Dilemma No Longer Major

The dilemma discussed yesterday has been resolved.

My wife and I now the proud new owners of an O'Day 22!

The boat was absolutely beautiful and I do have pictures I can upload later (can't do it from where I am posting). I would argue you would be very hard pressed to find a 32 year old boat in this condition and especially at the price we purchased it for. You can look at it one of two ways:

• We bought the slip for $1800 and paid $1200 for the boat.
• We bought the boat for its fair high retail NADA value of $2600 and got the slip for $400.

Either way, a very good deal. I would have happily paid more.

In this case, the high retail value does apply. The exterior was dirty but other than a few localized cracks around the stays and shrouds, the gelcoat was in fine shape. Just needs a bath.

The interior was pristine. I do not use that word lightly or to indicate the owner had scrubbed it down to look clean. I mean everything down below was factory fresh. Not a crack, leak or major piece of wear in sight. Cushions were perfect, sails clean and white and all the wood trim in fine condition. I have never seen anything like it in a boat this age. This boat's interior would be at home at a boat show serving as the floor display model. It's that good.

The outboard runs fine, running rigging and exterior covers were typical. All that she needs is new bottom paint and we are scheduling to do that at the first available haul after the 4th of July so we can enjoy the Mall fireworks from the Potomac.

This is my second go-round at boat ownership. My first ended very badly. I used to own a Clipper Marine 26 my ex-wife and I had bought as a project boat needing restoration. We sailed to a marina on the western shore of the Chesapeake Bay and proceeded to start work.

After a while, the reality of 55 mile one-way drives on hot weekends to work below at getting dry-rotted wood out of the interior began to take its toll. The hull and rigging were sound but the interior was a disaster due to persistent small water leaks. Over a period of two months, I managed to glass in most of the culprits but never truly eliminated them. What I expected to be a spring/summer project was never completed.

I kept paying the storage fees until I couldn't justify it anymore after almost three years and placed an ad for a free sailboat with outboard. When someone came to take it and I went to retrieve my well-cared for outboard from the on-site mechanic, I learned it had been stolen years prior. I was compensated but the fellow wanted the outboard and opted to not take the boat despite my begging to do so.

A company wound up taking it off my hands and I was glad to see it gone.

This was by the time my wife and I were dating and I resolved to learn from the experience. I vowed I didn't want a boat that required major work unless I could do it from my backyard or a short drive away. I'd rather pay for something that was ready to go just to avoid the hassle and difficulty. My wife felt the same way. We got that wish and more with our new acquisition.

I'm firmly of the belief that opportunities do come your way that are meant to be. Had I been a minute later on the Craigslist ad, I would not have gotten the boat. As you can imagine, the woman who was selling it had received considerable interest in it. I was fortunate enough to have refreshed my browser at that instant, see the new ad pop-up and rattle off an e-mail as fast as I could type it.

The strange thing in all this is the reaction of family, not friends. Friends are loving this. Family, with the exception of my mother, reacted along the lines of "You did WHAT?!?" when they found out we bought a boat. They launched into questions of what are you thinking, you don't know anything about boats and isn't it dangerous? They didn't know that I have sailed before and this isn't some monster yacht. You'd swear they though we were about to risk life and limb.

Sailing is one of the most peaceful activities I've ever engaged in. It is why the bug has never let go since I first started sailing back in 1999. Out there, the troubles of the world onshore and your own don't matter. That blur of green and brown in the distance might as well be another planet.

For me, the journey on the water matters more than the destination. I've been out for an hour and I've been out for a day. The results have always been the same. Nothing but my hand on the tiller, the sound of the wind in the sails and the gurgle of water across the hull. Nothing else matters. Think of it as interactive Zen.

This time I've done it right. The hardest temptation to resist will be to leave work early, shoot 20 minutes away to the marina and head out for an hour before I need to be home.

Here's looking forward to an incredible summer!