bristol 24 liveaboard – Dinghy Dreams

The Antidote

by EmilyLiving Aboard October 12, 2016October 12, 2016Comments are Disabled

It’s mid September and I’m nearly a land based mammal once again. I don’t know how I’ve managed it–to become busy, nearly gainfully employed, riding my bike through the city streets, shopping at the expensive co-op.

But there’s an antidote. I still live on my boat. Exposed to the elements. Like the rolling swells of southerlies that still prevail, the dropping temperatures as the month passes by. The morning dew, the setting sun. Exchanging pleasantries with my harbor mates. Watching them come in late at night silently under sail.

My body tells me it’s time, or almost. The lake is starting to become too cold for bathing. My chest felt heavy this morning from the cold. My provisions of dried goods from the beginning of the season have nearly run out.

But I’m not ready to leave.

“I don’t want to go to shore, I don’t want to leave it. Shake my hair because I wana stay wet.” -Dive Shop, Paihia, NZ

Pirate Yacht Club

by EmilyLiving Aboard, Solo sailor girl September 7, 2016One Comment

What happens late at night inside the cabins of our boats is crew business. It never leaves the saloon. Just hangs there like a sort of poltergeist, the kind that inhabit boats. The good kind. The kind that keep you safe at sea, and pinch your bum when you’re being reckless. The kind that are your toughest critics, but biggest allies.

I can’t tell if I’m talking about the friends that have frequented my modest little yacht, or the soul that is modest little yacht. Maybe that’s all it is–the good sailors that come by. They fill my bilges with an invisible light that keep me afloat.

All I know is that when I find myself leaning into the mast at night watching the sunset, I feel something hugging me back. That I have one foot on land, one foot on the boat–and when I start to doubt myself, thinking I’ll never get my boat off this goddamn beautiful lake, a voice says to me, “Chin up, fuck that.”

The boat basin bros

by EmilyBristol 24, Living Aboard, Solo sailor girl July 28, 2016July 28, 20163 Comments

“Why do you say you’re not a good sailor?” Everyone asks me the same question.

“Because I’m not,” I say. But I think it’s more so no one expects anything of me. Like for me to live out their dream for them…

Met Jim, Catalina 27, as he was sailing off his mooring. Met him again at the dinghy dock, he gave me a ride to the laundromat and a cold beer. Introduced me to Canoe Jeff, who said I could stay on his mooring for as long as I want, the whole summer even. Met Rich, who helped me move to the mooring in a storm and gave me a ride to the hardware store to get supplies to install my new reefing hardware.

I’ve experienced the kindness of strangers in the sailing community time and time again, but it wasn’t quite like this place Every time I rowed my dinghy to shore there was someone new offering a hand, a piece of advice, a beer, or a word of encouragement.

It turns out Jim sent a mass text out to all of his sailing mates. It said, “Met a sailor today – Emily – been living aboard a 24′ tan boat (Cal?) since May 1. Anchored off Blodgett. Very humble. Currently only has jib. Repairing main. Adding reef points. Gave her a cold beer and lift to laundry. Worthy of support if you see her.”

I left the harbor with a swollen heart.

It takes a village

by EmilyBristol 24, Buying your first sailboat, Sailing on a budget May 29, 20163 Comments

“Coraggio,” my Italian friend said to me as he left. “Courage.”

My launch has been postponed as I wait for a part to arrive for my outboard engine that I’m not sure I know how to install. It’s my fault. I waited until the last minute to do an engine checkup because I have absolutely zero interest in that part of my boat. It’s beyond my realm of consciousness. Now it’s a holiday weekend and the part I need won’t be shipped until Tuesday, my scheduled launch date.

Sometimes I feel like I’m at camp or somewhere else magical you go as a kid. Running around at sunset from boat to boat celebrating the projects completed, and commiserating those that went wrong. Showing face at campfires. I know everyone. I’m starting to understand French. I sat on a friend’s boat with the best view in the yard, of all the masts and white hulls lined up in perfect order, and he taught me how to smoke a cigar.

When my engine actually started I was elated, but right away I noticed it wasn’t spitting water. Something was wrong with the intake (or is it the outtake)? Regardless, the cooling system on the engine was not working. A few minutes later I had a crowd of all my boatyard friends around the engine as we tried to diagnose the problem. We cheered in unison when it would start, and sighed together when it failed to expel water.

It takes a village to raise a sailor.

