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FINDING PAX
“Boats reflect the soul and character of the people who build them, maintain them, restore them, and sail them. The story is a fascinating glimpse into the mysterious forces that continue to draw us back to boats and the sea…a fascinating and highly readable addition to maritime literature.” —Ross Anderson, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, Seattle Times
“A love affair, a quest, and adventure—that is what happened when a woman broke her promise and bought a wooden boat.” —Lin Pardey, author of Storm Tactics Handbook
“The story reads like a reflective and literate diary crossed with a mystery.” —Lawrence W. Cheek, author, The Year of the Boat
“…As she follows faint traces and obscure clues of her boat’s story, more worlds open—the waterfront culture of Sausalito, the self-reliance of British Columbia’s islanders, and finally the sailing communities of Denmark. Her book is nothing less than a love story for a wooden boat.” —Tom Jackson, senior editor, WoodenBoat
FINDING PAX One Woman's Journey for the Love of Her Wooden Boat
KACI
CRONKHITE
ADLARD COLES Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK BLOOMSBURY, ADLARD COLES and the Adlard Coles logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2018 Copyright Š Kaci Cronkhite, 2018 Kaci Cronkhite has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and ÂPatents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloguing-in-Publication data has been applied for ISBN: TPB: 978-1-4729-5860-0; ePub: 978-1-4729-5859-4; ePDF: 978-1-4729-5858-7 Typeset in Minion Pro by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India Bloomsbury Publishing Plc makes every effort to ensure that the papers used in the manufacture of our books are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in well-managed forests. Our manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. To find out more about our authors and books visit www.bloomsbury.com and sign up for our newsletters
Dedicated to the memory of my grandmother, Lillian Clark Cronkhite, and her son, my father, Kelly Cronkhite, for their love and legacy.
CONTENTS
Introduction
1
PART I: ARRIVING 1 Out of the Blue 2 The Best and Worst of Days
9 21
PART II: OWNING 3 Launched 4 Mine
37 49
PART III: SEARCHING 5 Accept the Things You Cannot Change 6 What Needs No Translation 7 The Mystery Woman
67 77 89
PART IV: FINDING 8 Do What You Can Do 101 9 Finding Firecrest 113 10 Weathering West Coast Storms 125 11 Finding Tonica 137 PART V: RETURNING 12 History, Her Story, Our Story 13 The Note You Return To 14 Remember
147 159 167
C O N TENTS
Epilogues 173 Appendices About Pax Technical Specifications 183 Owners of Pax 185 Map of 1937 Journey 186 Tonica’s Voyage 187 About Spidsgatters 191 Additional Resources 194 Searching for Your Boat’s History 197 Acknowledgments 203 About the Author 209
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The author, age 2, on her first horse at the ranch in Oklahoma.
INTRODUCTION
P
AX IS THE NAME of a small wooden boat, built in Denmark in 1936, that was the catalyst for this story. The boat appeared when I didn’t expect or, frankly, need her. My bucket list was empty. Life was full. If you don’t already know, boats are traditionally feminine. In her case, it didn’t take an expert to understand why. She was voluptuous. Wide and full in volume, buxom fore and aft, she was all about the curves. Technically, Pax is a “spidsgatter,” a term chosen in Denmark to brand the design of a new sailboat racing class in 1926. In English, the word translates to “two pointy ends” or “two butts,” a design style also described as “double-ender.” The shape can be traced to the first ocean-going boats from every continent. In Denmark, spidsgatters were built to specifications in six sizes and commissioned by individual owners. Fewer than two hundred were built, and fewer than twenty her size. Pax represents the secondlargest size, at twenty-eight feet long and nearly ten feet wide. In the 1950s and early ’60s, some of the most beloved Scandinavian classic boats were sold and shipped by freighter to the west coast 1
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of the United States and Canada. Of the estimated twenty to thirty spidsgatters among them, only a dozen remain. Of these, Pax is the largest and the last of her size in America. Though she survived, her story was lost. I spent seven years trying to restore that history, visiting other states and countries and talking to hundreds of people while researching the mystery of the boat named Pax.
