The Perfect Boat

The wrong time.

July 29, 2014

While slowly coming to the conclusion that a Freedom 38 was the not the perfect boat for our cruising plans, and because we just like looking at boats, while in the Pacific Northwest in July we looked at a couple of boats, some in Victoria, none of which really picqued our interest. We arranged to look at a Sceptre 41 at Elliott Bay Marina, we had purchased Cirrus through Paul at EB in 1997, and had a really good feeling about him as a person and a broker. When we sold Cirrus, we had cut him out of a brokerage fee -- an aggressive broker had brought a buyer to the dock in San Diego as we arrived from La Paz. I hadn't had time to rinse the Baja Bash salt crust off the deck or rigging before a "take-it-or-leave-it" attractive purchase aggreement was profered -- completely leaving Paul's brokerage out of the deal. We were desperate to sell Cirrus so what could I do? I digress...so when I contacted Elliott Bay to ask about seeing this Sceptre 41, Solar Wind, Paul remembered us, but without any mention of being cut-out of the brokerage fee, but he remembered the search for and discovery of Cirrus and the part that he played in enabling our three-year family ownership and adventure on her.

We arranged to view Solar Wind during a six hour layover In Seattle between arriving on the Victoria Clipper and flying back home out of SeaTac. What could go wrong with that plan? I had worked out the schedule just right with transit on light rail, and we had plenty of time...we didn't count on baggage taking so long to transfer off the Clipper, so instead of the bus and walk, we grabbed a cab to Elliott Bay Marina. We met with Paul and the new owners of the EB brokerage, a really nice retired couple that had been former customers of Paul. Paul had to attend a sale closure, so the husband took us down to Solar Wind, the boat showed well, despite the huge complex radar arch on the stern that supported radar, antenaes, multiple solar panels, wind generator, and a slick gantry style dinghy davit.

Inside the interior was very well maintained and outfitted with all the great electronics, watermaker, and heating system that one could want. The details even came down to an eye dropper, calibrated to the exact amount of bleach to add to each water tank, having a special storage place in the galley. The deck gear was perfect, all lines led to the cockpit, great furling gear, carbon-fiber retractable reaching pole, good ground tackle, life raft, etc. 

In short, Solar Wind was ready to go, and the owner had spared no expense or attention to detail. Unfortunately we couldn't spend much time on her because we had a train and plane to catch.

I was talked out of the transit system to get to the light rail, so we tried calling a cab. What we didn't count on was that it was Friday afternoon, and Fleet Week was just starting... Three were thousands of sailors disembarking for shore leave ona Friday night from all the ships that were moored and anchored in Elliott Bay; there was not a cab to be had, in fact we could not even get a cab company to answer the phone.

So the brokerage wife said that she would take us to the light rail station, she was not sure about where the light rail station is, so I put my trust in Google maps...long story short we spent an hour and a half lost in northern downtown Seattle traffic going less than four miles, eventually thanks to the broker wife's navigation, we got to the light rail station just in time to catch a rush hour train to SeaTac. Little did we know, but added to the Friday afternoon rush hour there was a Beyoncé (or someone like that) concert at the stadium that evening, so the train was as packed as I've ever seen a commuter train and it was running late. We rushed to the ticket counter and got checked I. With 90 seconds to spare before the flight was closed out. Phew.

Well, that's way too much information, but the point is, we started to like the Sceptre 41 with it's more modern hull, but still skeg-hung rudder, swim platform and walk through transom, pilot house/deck salon with the world in view from the galley, nav station, and salon, it began to seem like a good boat for our purposes. Unfortunately, the price for Solar Wind is 60 percent more than what I thought we should spend on a boat and more than three times our easily fungible and available assets, plus we still have a year of work ahead of us before we can consider leaving our jobs. We chose to wait, watch, and hope that the market was still stagnant.

The hunt for Das Boot

Let it begin, in earnest anyway! Ever since we sold Cirrus in May 2000 I've been obsessed with boats, some more than others. In 2006, we actually had an offer ready to go on a very affodable San Juan 28 in Seward, as a Prince William Sound escape -- but work had just changed. Subsequently, during the last 8 years my summers have been occupied by beating on rocks and helping to map Alaska's geology and mineral potential. The boat would have mouldered in the snow, glacial silt, and transient moorage in Valdez. In this case hindsight caught up just in time.

Now, however, retirement is looming; over the horizon we can see the beacon's flash, and the Pavlovian urge has grown stronger than ever. From 2012 until just a month ago, I was convinced that a Freedom 38 was the perfect boat for our cruising plans for the west coast of North America. 

In particular I had fixated on one particularly well maintained, well sailed, and very loved hull. It was said to have been the last hull of the model built by Tillotson-Pearson. The owners and I started communicating and we had a phone call or two and many email/blog chats. 

The owners ended up passing Das boot on to their son and his family; who can argue with that? Then the owner went out and bought a new smaller racier model...well, who could argue with that? All in all a very happy ending! Except we are boat less...

I am still a fan of the owner's blog posts and stories of coastal club racing in Southern California -- perhaps we'll have chance to meet face to face soon!

As a post script, Madame Commodore and M looked at another hull of the Freedom 38 model, there were some particular deficiencies to the particular hull, and in general we started to come to our senses that the North Pacific and the log and ice strewn waters of coastal Alaska might not be the best place for a high-aspect fin keel and spade rudder.