When I learned my engine would need a repair, and my launch would probably be postponed, my heart broke a little. I sat in a friend’s cockpit and cried my first tears of this journey. I felt like I’d put in so much work and that the boat and I were ready to launch, only to come face to face with a problem that my skills are too limited to fix.

The engine needs a new impeller. I’ve ordered the kit and spent a long time talking to my friend who is an airplane mechanic about how to make the installation myself when it arrives. He helped me to order the exact part online and gave me the formula for annual engine maintenance that I can do myself.

It will be mid-week when the part arrives, with few people around to help me–so I’m scared, but I think I might be starting to understand the iron beast that resides in my cockpit.

There’s a whole lotta lake out there

by EmilyBristol 24, Living Aboard May 24, 2016May 24, 2016One Comment

Now that my boat is just about ready to go in the water–I’m scared.

Sure, I’m excited, proud and looking forward to sailing this little boat I’ve literally bled on…but I’m fucking scared.

Maybe that’s just my way with sailing, though. Maybe I’m always going to be fucking scared. And maybe doing it anyway is what will make me brave.

Pocket full of food

by EmilyBristol 24, Living Aboard, Outfitting May 23, 2016May 23, 2016Comments are Disabled

I don’t know what’s fuller, my heart or my belly. All of the jobs to make my little boat “seaworthy” are done. All that’s left is some cosmetic work and I’m splashed. But I’m not ready to leave this little boatyard community.

My French neighbor, John, with the Pearson 35 that he’s sailed to the Bahamas and back with his wife Gaby, reckons if I were here all alone I’d have figured it out. I can’t help but feel though that I couldn’t have done it without him and all the others who have helped me and my little boat get this far.

I’ve always secretly resented people who “forget to eat.” If I meet up with a friend around dinner time and they say they’ve had a “big lunch” I seethe silently. But it’s been happening to me. I’ve been forgetting to eat. It’s so hot during the day and the boat’s such a mess that the thought of cooking something and having to clean it up deters me and then I get caught up doing something else. I’ve managed to get a stock of some quick and easy stuff to make in a pinch (avocado and tuna tortillas anyone)? and I’m in no way too broke or cheap to buy food–it’s just sort of been slipping my mind.

The onslaught of wonderful humans feeding me started with the waitress at the marina cafe refusing to let me pay for my lunch when we went out. A few days later her boyfriend helped me install my bilge pump, a four hour job over the course of two days, and then invited me back to dinner at their house. They sent me home with a plastic bag full of chicken breast in my pocket. Yesterday morning I was having coffee with Josie, another female solo sailor, when I ran into Renee who had bought me a bag of fruit. Just because. “I thought you could use some fruit.” I ate the mangos like a ravenous beast in my cockpit underneath the sun. It reminded me of the tropics. I can smell the melon ripening as it hangs in my food hammock beside sweet potatoes I’ve yet to cook.

Last night a huge storm came through. I could see it building on the lake, marching towards the boatyard. My starboard chainplate, which is what keeps my mast attached to the boat, was removed for a bulkhead repair I was working on. Then the storm hit. I had two halyards tied down supporting the mast, so it wasn’t going anywhere in theory, but the wind blew hard and my mast leaned to the side in a way I never want to see again. The sound of the mast leaning from inside the boat had me sure the whole thing was going to come down any second. But sounds are always amplified inside the boat. Fellow boatyard neighbors Michael and Peter saw my commotion and came to help. When the storm passed they invited me for wine and snacks. After a couple of glasses Peter said, “Come with us to the restaurant, I’ll buy you dinner. The least I could do for a fellow hungry sailor.”

Today while I was helping another sailor tighten down his stanchions, Renee said, “Are you hungry?” and gave me ribs, corn and potatoes he had leftover from lunch. Then he invited me to a picnic dinner with a few other sailors where we ate pizza and salad. Julie and Alex are going to be sailing their Beneteau to the Bahamas this year. Julie had just baked a cake in their galley. She wrapped a piece up in some tin foil and I put it in my pocket.

“Everybody will help you. Some people are very kind.” -Bob Dylan

The Weather Cock

by EmilyBristol 24, Buying your first sailboat, Sailing on a budget May 17, 2016May 17, 2016One Comment

I love my boat. I’m in love with this lifestyle. Tearing everything apart during the day, putting it back together every night and she’s a home again. It’ll be even better when we’re floating. Everyone thinks I’m the crazy American girl living on her boat. Lots of people stay on their boats here in the boatyard and the marina, but I’m the only one actually living aboard. I walk around saying “bounjour” to people I don’t know, and wear a little red scarf around my neck to show what a Francophile I am.