You may ask, as many have, “What drove you to find Pax’s history?” or “Why is a boat worth all the effort?” In the beginning, the search was simply to improve the restoration of Pax’s interior and find her country of origin. By the end, Pax was inspiring and connecting generations in three countries to restore history that spanned eighty years. Looking back, my life prepared me for the journey. As a child growing up on a four-generation pioneer cattle ranch in Oklahoma, I lived to go and went “where the wind comes sweeping down the plain.” By foot, then on horseback, I explored ever wider circles of our land. When I found a freshwater spring flowing from layers of gypsum in the red shale canyons, Grandma told me a story. In the 1920s those waters inspired my grandfather to start a nature resort in a 520-acre section of the ranch he owned. In 1935 my father was born, and that land became one of Oklahoma’s first state parks, now called Roman Nose State Park. The springs ran steady from creeks to rivers and over the horizon to the sea, flowing like my grandparents’ legacy to the next generation. 2
IN T ROD UC T ION
In 1960, their son took over the cattle ranch, married my mother, and they had four kids. I was the oldest. When something broke, we fixed it, and together we survived drought, tornadoes, blizzards, and our fair share of beautiful days. On a biting cold December day in 1977, Dad rushed into the house. He was supposed to meet Mom an hour’s drive away, but the car was out of gas. “If I don’t call in ten minutes, come looking for me,” he said, then spun on his cowboy boot heel and left. Wind slammed the glass door between us. I was sixteen. When no call came, I got in my car and went searching for him. Relentlessly, I drove every route he could have taken, but found nothing. A few hours later the phone rang. He made the rendezvous with Mom, but he was gone. Dead of a heart attack at forty-two. A year and a half later, I left for college. Eventually, we lost the ranch. It’s a long way from Oklahoma to the ocean, but at twenty-one, I arrived. It was midnight at Vero Beach, Florida, and the moon was full. Seduced by the allure of a copper path on the inky Atlantic, I waded in. The water was cool to the touch, welcome on hot skin. A wave reached around my knee, tugging away from the land. A second, stronger wave sucked sand from beneath my feet. I lunged backward to the beach, in awe of the power and irresistibly curious to explore it. Ten years later, at work on a research project in Anchorage, Alaska, I was invited to go sailing with colleagues in a little seaport town called Port Townsend, Washington. I had traveled to every state and all but two provinces of Canada, trekked a month in Nepal, and hiked every wild region of Alaska by then, but I had never been sailing. When invited to get on board the boat, I held my backpack with one hand, put the other on a post called a stanchion, then stepped on the toe rail and swung a leg over the lifeline. As the buoyant sailboat 3
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rocked toward, then gently away from me, it felt like horses from childhood. Out in the bay, the memories grew stronger. The boat pushed through, up, and over the windblown waves. My knees flexed. Intuitively I leaned toward the center, relaxing my back and antici pating the next gentle roll. The similarity to horses was undeniable. Then the captain handed me the tiller. “Keep the wind in the sails and head for that point,” he said, pointing to an island. Alone in the cockpit, I squeezed the piece of wood, stiff-armed, and held it in the center. Seconds later, the boat slowed down. It wobbled, sails popped, rigging clattered, and just above my head a heavy boom swung precariously back and forth. “Fall off!” the captain yelled from the foredeck. Other crew joined in, “Fall off!” The last thing to do on horses is fall off. I sat down to think. A crew member clasped my hands and pulled the tiller to one side. The bow turned, the boom shifted, the rigging grew quiet, and I felt the first sweet surge of sails catching wind. The boat moved forward and picked up speed. Wind parted my hair. I was smitten and transformed. A boat on the ocean felt like home. Determined to make sense of the experience, I moved to Hawaii to pursue an interdisciplinary doctorate, writing a creative nonfiction dissertation titled, “Women of the Wind.” While pursuing my studies, I sailed in weekly regattas, worked on boats, and signed up as transocean delivery crew to deepen my experience, interview sailors, and test hypotheses. The first long ocean passage was a three-week trip from Honolulu to Seattle. The second was a six-month trip from Australia to Hawaii. The third was a passage from Tahiti to Hawaii that turned into a six-year circumnavigation of the world, working as first mate, relief 4
IN T ROD UC T ION
captain, and instructor on ocean passages aboard a thirty-eight-foot boat with a business called Tethys Offshore Sailing for Women. In August 2001, just before my fortieth birthday, our circumnavigation ended in Port Townsend. A circle was completed. From September 7 to 9, 2001, before heading back out to sea, I attended the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival, the largest gathering of wooden boats in North America. While I was packing to leave on September 11, we got the news that planes hit the World Trade Center in New York. Travel stopped, and like others around the world, I stopped. The boat festival weekend became a month, and in March 2002 I was offered a job directing the event. In 2004 I also became executive director of the Wooden Boat Foundation, then managing director as we merged with another non-profit to build our new home, the Northwest Maritime Center, in the heart of the maritime and historic districts. By 2007 life was brimming with passion and purpose. I was helping preserve a legacy. Deep inside flowed a steady, peaceful spring of memories. The ocean was home, and the salty men and women I worked with every day were like family. Life on the blue part of the globe for eight years had suited me, and living next to it for seven seemed to be working, too—the wild open spaces; the bliss of buoyancy; the volatile, soul-powered wind. Sailing had struck a nerve both primal and poetic. On and near the ocean, life made sense. It made every sense work. But sailing toward me was a boat that would stir the waters, waking decades of loss, revealing history untold, and restoring a legacy that was lost in the wind. For her and for me, I had to wade into that water. I had to go, to search, to find. 5
part one
ARRIVING
The beach between Point Hudson and Point Wilson, western edge of Admiralty Bay.
