Starts and Fits

“Hey, it’s a boat,” I tell people as I throw up my hands and try to come up with a short version of why nearly a year passed between buying a sailboat and actually getting to go for a sail. Most of the fellow boat owners I talk to nod knowingly as I describe the many monkey wrenches that got thrown in to the works. Non-sailors? Well, they just figure we’re nuts.

This little sea story begins two summers ago. That’s when Chickadee, a well-taken-care-of and much loved 1979 Camper & Nicholsons AC 40 found my wife, Sue, and me via a well-known boat-selling site. Her owners had just reluctantly put the sloop up for sale, and at first sight, I immediately fell for its seaworthy design, the deep cockpit, stoutly built hull, and thick-walled aluminum mast. Sue was smitten by the cockpit, too, and the teak deck, tidy saloon, and staterooms down below. 

We made an offer. 

The boat pretty much sailed through its survey. 

And then with the stroke of a pen in late August, our search was over and for the first time in two years we were boat owners once again.

That’s when Murphy commenced the wrench tossing.

First, it was insurance. Companies have become increasingly reluctant to insure older boats, and it took weeks to find a carrier willing to issue a policy. When they did, they insisted that a past-its-prime prop-shaft seal noted by the surveyor be replaced ASAP. And so, the boat remained in the former owner’s yard just outside Boston until repairs could be made.

Being a stuffing-box sort of guy, I knew little about shaft seals except that they need to remain dripless. So after additional weeks spent searching for a mobile mechanic, we finally put our trust in one who, I would soon realize, worked (quite slowly—when he showed up at all) out of the back of his wreck of a truck. 

Big mistake, we would learn later.

But first, we learned that the boat’s transmission had a leak that the surveyor missed but the mechanic found while trying to remove the prop shaft. By the time the gearbox was rebuilt and reinstalled, leaves were turning and it was time for a hauler to move Chickadee to a yard south of Boston for the winter. That’s where she sat until June, when truck and crew returned to step the mast and drop us in the water. 

At the dock by the boat ramp, we ran the engine and all appeared fine, so we motored a short distance out to a mooring and spent the remainder of the day getting systems and sails sorted. That evening, we toasted the fact that we’d be on our way to a new mooring in Owls Head, Maine, in no time. 

But the next morning, Murphy returned with his wrenches. The shift cable for the rebuilt transmission apparently hadn’t been adjusted properly and its clutches overheated, causing the gears to seize when we went to the fuel dock. Luckily, we were able to arrange for an emergency haul out in a yard across the harbor. And ironically, their mechanic told us we were even luckier that the tranny had failed because our messy Mr. Fix-It had not tightened the set screw on the seal he installed, so it was already leaking. Perhaps worse, nuts and bolts attaching the transmission to the engine were only finger tight. Either could have caused things to go very wrong somewhere out there in the Gulf of Maine.

In the end, it took another month to re-rebuild the transmission and install it properly, along with a new shift lever to replace the one damaged by the freeze up. But finally, on August 9, Chickadee was ready and we were rarin’. That’s the day we saw the last of Old Murphy. With sails finally set, Chickadee took off on a four-day harbor-hop to the Rockland Breakwater that couldn’t have gone better.

Just as we thought, our sailboat is stiff in a breeze, comfortable to live aboard, and well-mannered for a short-handed crew.

Hey, it’s a boat.

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