What of the sailor tortured by a desire for something far simpler? Say, a small knock- about built fom a dozen planks, with a mast hardly more than twice his height.
and the boat a stranger to us, so it was with some concern we finally coaxed the Sandy Ford into coming about, but not be- fore getting a very good look at the Sabino’s stern. From there we took our first long tack across the river toward the western shore, crossing the buoyed channel before threading our way through a few small boats moored mid-river, including some brightly colored Beetle Cats we would later learn were part of the Seaport’s fleet. Tough initially disappointed we wouldn’t be slipping
south through Mystic’s beloved Bascule Bridge, or exploring the river’s quieter reaches to the north, we found the sailing lively enough. On the river ’s eas t side, a busy channel fa- vored by larger boats wove its way through some moorings. Else- where, squirrely winds and muddy shallows lay waiting to play with careless sailors. What with the seaport’s fleet of small craft, the Sa- bino, and the Seaport’s 20-foot catboat, the Breck Marshall, not to mention private powerboat traffic and people in kayaks, tenders, and canoes, as well as on paddleboards, the stretch of river we were told to stick to offered any number of hazards and challenges to make the hour pass quickly. When we returned to the pier aſter that first sail, all the
rubbed up against a new fender, let alone a splintered piling or an oily bulkhead, or suffered the indignity of an imperfectly driven screw. Of course, boats are meant to be sailed, and I’d bet most
of us couldn’t sail or build a boat without leaving a mark, or two or three, on it somewhere. Anchor lines chafe bows when boats tack on the hook, and jib sheets fresh from the drink trail harbor slop over toerails and cabin-tops. Te best boat shoes in- evitably scuff cockpits and decks. Shore-side grit carried aboard can mar the finest finish and old pilings bite into gelcoat and paint. Any boat that goes to sea is scarred or wears time’s patina. Looking at these amateur builds, free of any blemish or scratch, their running rigging look- ing brand new, I began to wonder if they’d ever been sailed, or ever would be. Perhaps they were destined to sit on display in their builders’ living rooms. With her dowdy paint
Sandy Ford under sail.
job and her scratched top- sides, the Sandy Ford would never win a prize among
other boats were out, or getting ready to go, and so we went to have a good look at the rest of the show, where I spent the better part of the afternoon climbing onboard small schooners and the like, dazzled by some of the most exquisite brightwork I’d ever seen. Making our way back toward the main exhibit area later, we took a short-cut across a small grassy field filled with trailersailers, most less than 20 feet, built by amateurs. As on the larger boats built by well-known yards, such as Gannon and Benjamin, perfection seemed the norm. I found myself wondering how these backyard builders did it, since I’ve never once cut a piece of wood that wasn’t off somehow. True, builders of small stitch and glue boats can easily mask errors with epoxy fillers, as first-time boatbuilder Lawrence Cheek admits in Te Year of the Boat: Beauty, Imperfection, and the Art of Doing it Yourself. But these boats betrayed no such tricks; even under close inspec- tion, the craſtsmanship proved top-notch. And the hulls, painstakingly polished, looked like they’d never so much as
SMALL CRAFT ADVISOR
this jeweled fleet. But the little cat plied the river day aſter day, in the hands of variously capable crew. She bumped into piers and pilings, and sometimes other boats, and dragged her cen- terboard through mud mined with old anchors, bottles, and stones. None the worse for any of it, her charm lay in doing well what she was built to do. Still, it was while sailing the Sandy Ford that first aſternoon
that I noticed the Fenwick, a rather dignified little flat bot- tomed vessel with her mast set in her bow. She had a proud stem and a varnished spray rail fastened to her white hull. Just forward of her mast, on a black sheer plank above the rail, was painted a little white burgee graced with a red Maltese cross. Tough the Fenwick was hardly bigger than a good sized row- boat, I thought it a proper little ship, fit to ferry admirals and royalty. When I found out Fenwick belonged to the Seaport’s fleet,
I resolved then and there to have a turn at Fenwick’s helm. But that first visit to the Seaport provided no such chance. Te Sea- port doesn’t allow visitors to reserve a boat ahead of time, and what with the vagaries of luck, any boat’s availability is some- thing of a lottery: Is this boat ready? Is that boat back? How long is the line? Te odds of securing any particular vessel are sketchy at best, and we leſt Mystic without sailing on Fenwick. Our second visit to Mystic was a weekend of light rain and
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