one
OUT OF THE BLUE United States: Port Townsend, Washington August 7, 2007
A
DISTRACTING GUST OF wind rattled the window by my desk, and a gritty dust devil followed, pelting the single pane with a ting that was hard to ignore. The wind was blowing Force 6 on the Beaufort Scale. Six. It had been six years, almost to the day, since I’d finished sailing around the world and stepped off the boat in Port Townsend, Washington. I never expected to stay. The events of September 11, 2001, and an invitation soon after to serve as director of the Port Townsend Wooden Boat Festival changed everything. Since then, I worked to expand the Festival from a regional success to one of the top wooden boat gatherings in the world. Although I didn’t own a wooden boat and joked with friends that “I knew better,” I had grown to love the passionate, artfully skilled, and free-spirited community that wooden boats attract. Now, on the bay in view from my office in Point Hudson’s historic Cupola House, whitecaps blew from the tops of sapphire waves. A flock of glaucous gulls startled up from the jetty, then banked and landed on the beach. 9
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With so much going on outside, it was hard to focus on the final edits to the forty-four-page Festival program guide. In less than a month, hundreds of boats—from schooners and tall ships to kayaks and canoes—and ten thousand people a day for three days would depend on the information as they filled the Point Hudson marina and grounds, and most of Port Townsend, to capacity. Through the thin walls of the Cupola House, I could hear the American and Washington state flags fight their shackles, striking the steel of the flagpole in faster, uneven time. The forecasted gale had arrived. Adam Henley, a colleague whose desk was right behind me, had been tapping the wind gauge in our office all day, anticipating the evening’s sailing race and hoping for the winning winds. “Waves like white horses, my friend,” I told him. “You’re getting your wish and then some.” Adam stood to tap the wind gauge again and laughed. He knew the race would be canceled. As I turned back toward the stacked pages of copy, another flash of movement out the window caught my eye. “Damn it.” Adam looked up. A big boat was backing from its slip out near the Point Hudson harbor entrance. With these winds, there would be trouble. A knot caught in my gut. I’d been on one too many boats out of control in a marina. Shoulder to shoulder, the two of us leaned over my desk to watch. I could see the mast on the big boat where a man at the helm was making his first attempt to turn up into the wind. He failed. There were a half dozen eight-foot dinghies and a couple of Wooden Boat Foundation sailboats in his path downwind, at risk if things didn’t go 10
O UT OF T HE BL UE
well. I slid out the side door, crossed the street, and trotted down the ramp to help. A woman was running around the deck of the boat trying to hang fenders from the lifelines while the man at the helm shouted something at her. As the boat blew closer, I noticed dark scratches in the hull paint from hitting something somewhere else. This wasn’t their first rodeo. Still shouting at her, he tried again to gain control, crossing back and forth across the narrow width of the marina, adding more throttle with each attempt. Puffs of blue and black smoke marked his drift. The acrid smell of diesel hung between us. When he reached the center dock, the pendulum of his drifting boat took him down the west side of the marina and away from the Foundation’s boats. Relieved they were safe, I stepped up onto a friend’s boat and grabbed a fender to protect it where possible. Across the small gap of water, a half dozen people on other boats grabbed fenders, too. Collision was imminent. With one last fullthrottle maneuver, the big boat churned away from them and took direct aim at my friend’s boat. I dropped a fender in the gap and stepped back. Anchor and bowsprit snagged in the rigging as the two boats collided. The woman looked at me, mortified. Sounds like sapwood popping in a fire and dissonant clanks of metal ricocheted around the marina. The boats bounced off each other as I sank to one knee for balance. The man continued yelling from the cockpit, his words lost in the wind and commotion. Then, as luck would have it, his boat broke loose and his bow bounced clear, pointing at the harbor exit. The propeller churned the water as he gave the boat full throttle. The woman spun around the deck pulling fenders back up and hurling 11
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them into the cockpit. In less than a minute, the boat bucked through breaking waves at the entrance and was gone. On both sides of the marina, people exchanged thumbs up. I sat down in the cockpit and tapped wood, knowing I wasn’t the only one feeling lucky. The captain made a bad call, but even good calls go bad some days, and we all knew it. Better not to gloat or say too much. Superstitions run deep among boaters. I hopped to the dock and headed back to work. “Thank God, I don’t own a boat.”
