Seated in their offices, we were surrounded by volumes filled with information on boats of all descriptions. The 2nd afternoon one of the brokers announced he knew just the boat for us, but there was a question about it’s availability. Curious to see his interpretation of our dream, we asked to see her brochure. The description was, indeed, interesting! Suddenly, we both shrieked simultaneously, There, right in print, it was stated that this vessel has a wine cellar and a built-in teak piano! “Just what we always wanted!”
From the overall description, Ken decided he had to see her, unobtainable though she might be. A buyer had been given until the end of April to complete purchase, but scuttlebutt said the deal was shaky. There was a chance she would be on the market again. With time for one more side trip, Ken turned the car toward Gloucester Point, VA, in pursuit of this latest adventure.
It was early evening when signs led the way to ‘York River Yacht Haven’. Around the last bend in the road was a sight that is always breathtaking: a harbor filled with masts pointing the direction to the heavens. Out at the end of the longest dock, in the middle of Sarah’s Creek, sat the “Pious Puffin”. Her bright red masts, looming toward the sky, seemed to beckon, luring us out to view her old-world splendors. She was a sight to behold!
Understandably, she didn’t fit the mental picture we had of ‘our boat’, at all. It is difficult to imagine how anyone dreamed up the first of the boats from which she was copied. On the brochure she was listed as a Boyer ketch. This means she was patterned after a Dutch canal boat named a Boyer, ketch-rigged, but she was built to be a pleasure craft.
Of steel construction, her dimensions: 75′ on deck, 65’7″ at the waterline, which is where you live. Her beam is 18’4″, her draft is 7’2″. With her bowsprit she is listed at 80.6″ overall, but this does not include her huge carved rudder which is typical of Boyers. Consequently, when seeking dockage pulling into port, she is rated at closer to 90′-100′.
Because of her rounded bow and stern the Puffin has been described by a friend as looking like a great steel bathtub. Ken says she resembles a potato on the half shell. And the man who named her was reminded of a devout looking bird floating on water, for a Puffin is an Atlantic sea parrot. That same rounded bow and stern mean more space below decks, though, so for us they enhanced her beauty.
Canal boats in Holland are homes to Dutch captains’ families, and are used for fishing and for transporting cargo. The bulkheads are decorated with wood carvings and with stained glass windows. The Pious Puffin is no exception. She has leaded glass windows in the bulkhead separating the cockpit from the saloon. Although we were on the wrong side of the windows to get the full effect from daylight, shapes of Dutch sailing ships were visible in the designs. Teak carvings grace her bow, her gigantic rudder, and the cockpit, with many puffins among them.
All efforts that night to reach the owners had failed. So, the next morning, after knocking loudly, we tried to content ourselves by peeking in windows and down hatches before journeying back to Iowa and to reality.
Miles and hours flew by on that return trip. Thoughts and talk all centered around our plans, with the Pious Puffin floating firmly in the midst of them. Of all the boats we’d seen and read of, she was the most! Not really wishing anyone bad luck, we hoped she would, as predicted, become available for purchase.