as needing replacement so there was no surprise there, while the latter is covered by the manufacturer since they were just installed a month ago. So…no big deal. Hell, our electricity didn’t even blink.

But driving around the following evening (Monday being hockey night, after all), the damage was pretty amazing. Heading into Newburyport, the opposite side of the Merrimack River was eerily dark as Salisbury remained without power. And several other towns in Essex County were not only still dark but trees were down everywhere, several roads remained closed and crews were still at work clearing debris off power lines. Hockey went on as scheduled (whew!) but two days later there remains a lot of work to be done. Apparently, some 300,000 people in Massachusetts were without power for various lengths of time (some remain without power through Wednesday). Up in Maine, many places are also still without power. And there is plenty of damage to both property and forest throughout New England.

And another thought occurred to me as I lay awake Sunday night between 3 and 4 a.m. during the peak winds: our winds, while certainly fierce, were less than half what Barbuda, St. Martin, Dominica, the BVIs and Puerto Rico (and other places) endured during hurricanes Irma and Maria — and those places had those incomprehensible winds for the better part of a day, not just a few hours. (Our storm was moving at 50+ mph when it hit New England so it blew right through; those hurricanes took their damned sweet time as they obliterated those islands.) So while I was feeling humbled as I listened to the wind and felt the house shake, I knew I had it pretty damned easy. (And one other, somewhat related thought occurred to me also: the thought of being at sea in such winds — an uncommon though not rare event — was frightening. But that’s something I’ll have to worry about later.)

This photo was posted to Facebook on Monday. I wonder who that “lone loco surfer” could be? Hmm…

Of course, I did get to enjoy some benefits of the storm. The waves kicked up Sunday night were quite large on Monday — too large to venture into until Monday afternoon, and even then it was 100 percent ludicrous as the winds, now blowing westerly or offshore, were still steady in the high 30s, so the currents were crazy and getting into a wave was damned near impossible. But venture out I did, and I stayed for two whole waves before I pulled the chute. Tuesday saw much smaller but still fun longboard waves, which I enjoyed for a couple of chilly hours. The Atlantic is cooling down…

Just another autumn in New England.

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