Inside Cupola House, with less than an hour to closing, I marked up the last page of copy for the Festival program and clicked my email inbox. A deluge of mail, typical of the weeks before the event, filled my screen. I scrolled through, looking for anything urgent and answering a few. Then I scrolled for something easy and found one. The subject line read, “Special boat for sale.” Aren’t they all? Over the years, hundreds, if not thousands, of emails like this had crossed my desk. Due to the volume, we’d begun to print the information for volunteers to organize in a notebook. This would be quick. I double-clicked the PDF and hit Print. A spinning hourglass icon appeared on the screen. Bummed about the delay, I turned away to check voicemail. Beside me, the computer screen filled, line by line, with images of the most eye-popping, heart-stopping boat I had ever seen. I hung up the phone and rolled my chair closer. Barely able to breathe, I scrolled up and down through the images. The rich 12
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mahogany cabin had oval portholes. The bright white hull swooped up dramatically at the bow. One shot of the boat, out of the water on a tidal grid, revealed a voluminous underbody balanced on a long, full keel. I skimmed the written description, comparing words with pictures. By the forested shoreline and emerald-blue water, I knew the boat was moored someplace close in the Pacific Northwest. Across the hall in the chandlery where he was manager, Adam noticed my fixation and walked toward me. “What’s up?” I pointed at the screen. As crazy, romantic, and impossible as it was, I was smitten by a boat—a wooden boat, and not just any wooden boat. According to the flyer, she was a classic Danish spidsgatter. I had seen two of these boats in person over the years and knew they were rare. Owners adored them. Of all the boat designs that had ever tempted me, this was one. Grabbing a chair, Adam rolled up beside me. “Wow. She’s gorgeous.” He reached for my mouse and zoomed in on the pictures. The size was unclear. Forty-five or twenty-eight feet? I couldn’t think clearly enough to tell. Adam pointed at the first paragraph and reminded me how boats were sometimes described by something other than length. Forty-five square meters—45m2—was the amount of sail area. She was twenty-eight feet long. He looked at me, looked at the screen, and laughed. He knew how I had congratulated myself for years on not owning a boat. “I think you found your boat,” he said, then put a hand on my shoulder and stood up. Desperate to escape the thought, I stopped him and tried to rationalize my irrational thoughts. He knew I’d casually looked at spidsgatters before, but all had been too small, too deteriorated, or too far away. This one had five feet, four inches of 13
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headroom inside, exactly my height; looked in good condition; and was just a day’s sail north, albeit across the exposed and therefore sometimes infamously rough or foggy waters of the Strait of Juan de Fuca in Victoria, BC. I put a hand on his forearm, knowing I could trust him to assess the condition. “Her name is Pax. Peace in Latin. If I was crazy enough to consider this, would you go with me to see her?” “Sure,” he said without a second’s pause. Smiling, he patted my shoulder again and turned away. “Like I said, you found your boat. Welcome to the club.”
I hit Print again, still reeling from the idea and reminding myself that the Festival was less than a month away. It was the busiest time of the year for the entire community. The timing for a distraction and decision was terrible. I forwarded the email to my partner, Jan, a pragmatist who I knew would counter my emotion and the potential “bad” influence of a passionate wooden boat colleague. She’d heard my rationale against ownership for years and knew my limits of time and money to spend on a boat. Behind me, Adam was checking the ferry schedules to Victoria and doing research. “Just in case.” There was an impish twinkle in his eyes. I looked over his shoulder. Passion for wooden boats was contagious. On the screen were pictures and references to spidsgatters. Resistance to ownership was losing ground fast. A reply from Jan pinged into my inbox. “I think you should go take a look. She’s beautiful.” I read the email to Adam to be sure it said 14
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what I thought. Hearing the words out loud was scary and comforting at the same time. This could change my life. Adam urged me to hurry. “Write the owner back. These boats don’t come along every day.” I wrote a short email, then walked toward the printer in the back of the building to pick up the flyer. In the enclosed plywood breezeway that connected the buildings, I stopped. Through the years, I had heard so many sad stories. On the grassy lot and in the boatyard next door were a dozen abandoned boats as proof. Dead dreams lay stacked in every direction on trailers and stands, ignored like dying weeds. Afternoon sun angled through the glass. Above, puffy white clouds raced by, propelled by the wind. I was sure owning a boat would be different for me. In the back room, two copies of every page lay splayed out on the floor. I knelt to put them in order, straightened the edges, and held them close. When I got back to my desk the lights were out, the big oak front door with its cowbell was bolted, and the familiar old building was still. Everyone was gone. It was just me, the pictures of a boat, and inspiring possibilities.
Four days passed with no news from the boat’s owner. During meetings, between phone calls, when waking in the night and first thing every morning, I checked the email account, hoping for a response. None came. On the fifth day, a few minutes after four o’clock, the owner, Derk Wolmuth, replied. 15
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“Thank you for your email. I just returned this afternoon from a trip to Cortes Island in Pax. The boat is on a mooring in Cadboro Bay, Victoria. I have decided to sail the boat to Port Townsend.” Immediately I wrote back and then leaped up, waving at Adam across the hall, and telling other colleagues. The whole office cheered. That night, I couldn’t sleep. There were so many reasons Pax seemed a perfect match for my life. Her size, the Scandinavian history, the chance to own a wooden boat in a town full of people who could help and teach me. I wrote a second email. “I’m not just looking for a boat to restore, cruise, or own. I’m interested in Pax as a part of my life.” The next day, a dense layer of fog rolled into the Strait of Juan de Fuca. Without radar, it wasn’t safe for Pax to cross. The delay provided time for the word to go around about my interest and rumors to surface about her past. For twenty years, friends on both sides of the border in the relatively close-knit wooden boat community had occasionally spotted her unforgettable, shapely, unnamed hull. What they heard and relayed were slightly different, yet intertwined versions of a tale that included a tragic fire, a love story, and an alleged theft from a yacht brokerage in Sausalito, California. One person stood out from the others, raising ire and admiration. She was a mysterious, highly skilled woodworker who reputedly restored the boat in a remote bay on Vancouver Island, Canada. Her boat shop was a floating boat house, but no one knew her name or exact location. Every conversation drew me deeper into Pax’s story. After a series of emails a man, who owned a sistership to Pax, showed up with an envelope of black-and-white negatives taken after the fire and a story or two from San Francisco Bay. Still, the boat was a mystery. He, like 16
