LEGACY: Noun. A thing handed down by a predecessor.
Those of us in more southern latitudes are fortunate to witness the twice-yearly nautical migration during which we ogle and “ahhh” at all those expensive yachts bound for their poolside berths in Fort Lauderdale or Palm Beach. But in between those million-dollar babies are countless smaller craft, many of which have made much more epic sojourns than a seasonal cruise “down the ditch.” The bigger yachts are regularly featured in all the glossy boating rags and we’re kept well appraised of their refits and movements from exclusive anchorages to charitable rendezvous. But do we ever stop to wonder where those older and smaller craft have been? What they’ve gone through, not just on this trip but ever since they rolled out the factory doors or slid down the launching ramp? What seas have their hulls endured, to what high pitch has a gale’s song been played in their rigging, what magic moments at some secluded anchorage have their cockpits been host to?
Down at the marinas, we meet the traveling owners and find out where they’re going, sometimes where they have been. A lot of the stories sound the same and one can grow bored hearing about poorly placed channel markers and bottoms that won’t hold an anchor. Then it occurs to me. What if the boats could talk? What if they could tell their own tales? Would the smaller boats speak of being loved, cared and sacrificed for like a family member, or of periods of abandonment and neglect? Would the big ones lament over seldom being taken out to the blue waters for which they were built, and of being bought and sold like some seafaring concubine every time the owner just got bored or the economy swings downward? Doubtless, they’d all shudder talking about the master whose cure-all repair was a curse and a kick, and then lie easy reminiscing about the caring owner who never so much as steered the hull over a shallow sand bar.
Half my lifetime ago, during my early days of living in Charleston, S.C., after extricating myself from an intolerable live-in relationship, I fulfilled my lifelong ambition of becoming a single “liveaboard”, and thus took up residence on LEGACY, a hearty and comfortably rigged 1978 30’ Cape Dory sailboat. She was owned by Captain Charlie who worked at a local chandlery and who, in the months to come, was going to be too busy to use her enough to justify the monthly payments, dockage, insurance, etc. Oh, and his impending divorce. So, for 2-½ years, I treated her like my own, performed basic maintenance chores and, for all the drawbacks of life aboard a vessel with about 20 square feet of below deck living space, will always consider it one of the best and most fulfilling periods of my life. I was ensconced in a small somewhat rundown marina nestled in the northwest side of town with only water and electricity. No cable, the “Innerweb” didn’t even exist yet and cell phones were just coming on the scene so when I needed make a phone call, I’d call my SeaTow buddy on the VHF and he’d place a call for me and relay the details over the radio. Funny how many times a bunch of friends showed up at the bar at which I’d planned on meeting just my one pal.
I had a crab trap hanging off the bow; clamped to the stern rail was a Force 10 grille that could cook up a thick steak in mere minutes; and a jug of straw-wrapped Chianti always at the ready and any gal I brought aboard didn’t stand a chance. I was a Sea Stud.
In all my time aboard, I never took her out of the slip, but I always knew by the solid feel of the cabin sole and the thoughtfulness of the rigging that tugging at the dock lines was merely her way of tossing and turning during a long nap between voyages.
One afternoon a few years later after Charlie was properly back aboard, I ran into him while poking around down at the same quaint marina where I’d spent those 30 months on LEGACY, watching porpoises and egrets against a backdrop of splendid sunsets. He invited me aboard for a beer and we plopped down in that oh-so-familiar cockpit to catch up with one another. Like all good boatmen, Charlie was now considering a new boat: a trawler style, big enough for both him and his new lady to live on. This trawler could be gotten pretty cheap, he explained, but of course needed lots of work. No problem for Charlie since, as the conversation taught me, he had pretty much rebuilt LEGACY from an empty shell.
Charlie had come across her at a brokers dock up in Myrtle Beach. She was owned by a car dealer who bought her for some unexplained reason. The owner before that had taken her across the Atlantic several times but after the strains of such rigorous use, he then laid her up for some extensive refitting. He took ill during that time and the boat ended up being auctioned. The car dealer stripped her rigging and major systems and started in with some unrealistically horrid plans for her interior. He soon lost interest and there she sat for nearly two years, in a state somewhere between abandonment and desecration; a widow who was never really married; a willing and faithful mistress never appreciated before being cast aside. By the time Charlie bought her, she was a “major project.” Fortunately for LEGACY, Charlie was a proper suitor and it wasn’t long before she was sailing again – rigged as a real passage maker and ocean-going home – a nautical Cinderella story. But LEGACY’s history was hardly unique. It happens thousands of times in boatyards the world around,
How often, if ever, do any of us listen to the whispers of all those great boats around our docks? Do we ever stop to consider the journeys that got them there? How often do we assume that the bright teak was always so; that the pitting on the anchor chock began the day she was launched? The stories would be endless if they could be told at all.
I’ll always remember the first time I met Captain Charlie. I’d put out the word around the docks that I was looking for a boat to rent to liveaboard, and a mutual friend called me (I had an office with a phone) with his phone number and we agreed to meet down on LEGACY later that evening. After my nickel tour of the boat, and allowing him just enough time to develop a gut feeling about me, I asked a few simple questions: “What’s it like sleeping on her? Is the berth comfortable? Does she groan or clank or creak or rattle or make any noises in the still of night?”
Charlie was looking down at the beer in his lap. He looked up at me over the frames of his sunglasses and with a bit of sparkle in his smile simply said, “Oh, she’ll talk to you, alright.” I couldn’t write him a deposit check fast enough.
Long recalled will those late-night conversations with LEGACY always be for me. I’m known by most to be quite talkative, but onboard LEGACY I was never so attentive and happy just to listen, even when little was being said. For a gal who’d come so far and through so much with some sordid tales to tell, through it all, she remained every bit a very proper and modest lay.