By Scott Shephard
They say that the two happiest days of a boat owner’s life are the day he buys the boat and the day he sells the boat. That adage implies that boat ownership becomes a burden. In my case, I have owned 4 boats, three of which were sailboats. I have never regretted owning any of them. Over 35 summers my sailing experiences were life changing and liberating in ways that I would have a hard time explaining in a short blog post.
And, believe it or not, I never went shopping for any of the sailboats I’ve owned. They all found me.
The first, a 15’ Chrysler Mutineer, sat across the road from the 17th tee at the Watertown golf course. It had a "4 Sale” sign on it and one of my golfing buddies pointed it out. I had read a book about sailing in junior high (Two Years Before the Mast) and had checked out a “how-to” book from the library back then. Otherwise I hadn’t thought about sailing for over 20 years. But a few days later, I owned the boat.
My second boat, pictured here, was a bit of an accident, too. I had been to the Boat Show in Minneapolis in January and in early February I got a call from a boat dealer in Omaha who greeted me with, “So I hear you’re looking for a small sailboat. I’ve got just what you want.” Truth be told, I wasn’t looking for a boat. But apparently I had put my name and number down at one of the dealers at the Boat Show.
This purchase was a strain on our marriage because we couldn’t really afford the boat and Deb was very much opposed. But a week or so later, I owned the boat. I named the boat Ariel after the sea sprite who is granted freedom by Prospero in Shakespeare’s play The Tempest. This photo was taken by my friend Scott P, who rode along with me to Omaha to take delivery. When we got back to Watertown later that day, it was snowing and I was thinking that buying this boat was the dumbest thing I’d ever done. But it wasn’t. And I do think that Deb eventually liked Ariel. Kind of . . .
My third boat was sitting on a used car lot next to Al’s Oasis west of Chamberlain. My friend Jack and I were heading out to Rapid City for a tech convention and had stopped to eat at a fast food restaurant next to the car dealer. Jack said, “There’s your next boat.” I said, “I’m not looking for a boat.” On the way home we stopped and I took a closer look at the vessal, whose name was Wandering Star. The boat was a Catalina 250 and I guess you could say it was love at first sight. A week or two later, I owned the boat. I liked her given name and kept it for the 9 or so years I owned her.
As some of you know, I sold Wandering Star and bought a camper a few years ago. Deb thought I was joking when I first mentioned this idea given that I had never once said that getting a travel trailer was an aspiration of mine. But I knew that Deb was never fond of sailing small boats on big bodies of water and I thought a camper would involve her more while at the same time vastly extending our season. It has done both of those things.
Do I miss sailing? A little. But I am still a boat owner. I own a 10’ inflatable dinghy whose name is Omega, which is also the last letter in the Greek alphabet. I gave her that name because I have declared her to be my last boat. I never named the 15 foot Mutineer I owned all those years ago but today it stands to reason that I should have named her Alpha. Alpha and Omega are small bookends to a big part of my “middle” years.
Honeywell Pentax SP500 (exposure information unknown)