Category Archives: Wooden boats

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Boats and water

Photrablogger asked “Water water everywhere :DΒ I am curious to know about your connection with boats and canoes. Because you grew up playing in such an environment?”

My maternal grandparents bought land on a lake in Ontario in the 1930s and we were all imprinted like ducks…. went there many summers. I went this summer. My family moved but that was the place where I knew the rocks and the trees and the cabins. My family was in tents, so I am particularly attached to the land. I use the cabin but want to sleep in a tent and hear the water and the wind and the rain…..

I don’t know who took the photo: from 1963, I think, I was two.

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small pirate

In September at the Wooden Boat Festival I went down to look at the boats. There was a square rigger with a pirate. A 22 foot square rigger with the largest sail about the size of a baby blanket. After we had exchanged introductions, Captain Jack explained that his grandfather had built the square rigger to play with his grandchildren and he has restored it. It has an outboard in the middle, well, an inboard outboard so to speak. I asked how it sailed and he said, “Downwind.” I asked about hull speed and currents and he replied “AAARRRR, don’t talk to me about current.” A small child came by towing parents and he handed a pirate toy over from a big gold chest.
Then another small child came up. Very small with red hair. He gave her a pirate flag, which she waved. But she still looked at the boat. “You can come aboard,” he said. He told dad to bring her. Dad stepped aboard with her and Captain Jack put a black bandanna hat with a skull and crossbones on her. Then she saw the swords. Cutlasses made of foam! She reached for one. “Go ahead, you can have a sword fight with your father!” IMG_20150913_131056
She did, with me and mom laughing. “Would you like to take the wheel, matey?” said Captain Jack. She nodded. She and dad went back in the very small wheelhouse and she practiced steering the squarerigger. “Me boat has been shanghied, I’d better escape!” said Captain Jack, stepping ashore and leaving her and dad in full possession. The small pirate was very serious the whole time. This seemed to be new territory and she was concentrating on all of it.
Captain jack told me that he came to the festival last year and got invited back. He was very pleased and towed his boat from the inland lake. Hooray for Captain Jack and for all of the boat owners and contributors to the Wooden Boat Festival that encourage the children to be involved and Joey Pipia and all of the play pirates….

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Thank you for this

Oh Beloved

Oh thank you from my deepest being from all of me from every cell for this touch this kiss this day this cat this daughter this son this family this work this rose this farm box these vegetables tomatoes in my yard and deer outside the fence in town crossing at the crosswalk

the motor working the sailboat flying across the water my aunt laughing my uncle hanging the hammock up in the house the farmer’s market the panda trailer friends new bunnies who barely have fur and sniff at my alien scent in my hand teen bunnies who delight in celery patients and patience and enough

books a box from Wisconsin with a vintage suit fake fur collar and cuffs that unbutton and a woman in a wheelchair laughing when I show her the collar and cuffs and getting through another week and catching up on some of the paperwork a massage to look forward to music and song and a photograph of my father at 6 and my aunt at 3 and my great grandfather and great grandmother in about 1900, he was born in 1881 showing the photos to my daughter and my niece

physical delight that morning comes the wind in the sails of the boat hugs hands touching me and me touching the taste of the tomatoes blueberries a cream puff with whipped cream and strawberries soft cashmere yarn on sail in downtown and my daughter wants just the right hat knit of this yarn just so and it must not come down to her eyebrows we all laugh

loons mink crows raccoons deer a flock of cedar waxwings by the church who stop curious when I try to do their call cat fish frog nuthatches snapping turtle small bunnies

I am afraid to feel happy happy doesn’t stay I hold it away how can I be happy what disaster will strike next but little by little Oh Beloved I let the feeling rise and feel happy

Oh Beloved thank you for this and all

My photograph of common mergansers on Lake Matinenda, Ontario, Canada, 8/2015

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Sun Tui

Sun Tui, my father’s boat and now mine, is back in the water. Two weeks ago today. Another boat ran into her and broke a chain plate and bent a stay last summer, just when I was thinking of sailing. I had not sailed her in about three years at that point, because of my sister having end stage cancer, my father’s emphysema getting worse, both dying.

Sun Tui means wind/water machine, I’m told. She is a 23 foot sloop, with a nearly full keel. She has plywood sides, not planks. She was built by American Marine in Hong Kong in 1959. She has a sister ship in the San Francisco Maritime Museum, the Mermaid. The Mermaid has a different keel. The Mermaid was sailed from Japan to San Francisco by Kinichi Horie, who made the first known solo nonstop crossing of the Pacific in the Mermaid in 1962. He was promptly arrested, because he was 23 and it had not occurred to him to bring a passport. He is known as Japan’s most famous sailor and has sailed many more boats all over.

My father bought Sun Tui in 2002, for $1900.00. Her sides were rotting out. He had the Port Townsend Shipwright’s Co-op replace the sides with 17 layer plywood. He said proudly, “The plywood is guaranteed by Lloyd’s of London.” He had a new jib made and a mainsail cover and a full boat cover. Then we sailed quite a lot, mostly in Port Townsend Bay. My daughter says she hated it when she was little. My father always brought oreos and orange soda. We would sail for a few hours because the kids would start banging against the walls and anyhow, I always had more work.

We raced, too. We were classed with the Thunderbirds, which are faster. They are lighter and have less keel. The trade off is that if one were to go out on the Pacific, Sun Tui is more stable. We beat the Thunderbirds once because my father knew the tides and that there was a backswirl along the shore. The tide carried us along more quickly, even though it seemed out of the way.

Once my father was out with the small fleet for one of the races and it was foggy. They were waiting for the fog to lift. The ferry goes back and forth from Whidby Island and the sailboats huddled to one side of the bay or the other, so the ferry wouldn’t squash them. Many boats quit, but my father stubbornly stayed out until the fog lifted enough to race. They gave him a pennant for tenacity on that one.

Sun Tui has had three major overhauls since my father bought her. The picture is from 2010, after the second, being carried back to the water, mast not back in place yet. I’ve sailed her three times since she went back in the water, now. I miss my father, but I think of him when I sail.