Selling a Boat

Yesterday was a bittersweet day for me. I sold the dory I built – “Perseverance” – to a very nice guy in his early 50s from Santa Cruz. He has easy access to Santa Cruz harbor, and he told me he expects to use it twice a week.

I had built the boat in Annapolis and Chevy Chase MD over a period of two years using a “kit” of pre-cut parts and instructions from Chesapeake Light Craft of Annapolis, MD, I. At 17 feet by 56 inches, with its rich brown okoume plywood inners, cedar rails and blue outers, it’s still a very handsome open boat, and I’m proud of my work on it.

But, there’s no motor or place for a motor on “Perseverance,” so when the winds aren’t from the right quarter, getting back to the dock is all “human propulsion” – oars, plus shoulders, wrists, lower back and all those other parts you use when you row.

During my two years of work on it, I’d envisioned sailing and rowing it in the protected creeks and inlets off Chesapeake Bay. But in 2018, my wife and I decided to move to the San Francisco bay area so that we could help out with our grandchildren. Since arriving here four years ago, I’ve probably used it 15 times. That isn’t enough to justify the costs of storage. I’m 68 now. Time to let a younger set of shoulder and back muscles row it back to the dock.

I met the buyer at the Point San Pablo Yacht Club where I’ve kept the boat. A tall, rangy guy perhaps in his early 50s, he stepped nimbly over the puddle that had accumulated around my trailer and helped me remove the tarp and cover. The sky was featureless gray, the soaked flag by the clubhouse snapped rapidly in the wind, and more rain seemed imminent. With the tarp and cover off, he looked over “Perseverance,” checking the larger filets carefully and helping me bail out the rainwater that had once again worked its way underneath the tarp and cover. After a few minutes, he pronounced himself happy with the boat. “You’ve done a good job where it matters most,” he said, referring to the major filets – that is, the places where the major parts of the boat are joined with thickened epoxy. In our phone conversations, I’d learned that he’s a harbormaster, so his words meant a lot to me. He made his offer, which was only a few hundred below my asking price, and I accepted.

At this point, the wind began to fling rain at us like handfuls of tiny gravel. We laid the paperwork out in the back of his Prius, only slightly protected from the rain by the raised hatch of his Prius. He identified what had to be filled out and signed and we did that as quickly as possible. Cristina stayed in our Kia, counting the cash in the envelope he’d handed me. She and I drove back to my storage locker to fetch the rudder/tiller assembly and some other tackle he’d need. I handed him this gear and stood watching him stow it in the Prius. “So, that’s it” I thought. With the rain coming in fitful, wind-driven spasms, we shook hands and I told him again that I was glad to turn “Perseverance” over to someone who’d use it more often.

Then, I retreated to the dryness and warmth of the car and watched him tie the boat into position on the trailer’s two parallel bunks, his hair now dark and clinging wetly to his scalp. Cristina had started the seat warmer on the passenger seat. I needn’t point out that there’s no seat warmer on the dory.

As I watched him work with the line in the rain, I remembered the day the boat and trailer arrived in California on a car carrier from the east coast four years ago, also in the midst of a cold, pelting rain. I had met the driver in the Target parking lot in Albany by agreement. He had waited in the rain while I stared, stunned and appalled by the ugly scratches inflicted on the inside varnish by the oars during cross continental trip. We’d done our best to protect the boat when we prepared it for shipping, but we didn’t know how. In the four years since then, I’d relaxed my attitude, thankfully. “Perseverance” had arrived in the cold rain and was now departing in it.

So long, “Perseverance.” You’ve given me some strong threads of memories: the sudden, thrilling lift and tilt of you responding to the wind and finding your angle, the taut, reverberant singing of the wavelets against your bow, the gathering pressure of the tiller pole against my hand. These threads have braided themselves together into a stout line of memory, a line strong enough for binding together stories, even myth. I’ve no doubt you’ll do something similar in your next partnership with Harbormaster John. I’ll miss the look and feel of you – but not the task of bailing out cold rainwater.

Here are some pictures of Perseverance from some sunny day outings.