Minifish

I have owned an AMF Alcort Minifish sailboat since one was given to me as a present from my family for my eleventh birthday in 1969. My father and I taught ourselves to sail the little boat and enjoyed cruising it around the Chain of Lakes in Waupaca, Wisconsin over the next several summer vacations. When I was old enough to drive, I would take the boat out to the lakes west of Milwaukee, where I grew up, and sail it with friends. I even took it with me to college in Madison, sailing on Lake Mendota after classes. When I moved to Aspen, Colorado in 1986, there wasn't room in the U-Haul trailer for the boat, so I drove it out the following year. Nan and I would sail it every summer on Ruedi Reservoir, about an hour from home. Now we live in Grand Junction, and there really aren't any good places nearby to sail. There's Highline Lake to the north and Ridgway Reservoir to the south, but they're both so overrun with powerboats most of the time that we haven't even bothered. So the boat has been sitting unused in the garage for more than five years.

When I was back in Milwaukee visiting family in July, my sister Jane mentioned the boat. She and her family live in Seattle near Green Lake, and they also have a vacation home on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound. Her sons, Max and Ben, are developing an interest in sailing from lessons they have been taking on Green Lake, and she was wondering what I was doing with the old Minifish. I explained that we weren't really sailing it anymore and asked if she would like to have it for the boys to sail. She said yes, and we emailed back and forth about it again this past week, so next spring the Minifish is going to get shipped up to Seattle. I need to do a little work on it first: the plastic rings that attach the sail to the mast and boom are missing or cracked and need to be replaced; one of the mast's endcaps got dinged when the mast and boom fell off the trailer the last time we used the boat; and the current nylon halyard needs to be replaced with a better, non-stretching one. None of these repairs is too major, but I want to hand off the boat in good condition. Ideally, I would like to fly up there and introduce Max and Ben to the boat after it arrives to give them the benefit of my forty-one years of personal experience in rigging, launching and sailing it. I'll let you know how it goes.

My father's regret

When we were back home in Wisconsin last summer, my father said something to me that has stuck in my mind. He said he regretted not getting more involved with sailing.

Naturally, my father was instrumental in getting me involved with sailing as a boy during our summer vacations, even buying the family an AMF Alcort Minifish in 1969. But he didn't really pursue it much beyond that level, except for a single terrible experience with seasickness on Lake Michigan while crewing on a friend's racing sailboat many years ago. I don't think he has sailed at all since then, but time seems to have changed his feelings about sailing now to ones of regret.

In thinking about my father, I am trying to figure out a way to include him somehow in my sailing dreams. Most of the recent effort in my "boat quest" has focused on the southeast coast for this reason. My parents own a vacation home on Skidaway Island near Savannah, Georgia, which would make a perfect home base from which to undertake retrofits and launch shake-down cruises in anticipation of a circumnavigation. If I could find the right boat and sail it to Savannah, I can envision my father and me working together on repair projects, and taking Nan and my mother on sailing trips to Hilton Head and Charleston. It would be an opportunity for me to help my father overcome his regret and to give back something meaningful to the man who has given me so much.

Sharing the Dream

On Thursday morning, I received an email message from reader Ted Johnson in response to my Boat Quest series. It was a great story by a fellow dreamer and it contained some excellent advice, so I thought I would share it with other readers, along with my response:

Good luck in your quest!

Just stumbled on your blog. Enjoyed reading it. I have a couple out there--not nearly as well-developed.

http://pontianum.blogspot.com/

http://basicmazecraft.blogspot.com/

I've returned last fall from living on a sailboat in Seattle for 2 years. It was the realization of a dream. The dream's still there but is on hold.

QWEST allowed me to transfer out there so i sold everything in Denver & arrived in Seattle with a small trailer filled with my "necessities". I have sailed small boats on inland waters all my life but was new to the ocean & living aboard.

i arrived in june & didn't want to lose the precious summer months searching for the perfect boat--a big project as you know. So i bought the third boat I looked at--a Cal 34. It turned out great--was in better than new condition--but it was too small & not what I wanted for a life of cruising. So for $500 I enlisted Bob Perry, the designer of the Valiant 40, to help me look for the next boat. I ended up with one of his designs--the Islander freeport 36. I bought it for the headroom, light from large portlights, large head & pullman berth. Unfortunately, the deferred maintenance was overwhelming, the surveyor missed a lot of faults, and the galley was at best awkward, and i learned that even with a full cockpit cover i was rarely warm enough out on the Sound. (Visibility was so poor from the cockpit all zipped up that it didn't really give me the protection I wanted to sail year-round.).

