B


linded by love, I only saw what I wanted in her at


first. She was a Sea Shell, an eight-foot sailing pram of proud pedigree but uncertain provenance, built on the cheap in someone’s garage years before. It was the start of the summer of 1963, and I was a 13-year-old lad living near the beach in Ventura, California. She first caught my


eye on a classmate’s front lawn, bottom up on some saw horses with a rude sign taped to her transom: “For Sale $50”. I rode by her each afternoon on my paper route delivering The Star Free Press, and as I did, interest became intrigue and finally obsession. I began to imagine myself gliding though the marina in the afternoon sun, the envy of all fortunate enough to behold such a glorious sight. I just had to have her and asked the kid who owned the boat to meet me at his house the next day.


Our deal


consummated at the corner of Pierpont Boulevard and Weymouth Lane, just one block north of the beach where I spent most of my free time, and six blocks west of the new marina. As several other lads gathered round to observe this transaction of unusually high finance, I agreed to his price and handed him the cash. “Ha!”, he crowed instantly, dancing imp-like under my nose and waving the cash, “ I would have sold it to you for twenty five!”, then he ran off, whooping in elation at my naivety and his financial good fortune. In that moment he had exposed me for the fool I was in front of our all-important peer and I absolutely hated his guts. Still, the rest of the gang rallied behind me and helped me move the boat with its gear to my house a block away. My shame and anger soon burned themselves out, and the imp and I were buddies again by the end of the week. Saturday morning, in the privacy of


our patio, I conducted my first marine survey: (1) Hull, exterior plywood, off- white with pea green trim (not quite the “emerald and ivory” of my pre- 48° NORTH, SEPTEMBER 2011 PAGE 38


was The Derelict Dinghy and Me


Blinded by love, I only saw what I wanted in her at first. She was a Sea Shell, an eight-foot sailing pram of proud pedigree but uncertain provenance, built on the cheap in someone’s garage. I began to imagine myself gliding though the marina in the afternoon sun, the envy of all fortunate enough to behold such a glorious sight. I just had to have her.


By Tom Olsen


purchase perception), sound except for some delamination on the floor near the bow (clearly not quite up to Lloyds’ of London specifications); (2) Sail, sleeved, home-made of baby-blue cotton, (a bed sheet, really); (3) Mast and Boom, 2 x 2 of dark oiled fir, slightly tapered at the ends (looking a little more salty now!); (4) Rudder, a flat slab of ¾ inch plywood roughly 1 by 3 feet and matching pea green, (the weathered bronze pintels and gudgeons looking salty as hell!); (5) Dagger board, a 30 pound rectangle of sheet steel with a welded cap to keep it from sliding straight through the trunk to the seabed; (6) Running Rigging, one main sheet (a hoary piece of hemp run through two small galvanized blocks on the boom). As I slowly absorbed these new facts, I reluctantly came to the conclusion that she needed a little work and resolved then and there to raise her from the gutter and turn her into the proper lady I knew her to be.


I hadn’t seen any other boats with


blue sails and very much wanted to be a conforming member of my new nautical fraternity, so I decided the first step in her rehabilitation would be to give her a white sail. I found a plastic pail and a bottle of Clorox in the utility room. I poured in the bleach soaking the sail and was gratified to see it turn white almost instantly; her first improvement couldn’t be progressing more smoothly. I spread the sail out on the patio to dry and planned for our shakedown cruise the next morning, Saturday. My parents, brothers and sister


were with me at the marina’s launching ramp to witness the grand event and helped me get her into the water. Thumbing my way through the Red Cross sailing manual, I slowly rigged her: daggerboard in the trunk, rudder hung off the transom with the tiller under the traveler, mast inserted into the sleeve of the mainsail and stepped at the bow, the tack and clew of the


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