by Sarah Scott
A BETTER BOAT FOR
DREAM CHASING
I
t was April when I consciously admitted it: I’d made a mistake buying that old Rawson 30 I called Tortuga. It would be 10 years before I could set off to circumnavigate the globe solo in that piece of work (a dream I began writing about for 48° North in December 2018). It had so many problems, including its shot engine that needed total replacement, which looked particularly dire with the jagged rusty aluminum of a partially cut-out fuel tank towering beside it. I’d done hundreds of hours of work on that boat, and I’d have to do several thousand more before she could be trusted in heavy weather. And here I was, puttering away, snatching two to three hours per week to paint the cabin white with red accents. I
48º NORTH
was taking a break from structural work, like re-coring decks, to do an aesthetics-based “peace of mind” project. The wood was in such terrible shape it harmed my state of mind just to glance at all the carelessly drilled holes, the lack of corner edging to separate the bulkhead from the adhesivecaked fiberglass where its moldy vinyl wall coating had been partially ripped off. There was a stark line of discoloration along the bottom of the settee and companionway stairs, indicating the boat had once flooded. Most of all, I was sick of driving several five gallon buckets of stinky, greasy water to the hazmat station every time the four massive, inaccessible, potholed cement bilges filled with rain
36
FEBRUARY 2021
