In 1970 we headed east with the well-worn tent of camping years to look at boats. For me it was an exciting adventure. Never before had I been on a sailing vessel large enough to have an ‘indoors’. Our son Jon, 16, and also in my league, joined us on the trip.
In Halifax we visited a boat designer who specializes in sailboats having a romantic, old-world, ‘Mutiny on the Bounty’ appearance. They were thrilling to see! Ken stated he hoped to convince the designer to sell us the plans so he, Ken, could build one back home, saving expenses. It was then I put my foot down! I sit on furniture he builds, I’ve lived under roofs he constructed, I swam in the pool he helped build, I even sipped the wine he made! But when it comes to putting out to sea – I want to be on board a vessel with, at least, the hull built by a ‘tried and true’ professional. Being a wide-eyed landlubber type, one thought kept going through my head: living on a boat, what if your basement leaks!
Later that summer we detoured from my nephew’s wedding in Richland, WA, to Vancouver, BC, to see ferro-cement boats being built. These two trips left us with heightened anticipation, but with a new course of action: having determined our most feasible plan would be to explore the market of ‘Previously owned vessels’, we began poring over ads in yachting magazines. Soon the incoming mail was filled with brochures, and phone calls came regularly from East Coast brokers trying to help ‘that Iowan with a dream’.
It was interesting reading brochures. Ken had many preferences and ‘musts’ on his want-list. But I was still so rooted in housekeeping, and in civic work in Dubuque, that my list was merely for comforts of home. My first ‘must’ was a limit on ceilings. Ken was 6’2″, and while he might bend on an occasional cruise, living aboard would be different. Then, as my nautical vocabulary grew, some old cliches came to have new meaning. ‘A man with two heads’ may sound weird, but ‘two heads are better than one’ makes sound sense when the word ‘head’ in nautical language, means ‘toilet’.
As better buys disappeared from the market, Ken decided it was time to go check some out. This had a twofold purpose: I needed to learn more, and it is more advantageous to shop on the scene. One idea was to find a Baltic Schooner. If she had an empty hold he could construct more rooms and built-ins. This was fine with me. Even a gutted boat would be acceptable if she had a sound, professionally built hull. We decided two nice requirements would be that there be room to take our piano and Ken’s wine cellar.
Arriving on the East Coast, we window-shopped our way down to Cape May, NJ, took the ferry to Lewes, Del., and drove to Annapolis. Although completely enchanted by old buildings and charming cafes near City Dock, we began visiting yacht brokers, ever mindful of our mission.