Summerville Journal Scene ®
Will it go?
I sure do hope it will.
This weekend is likely to be the weekend of “The Boat.”
About half a decade ago, the Hubster took possession of a fixer-upper sailboat. (It would be more correct to say that the boat took possession of him.)
His boat is a big boat by my standards compared to the lake-sized john boat from which I fished growing up.
People often ask my guy, “What kind of boat is your sailboat?”
And he replies, “It’s an old (really old) Tartan 30.”
And they inevitable respond, “Ahhh, that’s a great boat.”
Well, it might be, and probably someday it will be, but right now we’re in the holding our breath phase of the boat owning experience.
Because so far, the boat has been little more than a dockside cabin that requires a lot of work.
Over the years My Captain has purchased a new engine from the desert southwest, rebuilt the engine, installed the engine and hooked up about 500 miles of hoses and electrical wires. He has applied and sanded fiberglass.
He’s spent long Saturday’s of horsing around equipment, or crawling in the tight belly of the boat. Some nights he’s come home happy and pleased. Then there have been nights when he’s come home looking like he would gladly sink the thing where it floats and never look back.
He’s had a few false starts over the last few years – weeks when the end looked in sight, only to disappear in a mirage of issues that would take a few more months to resolve.
One of the reasons it’s taken forever to get this boat afloating is because, as it turns out, we have lives that don’t involve “The Boat.”
Little bits of life like work. And kids. And aging parents. And occasionally a little fun that doesn’t involve responsibility of any kind.
But this weekend, the weekend of the big boats sailing in from all over the world, is likely to be the weekend he will sail into the harbor on his boat. I will be with him. (Terrified the entire time, but with him, nevertheless.)
This really could be THE weekend.
According to him, there are only two more halyards to splice to shackles. I’ve been hearing about this for three weeks. I now know that a halyard (a seven-letter word) is a rope (which is a perfectly good four-letter word) and shackles are some kind of hardware that comes in different sizes and hooks the ropes to the boat. I think.
Anyway, when I go home tonight I expect to see my guy splicing a rope to a metal object because, according to him, he can do one of them at home. The other one will have to be completed on the boat.
When that gets done, he can start his engine, motor into the river, and make the sails go up.
I think we will both have conniption fits if that is not what happens no later than this Sunday and preferably on Saturday.
I sure do hope it goes. And that there is a little breeze somewhere to push our old boat along at least for a few minutes.
Contact Judy Watts at 873-9424 or jwatts@journalscene.com
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