This morning I woke up to a knock on the hull from the waitress at the little cafe on site with a pack of cigarettes for me! “Yellow cigarettes for the yellow boat,” she said. We chatted on the boat for a bit and then she took me for a real tour of this one pony town. She’s originally from Seattle and we had a lot to talk about like the Pacific Northwest, our taste for dating older men, and traveling. She paid for lunch and when I tried to give her money she said “welcome to North Country.”

The tour wouldn’t be complete without a stop at the Weather Cock, the local watering hole. While there I told sea stories and basically won all the local’s over, once we got one question squared away. One of the guys asked it, after I told them my plans for the boat, but everyone was thinking it.

“So, what are you a trust fund kid or something?”

My new friend chimed in. “She bought her boat with the tips she made waitressing.”

She filled me in on all the gossip around the marina. Like how everyone thought my crew member, Gina, and I were lesbians, and how it was just assumed I was French Canadian because of my style. Both I took as compliments.

When we got back I invited her and her boyfriend for dinner onboard one night in the yard, and definitely a sail once I’m launched. Before leaving she told me how cool she thought it was that I have the self motivation and confidence to buy my own old sailboat, fix it up and go sailing. It was nice to hear from one of my peers.

My confidence and motivation comes in waves, but today was a good day. I finally figured out the roller furler, prepped for my chainplate repair, and got my new ground tackle all set up. While doing so, my boat neighbor, Claude, came over with a shackle that he insisted I keep, “just in case.”

Boatyard blues

by EmilyBristol 24, Sailing on a budget May 15, 2016May 15, 20163 Comments

I’m not usually nostalgic for a moment so quickly after it has passed, but I was almost immediately after we docked my new French-Canadian friend’s Pearson Ariel, after a rousing 20 knot first sail of the season. I knew he would be leaving soon to go back home for the week, and I’d be “alone” in the boatyard since I arrived six days ago.

I’d been admiring the boat since I got to the yard. Her beautiful lines and sturdy keel perched right behind mine. I’ve always wanted to sail a Pearson Ariel and have kept a keen eye for ones that come up for sale. Being aboard her, with a Quebecer as the captain nonetheless, I felt like I was in a scene from Jean Du Sud, the epic journey of Yves Gelinas around the world aboard an Alberg 30.

My friend’s boat, Vanupied, went to weather with a serious bone in her teeth as we heeled harder in the 25 knot gusts. I felt so safe as the boat and her captain, Oliver, took good care and we soared back to the marina at six knots. It’s a feeling I hope to have again when my own boat goes into the water.

Why do I love sailing? It’s not only the way it feels on the water, the challenges or satisfaction it brings–it’s the people. The community. Oliver gifted me a tin of tea that made an Atlantic Crossing with him a few months ago, vintage charts of Lake Champlain, a space heater that I have roaring right now. We drank coffees and wine and walked around the yard admiring the beautiful boats, sharing stories, playing music. Yes, there was lots of work in there, too. He introduced me to Marco who helped me finally complete the installation of my bow roller, and fabricate a stronger backing plate.

My crew member, and official first mate of this vessel, Gina, has proved deserving of the title as she picked me up from the bus station, loaded a dodgy wooden ladder (which she carried her 50 pound dog up every morning and night) on to the top of her car, then drove us to the boat and helped me every day cross some boat work off the ever growing list. She’s handier with tools than I am, makes me laugh until I can’t breathe, and I can tell she’ll be a better sailor than me one day. She returns in three short weeks and we take off sailing together around this magical lake.

With my friends now gone, reality has set in. I’m not ready. I have one big job down, but two more massive ones, and lots of little ones to go before I can launch. Both of those jobs require the help of someone more skilled and knowledgeable than I am. While it’s not been a problem so far, I’m still anxious about finding someone to help and getting everything completed.

After being a part of the launch of Oliver’s boat the jokes of “Oh, I’m not going sailing, I’m just going to live in the boatyard forever,” are starting to seem less funny. The boat’s surrounding me are all going into the water. Slowly but surely, one by one. The sailing season has begun. I better knock on wood. I want to come, too!

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