After arriving back in Denver to stay the winter, I got a message that the dock I was on was being leased out & i was losing my slip. i listed the boat with a broker & to my surprise she sold it right way.

I'm headed for MN in July to care for my parents for the summer, then hope to resume the cruising/sailing/liveaboard life. I'll be back where you are, trying to buy a boat long distance. it's very frustrating! And I want this to be a boat I can keep for a while!

i'd like to retire, but will be on a shoestring. (If I wait, i might never get back on a boat!)

I'm in love with (that's the worst of it --the emotional side) a boat in CA--a Challenger 42. It's well-outfitted & looks like the layout I want--but I face the same thing you do--a lot of expense to go look at it, knowing that pictures lie & with one glance I could discover it's not for me. It's a lot like computer dating!

I would encourage you to charter & sail with others a lot before you buy if at all possible. I belonged to a club in Seattle that met Monday nights. Skippers would line up & invite members to go on free trips every weekend. Club cost $15/meeting or $140 for the year. It was a great way to get rides on a variety of boats.

Having said that, I bought the Cal 34 based on reputation without ever having sailed one & it was a good boat for me. i didn't spend a lot on her & sold her for more than I paid. if it weren't for sales tax, I probably broke even. The Valiant 40 has the same kind of reputation. I think the owner's group is a better bet for finding a good boat than Yachtworld. But i scan Yachtworld every day. Problem is, most of the boats that are on Yachtworld forever are there for a reason. They're in bad shape or the owner is unrealistic about value.

After my experience with the Freeport, I'd recommend waiting for a well-maintained boat. Unless you can do all the work yourself, bringing a boat back from neglect can easily cost more than the initial purchase price. It's hard to find people that do good work. And a boat that needs work is a pain. You can't trust her to really go anywhere. You never recapture that money when you resell her. The guy on the east coast is not going to sell her for any more by installing radar & whatever else he's doing. I think letting the boat go on the east coast was a good choice.

Where do you plan to start from--whereever you find a boat?

Thought it might be interesting to stay in touch.

Ted

RE: Good luck in your quest!

Ted,

Thank you for contacting me. I enjoyed your message and all its good advice.

It sounds like we are sharing the same dream but that you have at least experienced some of it firsthand already. I, too, grew up sailing on inland lakes, mostly in Wisconsin, but dreamed of sailing the oceans and circumnavigating. I have taken the ASA classes, chartered in the BVI and gone on two of John Kretschmer’s trips (http://www.yayablues.com/ and Latitudes & Attitudes magazine), but I have never owned a boat other than the 1969 AMF Alcort Minifish that’s out in my garage.

After the disappointment with “Little Walk,” the boat I looked at in Virginia, I’m thinking I may have to do what you did and enlist the assistance of an expert to help me locate the right boat, maybe Stan Dabney (http://www.offshoreyachts.com/), the reputed Valiant 40 authority next to Bob Perry, the boat’s designer. I emailed Stan once and he was very helpful, so it might be worth a try. The one thing that looking at “Little Walk” did do was to confirm that the Valiant 40 is the right boat for what we have in mind, so I’m pretty set on it if I can find a well-maintained one at a decent price.

With the crummy economy and our landbound life in Colorado, my wife Nan and I (and our new dog Scout) may be a few years out yet, but it never hurts to keep looking. When we do finally find the right boat, the big trip will probably start from where the boat is located, at least to a certain extent. Having sailed in the Caribbean more than anywhere else, that would be my preferred starting spot. If I locate a boat on the west coast, like the two Valiants that are currently listed on YachtWorld.com in the Seattle area, I think I would sail south and then east through the Panama Canal, and then up around Florida and up the east coast at least as far as Savannah, where my parents have a vacation home on Skidaway Island, before thinking about backtracking by way of the Bahamas, the Caribbean Islands and the northern coast of South America to return to the Panama Canal.

I am a big fan of Robinson Crusoe and Mutiny on the Bounty, so it has been my dream to sail across the Pacific by starting at Valparaiso, Chile and making landfall at Alexander Selkirk Island (in the Juan Fernandez archipelago) and Pitcairn Island on the way to French Polynesia. From there, I have some route ideas that involve New Zealand, Australia, Madagascar, Africa and the Mediterranean, but they’re too much to list here. The biggest idea would be to undertake a circumnavigation in a discontinuous way, leaving the boat at desirable spots along the way during bad-weather seasons and flying home to take care of real-life responsibilities before returning to pick up where we left off. I met Jim Whittaker, the first American to summit Mt. Everest, about eight years ago, and this was how he and his family were working their way around the world. It might take quite a bit longer to do it this way, but I look at the dream as being an “until I die” kind of thing anyway, so there’s no need to rush through it.

