We have spent most of the summer months (if you count May as a summer month, which I insist on doing just to make summer seem longer) getting my little boat ready to launch in the ocean.
This boat has become a symbol of this journey I'm on...
Back in 2012, newly post-divorce, I bought her (with a monthly payment plan, no less) from a wonderful family a few towns away who had grown out of her size and capabilities.
She is smaller than any other sail boat I had spent time on, or owned, and I was in a mental place where I wanted to push myself into new ways of being. I had always taken on very specific (and limited) roles on board sail-boats in the past - whether I was working as a deck hand crossing the Atlantic, or a watch leader on a sail training boat off the coast of Australia...I was always on much bigger boats, with specific tasks and felt comfortable no matter where we traveled because the ultimate responsibility was someone else's.
This boat would teach me more about SAILING and OWNERSHIP, I decided. I would do this one ON MY OWN (OMO), and by doing so I was sure I would have so much more satisfaction...
So that summer I got her out on the water as often as I could - and with the help of a bunch of friends (you all know who you are), we sailed evenings and weekends out on Penobscot Bay. I have amazing memories of sailing out and back, up and down, sometimes around and around... and then at the end of the season I put her on her trailer (she is trailerable, with a centerboard - a brilliant design) and stored her for the winter in my yard.
Over the next 4 years there were many changes - I moved house many times, I fell in love and adventured in Maine and beyond with my now-husband, we bought and renovated a house together, we got married on a hilltop... and the boat sat patiently on her trailer, in the various yards around the midcoast, waiting...
On a winter evening in March we looked out into the yard at the trailer and the boat - covered in a foot of snow - and agreed "it's time"...
It was TIME to get her OUT OF THE YARD and ONTO THE SALT WATER! And we wanted to do it as a project TOGETHER.
Without boring you with all the details of the various milestones (trailer repair, float test, stripping the wood, cleaning the mold, finding a new outboard, testing the hull, pre-rigging the mast, finding mouse holes in the sails...), it's taken us 3 months of fairly consistent trial and error... until...
WOOOOOHOOOOOOO!!!!
The motor worked, the sails filled (the winds were perfect!) and we ate a simple meal while under way. The silky water pulsed by as we moved at about 3 knots... and the peaceful sense we got from being out - away from the madness of our (and especially this) week - was worth it all.
Have I learned a lot about sailing a small boat? Not yet. (Stay tuned...)
About Ownership? You bet.
We learn a lot about ourselves when the stress levels are high, and we learn a lot about our partners... Important questions like: are you a listener; Long-Grain or Hannaford Sushi; how do you respond under pressure; how patient are you; cookies or ice-cream...; GOT or HikeTheHill?
It's a lot of work.
The benefits far outweigh the costs.
The journey is only half the fun.
;)...
And...
So much for OMO.