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all the other people I talked to, hadn’t been on board the boat and wasn’t sure of the truth. Pax’s history was gone. A week into the inquiries, I found someone who knew Pax from personal experience. To my surprise, she was right across the marina. World-renowned sailmaker Carol Hasse, “Hasse” to her friends, remembered Pax in California in the mid-1980s. The boat’s owner at the time, a shipwright named Pete Lamb, was an old friend of hers from Washington. He had invited her to Sausalito to measure the boat and draw designs for its new sails. Hasse still had her file notes and correspondence, and together we looked over the paperwork while she told me a little about him. She admired his skills, but warned me life had been hard for him after the fire. Since she hadn’t seen him or the boat for decades, she had no idea about the condition of the hull. She offered his email address and wrote to introduce us. At the same time, I wrote Derk to ask about the rumors. He confirmed the fire and the loss of original documentation. What he knew was what he learned seven years earlier, from the prior owner, a woman he described as “an excellent woodworker and sailor” who lived up island and “worked by herself ”—values we both admired. We corresponded back and forth for days, waiting for the fog to clear. He had been accepted to graduate school, which is why he wanted to sell the boat quickly. I, too, had a pressing deadline. The Festival was looming. While the original paperwork was gone, he had what was necessary to make the purchase happen legally. I sifted carefully through the facts about Pax. Her story had many holes. Other people’s dead ends could become my dead ends. The window of time to research the boat’s past was shrinking by the hour. In a last-ditch effort for information, at least about the condition of 17
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the hull after the fire, I called Hasse’s friend Pete, the shipwright. If he could remember what work was done on the hull and verify her seaworthiness, it would help. He was the best, possibly only, resource for Pax’s repair condition before and after the fire. The call went to voicemail.
Seven days had passed since news of Pax arrived by email. On Tuesday, Derk wrote to say he had run out of time for the crossing and instead wanted me and other prospective owners to see the boat in Victoria on Sunday. Unfortunately, Sunday wouldn’t work for Adam, and only one day and one ferry crossing worked for us both—on Friday, an even tighter turnaround time. Despite all the unknowns, I wanted to see her in person. I wrote Derk to explain the situation and ask for an early viewing. From our days of correspondence, he knew how serious and sincere I was about the boat. A few hours later he replied. On Friday, ten days after the email arrived, I was going to Canada.
18
19
Pax at the U.S. Customs dock in Port Townsend on the day of arrival.
two
THE BEST AND WORST OF DAYS Canada: Victoria, British Columbia August 17–20, 2007
D
URING THE HOUR’S DRIVE to Port Angeles and the hour-and-a-half Black Ball Ferry crossing to Victoria, Adam answered questions, offered advice, and quelled my nerves. Outside the ferry terminal, in welcome contrast to the horde of tourists, stood a young man with a fuzzy beard, a fisherman’s cap, and glasses. It had to be the owner, Derk Wolmuth. When he raised a hand, I waved, and within seconds we were on our way to see Pax. His car smelled like wood smoke and was cluttered in a familiar sailor’s way with tools, rope, books, and bags. I crawled into the back seat, giving Adam the extra leg room as Derk passed around a bag of fresh-steamed salmon buns. His thoughtfulness and the warm local food put us all at ease. As we made the half-hour trip across the peninsula together, the guys talked wooden boats while I listened, contemplating my decision and watching the British stone formality and urban buzz of Victoria’s inner harbor give way to the open, arty, tree-lined streets of Oak Bay. Through a clearing in the trees, I spotted sailboat masts and the rocky headlands of Cadboro Bay. The sun was hot on my face when 21
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we got out of the car at the Royal Victoria Yacht Club where Derk had Pax moored. The bay was warmer than Port Townsend, protected from winds in three directions. Only a slight current of tide and a whisper of wind nudged the mooring buoys. Otherwise, all was peaceful. Still as a picture. As we waited for the club’s security gate to open, conversation stopped. I scanned the docks, expecting to see the boat. Derk pointed out into the center of the bay. Of course. She was unmistakable. The swoop of her sheer line and full curves stood out from other boats. The reflection of her tall wooden mast extended toward us like a ribbon on the water. We followed Derk to an empty slip marked “RVYC Guest” and waited while he went to get the boat. As he rowed away, I took a wide-angle picture of the bay with my phone, then zoomed in for a second shot. As I framed him in the foreground and Pax beyond, his face was hidden in shadow, and something else, maybe his posture, made it feel too private a moment. I lowered my camera and instead watched the perfect line of the wake of his rowboat and the even pattern of his strokes on the water. From what I heard on the drive and could see in his easy manner, he had been rowing and sailing boats his whole life. When he got to Pax, he shipped an oar and put one hand on her cap rail to stop, then crossed the oars and stepped aboard her with the fluidity of a lifelong mariner. As he stood on board her, I finally had perspective. She was larger than I thought. Derk disappeared below decks, then a puff of smoke signaled the start of the engine. He cast off the mooring line and turned our way. 22
THE BEST AND WORS T OF D A YS
Suddenly, self-doubt made me giddy and unexpectedly nervous. To focus, I traced the outline of her curves with my eyes and scanned the details of her simple, uncluttered deck. As Pax approached the slip, Derk swung her bow away from us and began backing up. I stood ready with Adam to take the dock lines. Derk ignored us. Instead, he drove Pax forward and in reverse, alternating as necessary to bring her parallel to the dock and drift the last few inches. He didn’t need anyone’s help. When he stepped off with the stern line, I reached for one of her bow lines and made a quick figure eight on the cleat. Pax gave a gentle tug and stopped. “Welcome aboard,” he said and waved an open palm toward her cockpit. Slipping off my shoes, I stepped on board. At that moment, my nervous worry dissipated. Wherever she wanted to take me, I knew I wanted to go.