Let’s stay in touch and see how the dream works out for the both of us.

Best wishes,

John

Boat Quest, Part 7

After researching the Valiant 40 cutter-rigged sailboat and deciding that it was the best boat for what I had in mind, in terms of size, design, sail layout, equipment and price, I faithfully scanned the OffshoreYachts.com listings looking for an older one with a five-figure asking price. Due to the fiberglass blistering problem with some of the mid- to late-1970s Valiants, there were bound to be some bargains out there.

We took a few vacations during this time, around 2001 to 2007, to Florida, Mexico and the British Virgin Islands. Whenever we were near the coast or on an island, I would be on the look-out for Valiant 40s, but I never spotted one. This isn't too surprising since only 200 or so were ever manufactured.

It wasn't until I went on my Fort Lauderdale to Bahamas sailing trip with John Kretschmer that I was finally able to see a Valiant 40 sailboat in person. As the crew was getting acquainted on the first day, John asked each of us what kind of boat we owned. When he came to me, I explained that I had grown up sailing in Wisconsin and that I owned a vintage 1969 AMF Alcort Minifish but that I was hoping one day to buy a good, used Valiant 40. "What an interesting coincidence," he remarked. He knew of one for sale that was parked along New River in Fort Lauderdale, and he knew who the owner was. He passed it every time he moved his boat from its usual mooring spot farther up the river. We agreed to take a look at the end of the trip.

Five days later, after returning from our successful passage to the Bahamas, we tied up in front of the Downtowner Saloon on New River. The rest of the crew departed, but I stayed on John's boat Quetzal overnight to keep an eye on her. The next morning, John returned and the two of us piloted Quetzal up the river toward her mooring. At the wide spot where the river branches into its north and south forks, John pointed off to port and there she was, the first Valiant 40 I had ever seen. We motored over closer to get a better look. She looked worn and weathered, like she had been sailed hard for many years and then parked for many months. "Sea Hawk" was painted on her stern, and there was a badly faded for-sale sign taped to her wheel. John looped around a second time so I could try to write down the phone number from the sign. As we pulled away, I snapped the picture above. Sea Hawk is the boat with the rounded stern and blue trim between the two other boats in the center of the picture, which may be viewed in a larger size by clicking on it.

I wish I had also taken a picture of the for-sale sign because I didn't get the phone number written down correctly. When I got home, I tried calling it and found that it was not in service. I emailed John, and he said he would try to stop by and get the correct number for me, maybe call the owner himself to say hi and get reacquainted. Time went by, and John and I exchanged periodic email messages, but I never did get that number. After several months, I figured the boat had probably been sold to someone else and that I should just let it go.

Boat Quest, Part 2

In 1972, when I read Robin Graham's book, Dove, about his around-the-world adventure, I knew that what I wanted to do with sailing was not to race in regattas on Lake Michigan but to see the world from a sailboat like Robin had done. I was only fourteen at the time and living in mostly land-locked Wisconsin, so the possibility of buying a boat and sailing it around the world seemed pretty remote, a someday dream that I didn't actively work toward for many years.

One day in the mid-1990s, I was at the office of one of my computer business clients in downtown Aspen, and I noticed a framed photo of a sailboat on his desk. "Nice boat," I said. "Is it yours?" He said that it was and asked if I had an interest in sailing. "Yes," I said, "but a boat like that is awfully expensive, isn't it?" Not as much as you'd think, he replied, especially for an older, used boat. "Where was that picture taken? It looks like somewhere in the Caribbean." It is, he said. "So how does that work?" I asked. "You're here in Aspen and your boat is down there?" He said that every few months he would fly down to where the boat was stored, sail it to the next destination, put it back in storage, and fly home. In this way, he was slowly touring the Caribbean by sailboat, an island at a time.

The idea I had been holding for more than twenty years that owning a decent-sized boat and sailing it on the ocean was something I might never be able to afford either in terms of money or time was suddenly gone. If this person could do it, I thought, why couldn't I? How to get started though?

About this same time, Phil LeBoutillier walked into my office. He said he was developing a bed and breakfast in the Bahamas (tomatopastehopetown.com) and needed some assistance getting a computerized accounting system set up to track the project. He also said he had noticed my Minifish leaning against a wall out front and wondered if we couldn't maybe work out a trade for some fiberglass repair work. There was still a deep scratch on the bottom from a bad day sailing on Lake Mendota, while I was at the University of Wisconsin in the late 1970s, when I was blown into rocks near the shore. He invited me to come with him to check out his shop a few blocks away where he was building a plywood dinghy for a new trawler he had bought as a transport boat for the bed and breakfast.