Pax barely moved when I stepped aboard. In that intimate way boats respond—especially small, beamy (wide) boats—the deck pressed firmly up through the soles of my feet with each step, then rocked gently back to center. Adam, close to twice my weight, stepped on beside me. Anticipating that the boat would heel more dramatically, I grabbed for a handrail. Instead, she only rocked a little deeper. The thirty-five hundred pounds of lead in her keel for ballast, mentioned in the sales flyer, easily counterbalanced our weight. Her response was like boats I’d sailed that were twice her size. 23
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“She’s stiff for a little boat,” Adam said, tugging on the forestay and looking up at the tall mast and rigging. There were no spreaders, no backstay, and only three shrouds. I’d never seen a rig like this. He asked Derk to explain. “The mast is fifty-one feet,” he said. “I built it.” Adam and I did the math and looked at each other. The ratio of height to boat length was extreme. Tethys, the thirty-eight-foot fiberglass boat that had been my home for six years’ sailing around the world, had a fifty-one-foot mast. A 38:51 ratio versus 28:51 was a significant difference. According to Derk, the height proportions were part of the spidsgatter design. Since there was no mast on Pax when he bought her, he built one from measurements of other Danish spidsgatters in the region. I listened, barely able to follow, as he explained to Adam how he scarfed together pieces of rare, old-growth, straight-grained British Columbia fir. He bought the remnants while working as a shipwright on the crew that built the 122-foot SALTS (Sail and Life Training Society) tall ship Pacific Grace, moored in Victoria and used for educational purposes. Once he had the right length and diameter, he shaped the mast elliptically with a taper at the top. The last month, as he finished, he displayed it as a work of art in the renowned Canadian artist Emily Carr’s house museum in Victoria. I could tell Adam was impressed. Derk had done considerable research and had the skills to complete such a challenge. As I moved toward the cockpit, eager to go below, he and Adam shifted to other details of the rig based on the original design and Derk’s rationale or modifications. I chose to focus on other parts of the boat: sails, gear, and engine—ones I knew more about. The mainsail was badly stained 24
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with soot from the wood stovepipe sticking up from the cabin. It had seen better days. The lines and other running rigging were tired, too. Nearing the cockpit, I spun one of the two bronze jib winches, listening to the pattern of the clicking. One had a broken spring. Another had a grease-packed pawl. I knew the sounds. Both were easy to fix. I stepped down into the cabin and sat on a bunk in the spartan, yet functional space. Pax’s big, wide-open cabin made her feel like a boat twice her size. With no bulkheads or cabinetry, nothing was hidden and fresh air was circulating. There was nothing dank or musty. She smelled good. A double-burner woodstove, two custom-built benches, and a hinged cedar box covering the manual hand-pump toilet completed the furnishings and were, like other items, nicely installed. Rolled-up mosquito nets were held by Velcro and located above both sleeping berths. A foot pump was mounted beneath a tiny stainless sink for salt- or freshwater washing. What I saw inside the cabin was simple, but it worked. Pax was outfitted more like a cabin for camping than a yacht for cruising, with one notable exception: surrounding me at eye level were stunningly beautiful panels of mahogany that made up the cabin. One in particular, the largest piece, was right in the center where no one stepping into her cabin would miss the swirling wood-grain pattern, like a work of art. It gave the boat an air of elegance. The mahogany was varnished with a glossy finish that looked fresh. I touched it lightly. It was tacky. I leaned closer and sniffed the wood, recognizing the scent of Epifanes, a Dutch varnish that many people considered the best in the world, and which was also the most 25
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expensive. It had been tricky for me to mix and paint. I was impressed Derk chose it. As the men walked around the deck above, I closed my eyes. The feel of her hull adjusting to our movements was calming. I shut out their voices for a moment, hoping to hear my own small voice of intuition. Dare I buy her? Could I dare let her go? Standing, I put a hand on top of my head to check clearance. The yellow cedar ceiling was less than a finger’s width away. Just my height. I scrutinized everything again, running my hands over the wood, sniffing the engine, eyeing the details. I was determined not to make the wrong decision. At twenty-eight feet, Pax should be a manageable size for me, and so far there weren’t any red flags. I opened a floorboard and ran my hands along the curves of the ribs and bilge. A rainbow sheen flashed on the surface of the bilge water. I dipped a finger and touched my tongue. Saltwater, with a little bit of fresh diesel. Otherwise, the bilge smelled clean. I moved on. The engine, according to the flyer Derk had sent, was a Klassen marinized Isuzu diesel with 25 horsepower. It had been rebuilt and run less than a hundred hours. The gauges were hanging, in almost temporary fashion, just inside the companionway. I traced fuel lines to a tank beneath the starboard seat in the funky but functional cockpit. The throttle and gear shift were bolted to a board nearby, where they were easy to reach. Rags and a funnel from an oil change lay in a box. Adam appeared on the stern deck ready to survey the rudder. A sloppy coat of white paint had been added recently and went all the way to the waterline. “Was there a problem?” he asked. Derk assured us there wasn’t. He was only protecting the wood until he could varnish it. 26