The dinghy was a cleverly designed skiff, with the plywood sides and bottom curved around a sturdy frame. Phil was in the process of fiberglassing it so the shop smelled of chemicals. He said that since he was already at it, we should just go get my boat and fix the scratch. We shook on the trade and on our newfound friendship.

When I asked Phil later where he had gotten the plans for his skiff, he handed me a catalog of boat plans. I can't find it now but I know I still have it somewhere, and I think it might have been Fifty Wooden Boats, published by WoodenBoat. In addition to smaller boats like the skiff, there were plans available for cruising sailboats, which I studied carefully. One in particular looked like the right combination of sailplan and layout without being too large to build in a big garage and transport to the ocean by flatbed truck. But did I have the time and more importantly the skills to build a wooden sailboat from scratch?

Boat Quest, Part 1

This series picks up where "Introduction" left off as my very first post to this blog, way back in March, 2005.

After my family purchased an AMF Alcort Minifish in June of 1969, when I was eleven years old, my interest in sailing never diminished. We would put the boat on top of the station wagon every summer for our vacations to Waupaca or our trips to visit Grandma in Iowa. I kept Royce's Sailing Illustrated next to my bed and studied it nightly until I knew all the concepts and vocabulary, and could tie every knot. My friend Mark Wiars and I even played a sailing board game, Regatta, at his home after school. Mark always won because he saved his Puff cards for the finish.

At that time, we were mostly interested in small sailboats because that was our experience: my family's Minifish, the boats we sailed at Boy Scout camp, the boats we saw sailing on Wisconsin's lakes. Mark and I dreamed of sailing racing boats on Lake Michigan. He was a fan of the Star, while I favored the Lightning. Royce's contained excellent illustrations of both boats, so we would argue their relative merits like other kids argued over which professional athlete was better. Looking at my almost-forty-year-old copy of Royce's just now, I think Mark had the edge since the Star featured a lead keel while the Lightning used a wooden centerboard. On choppy Lake Michigan, the Star would be the safer and faster boat. I think this was the beginning of a long tendency on my part to overestimate a particular boat's seaworthiness.

There were many other boats illustrated in Royce's, including coastal cruisers and passage makers, but as kids we didn't pay much attention to those since they seemed so out of reach. The closest we came to thinking about that type of boat was Dove, the 24-foot sloop that young Robin Graham sailed around the world in the 1960s. As I said in my Introduction, reading a National Geographic article about Robin's circumnavigation was the beginning of my own dream to sail around the world.

Introduction

Hello, my name is John and this is the first post to my new Web log, Whispering Jesse. This blog will be an account of my dream to sail around the world. There is much more to life than the pursuit of a dream, but this blog will focus only on those aspects of life that contribute to the fulfillment of my dream. Here we go...

I grew up sailing in Wisconsin. My family would vacation in the Chain of Lakes area near Waupaca every summer with the same families. One of the families owned a Butterfly sailboat they named "Blenny". The father, Mr. Durant, would take the kids out on Round Lake one at a time to introduce them to sailing. I was ten years old in 1968 when I went sailing for the first time. I was excited by the speed and the spray, and I was impressed by the command Mr. Durant seemed to have over the wind through the control of his boat. I wanted to learn how to sail just like him. He was a good teacher and introduced me to all the basics: different reaches, coming about, maintaining a heading, reading the wind by watching the water, and the other skills necessary to sail safely and confidently.

I was so into sailing by the end of the vacation, as was my dad from his own experiences with Mr. Durant, that we convinced the family to get a small sailboat of our own the following summer. We bought a newly introduced AMF Alcort model, the Minifish, in June of 1969. It was a scaled-down version of a Sunfish, with an 11-foot, 9-inch hull that weighed 75 pounds. It had a weight limit of 300 pounds, which was perfect for Dad and two of the kids. Despite the small hull, the sail area was pretty close to Sunfish size, so our Minifish, which my mom christened "Chelsea Morning" after the Joni Mitchell song, was a quick little boat. She featured a hiking stick on the tiller and a nylon hiking strap across the small cockpit, standard equipment on a racing boat, so I came to think of her as a one-man racing Sunfish.

We sailed Chelsea Morning frequently over the next several summers and well into my adult years. I still have her. She is leaning against a protected wall outside our house in Aspen, Colorado. During our short summers, my wife Nan and I sometimes take her up to Ruedi Reservoir, about an hour away, to launch her from Freeman Mesa. The reservoir is small and narrow, and the winds tend to swirl wildly around the surrounding mountains, but it's always fun to get reacquainted with the childhood thrill of sailing this small boat, the thrill that has sustained my lifelong interest in sailing.