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I swung the tiller back and forth to feel how it moved, while Adam watched below water. The wood of the tiller was unusual. It was cocoa brown with pea-sized knots and smoky swirl. It fit sweetly in my grip and was silky smooth, sanded by fine-grit sandpaper and lightly oiled. “I carved that out of native yew. One piece. Long enough to sit inside and steer her when it’s raining,” Derk explained. My respect for him was growing. He obviously loved the boat, and parts of Pax were literally his art. Adam and I moved into the cabin below, the first time we’d been alone. “What do you think?” I asked. “She’s big for a twenty-eight footer,” he began. Then, to our surprise, a bilge pump went off. Water was coming into the boat from somewhere and had gotten high enough to set off the automatic switch. First there was whirring, then sucking, then silence. We looked at each other, knowing what that meant. “The good news? It works,” I said. “The bad news. Why is it running?” Adam answered, with the first nervous edge to his voice. He reached down to lift a floorboard. So far, everything about the boat had been solid, though tired. She was an old boat, but so far, what she needed I could manage. A bilge pump pumping was a different matter. If the boat was leaking, she would have to be fixed, and that could require skills I didn’t have. Adam reached down and dipped a finger in the water, then touched his tongue. Saltwater. We pulled up the other floorboards to trace the leak. A tear-like trickle of water was running along a port-side frame and pooling in the bilge. On the starboard side, he pressed two fingers against 27
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a seam. Something hard and dark was stuck in the twisted cotton caulking. He wiggled it. A little more water wept into the bilge. There was a plank outside on the port side that he had noticed when we arrived. It was slightly bulging and had a copper patch nailed over it. With us on board, that patch was likely below the waterline. He predicted that was the source of the leak. “Definitely something to look at when she’s hauled out of the water,” he said. Hauled out? I thought of all the boats in the boatyard next to Cupola House, some abandoned, some getting work. As Adam slid the floorboards back into place, he reminded me that, normally, prospective owners hauled out before purchase to have a boat inspected. Because Derk wanted to sell the boat quickly, I wasn’t going to have that luxury if I bought Pax. A haul-out in Port Townsend later though would be prudent. “You’ll be glad. Trust me,” he said. The bilge pump gurgled again as if to make his point while he moved to the forepeak and went through a survey checklist out loud with me, as if Pax were his own boat. He looked at the frames, ribs, and planks and suggested I take a whiff. They were all original and painted with pine tar, a traditional preservative that left a distinct wooden-boat smell. Above his head, on the underside of the deck, were suspicious sooty smoke stains. Proof of the mysterious fire or soot from the wood stove? It was hard to tell. Overall, Adam thought Pax was in great condition for her age, but a few concerns would need the attention of shipwrights. A wave of panic was crashing in my head. It was hard to listen, much less think. 28
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“Every boat is a project. You’ve said so yourself,” he reminded me. “Remember telling me that cruising around the world is just fixing boats in exotic locations? Well, this is just closer to home.” Derk had waited patiently for us on the dock. As we emerged from the cabin, he asked if we wanted to take her out. Relieved at the shift of topics and ready to see how she sailed, I nodded. As Pax moved out from the slip, I walked forward to the mast. The wind was dead calm, Beaufort’s Force 0. As we passed the headland, I could see the reflection of Pax’s white hull and tip of her mast shimmer then disappear as the boat wake erased it. What at first seemed like opaque emerald water was actually clear as we crossed some shallows. Below were purple sea stars and craggy jade-black rocks. A small wave set, probably the wake of a ship out in the Strait of Juan de Fuca, lifted Pax’s bow gently and rolled us ever so slightly to port. The motion was familiar, and her buoyancy reassuring. All worries about a haul-out subsided. The boat felt right for me. But was the timing right? Would any time be right? As Derk drove farther out into deeper water, I wrestled with gnawing indecision. “Take the tiller,” Derk said. As I stepped into the cockpit beside him, he pointed at the engine levers and scooted over on the seat. I nudged the throttle. Pax immediately responded. The tiller vibrated, ever so slightly, in my hand as I nudged her bow to port, then to starboard. She was playful and quicker to react than other boats I’d steered. Out beyond the headland, I hoped for a little wind. Instead the glassy calm extended across to the Washington coast. Sailing would not be an option without the wind. As I turned back toward the harbor, Pax left a wide-arcing V-shaped wake on the glassy surface 29
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of the water. For a full-keel boat, she was surprisingly graceful. When Derk spun her around to back into the slip, I knew I wanted her. But there was a ferry to catch, and I needed time to think. When he stopped Pax in the slip, I stepped off the boat with a line and cleated it. The pier felt dead and lifeless compared with her motion. It was hard to leave. As we walked toward the car, Adam and Derk were quiet. The next move was up to me. I looked back at Pax and went through a mental checklist. Love? Yes. Sailable? Yes. Hull sound? Sort of. Price and paperwork? Still not clear. As we drove to the ferry, it seemed the paperwork was probably our only hurdle, since her full history was not known. Derk promised to provide a copy of her Canadian registration and the handwritten bill of sale from the previous owner. When Adam got out of the car at the ferry, I thanked Derk and assured him I would make a decision soon, probably by morning. “It’s obvious you care about her very much,” I added. He nodded, and I got out of the car. As I started up the ferry stairs, I heard his car door open. Derk stood up and leaned toward me over the roof. “You’re just the kind of person I want her to go to,” he said. I couldn’t reply. Instead I pointed at my phone, then him, then back again. Adam was waiting. We all knew I wanted her. The ferry and road trip home were a blur. She was a big responsibility. No amount of talking or list making could move me 30
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from the known unknowns and the fog of indecision. She was perfect, but she would take work. She was bliss, but she would cost money. Back and forth, I argued the decision while Adam listened.
At home that night, I read through all the emails and notes and weighed pros and cons, facts and feelings. Nearly thirty people, most more expert than I, had offered opinions in the days before I saw Pax in person. Finally, after a restless night of dreams and waking, I made my decision. I wrote a long email to Derk extolling her beauty, outlining a few concerns, and offering to buy her. I would pay for her in Port Townsend, once she was officially in America. This curvy, mysterious boat had stolen my heart in just ten days. I read the words one last time and hit Send. By the time I got to my office at Cupola House, ten minutes later, Derk had responded. “Congratulations,” he wrote. “You’ve got yourself a boat.”
The next day, Derk brought Pax across from Canada. Dense seasonal fog slipped in and out of the Strait, at times completely obscuring the view from the deck of Cupola House toward Admiralty Bay, on the east side of Point Hudson. When her white hull finally emerged, I ran to my car, drove to the far end of the marina, and stood at the Point Hudson jetty to watch her pass. Unlike the day of the email, her arrival day at the marina was quiet. No wind. No runaway boats. No worries. 31
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Next, I drove to the Customs dock at the other end of town where Derk would clear into America. As I started down the ramp, Pax’s blank, nameless stern was toward me. I stopped. It was the first time I’d seen her from that angle—the angle of her stern that everyone remembered. Now I understood. I was the luckiest person in the world.
When Pax and Derk were cleared, we went over a few things on board. One minute we wanted to hurry. Seconds later, we wanted to slow down. Both of us were happy, but the deal wasn’t over. He still had her paperwork. I still had the cashier’s check. We had to go to the courthouse to make the transfer official. When we stepped together off the boat, Pax sprung away from the dock, then bounced back toward us. “She doesn’t want us to leave,” I said. He looked away, and I realized I’d struck a nerve. We were both juggling layers of emotion. Ten minutes later, on the top floor of the historic Customs House, Derk slid his passport and Pax’s Canadian registration across the old wooden counter. The officer in charge asked to see my identification and directed me to fill out papers for import. I was nervous. When I finished, he skimmed both sets of papers and thumbed back through a few pages like he was looking for more. Then, abruptly, he pulled out a stamp and ink pad and started stamping. With a slap of his hand on the counter, he said, “You’re done. Congratulations.” 32
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I could barely believe it. I swept the papers into a file, and we flew down the steps to my car. Inside, I handed Derk the cashier’s check. Pax was mine. We were giddy as we drove the few blocks back to the marina. There’s an old saying that the happiest day in life for a boat owner is the day you buy and the day you sell. No doubt, this was that day, and more, for both of us. On board, Derk let me start the engine, and together we untied the dock lines. He drove Pax away from the dock, then handed her over to me. As I drove her out of the marina and down to Point Hudson, he pulled up fenders and took down the bright yellow Q flag (quarantine flag, required upon entry to a new country) that had been flying. Pax was officially in America. When we pulled into Point Hudson, he drove her into the slip. I watched with a different intent than when I’d been in Victoria. While Derk packed up the last of his things, Jan drove me back to the Customs Dock. On my return, Derk and I went over the last few things together on board then got in my car. “Point Hudson is where I found two spidsgatters moored together at a wooden boat festival and took the measurements used for her mast,” he said. “Right here.” Then he put his head in his hands and leaned forward. Without a word, I started driving to the Victoria ferry, forty miles west. His time with Pax was complete and mine was just beginning.
After dropping him off at the ferry, I drove straight to Pax. With a sense of pride I’d never known, I walked around the deck, coiling 33
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dock lines, tidying sails, and centering the tiller. Down below, I lay on a bunk, looked up through the skylight, and admired the gorgeous mahogany swirl. Pax rocked ever so gently beneath me. Then the bilge pump went off. If the old saying about the best of days for an owner being the day you buy and the day you sell, then we were all having a short day, but Pax was mine. My boat. My bills. My baby.
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This is a love story—about a woman and a boat.
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