My boat a Vandestadt black soo
October 2nd 2006 04:47
Lucinda my black soo
Not every one it seems owns the boat of their dreams. I read with some envy, of the people who have a boat just the right length made of naturally formed warm glowing timbers or exotic composite materials. Their dream boat tracks like a train and flies like an albatross effortlessly eating up sea miles to locations that many of us will only visit in our dreams. The sun always shines and the wind blows in the right direction and storms disappear over the horizon as they sit comfortably sipping cocoa in a watertight cabin as their dream sits out the "rough stuff" laying ahull like a perfectly well behaved Labrador. I can afford to be a bit cheeky and show my jealousy to a small degree, as I am sure that my boat and I, will never really, truly go to sea. Oh we will do the odd little coastal cruise, sticking our nose out of the harbour on a fine day when there is a gentle breeze blowing over a millpond, directly toward our overnight destination. And I don't mind occasionally reefing right down and putting up the "stormy" and racing about the harbour when all sane men and women prefer to prop up the bar and shout each other rums. It's just that my boat could never be called pretty, seaworthy, watertight or anything even vaguely great.
My boat is a very modest 30 footer. It was designed by Vandestadt and built in GRP (one of the very early production models) somewhere on Lake Macquarie. (NSW) It is a Black Soo model. Quite narrow with no real headroom and a deep bladed iron keel that has a heavy bulb on the end. About 6'9" daft but I prefer to say 7' to be a bit safe. Hard chined and ancient looking it is often mistaken for a plywood boat as many early Vandestadts were. The decks are flat and easy to walk around in a calm harbour. With the slightest bit of chop or a brisk breeze I have to bribe my crew to go forward and work on the fore deck. There are the usual bits and pieces sticking up at odd and various angles that one can stub a perfectly good toe on and the decks would not ever be dry enough to sit on comfortably. In fact in a breeze much over 15 knots even the lee seats of the cockpit sit under white foam. So each time I tack, say during a twilight race, the weather seat becomes a fish pond waiting to trap the unwary backside. I have learnt to steer with a ridiculously long tiller extension so I can stand up all the way through a race or cruise. Surprisingly she takes little water over the bows in the really sloppy stuff. However as I bury the lee rail I have all that briny water leaking in through the windows!
I have spoken to people who have sailed on her, when she was a new boat and even to someone who was going to buy her, when she was already an old boat (and that was twenty years ago). She was then a great sea boat and raced in all manner of events, with one of her early clubs, the Lake Macquarie Yacht Club. And she cruised here and there as well. Her storm kite, made of heavy dacron is battered from over use (not by me I can assure you). When I purchased her she was being used as a "picnic" boat. A nice gentle life style, that was rudely going to change. The past owner said he only sailed with the number three whatever the weather as he didn't want to alarm his wife and kids by leaning the boat too much. The Number one when I first used it, sat with the clew in the cockpit with me. A huge formidable sail that doesn't point well but scares the life out of the crew when I insist on using it in anything but a light zephyr.
In my minds eye, "Lucinda" or Juicy Lucy as she has become known around some bays and I were going to conquer some great oceans. I had cruised and raced in a great number of boats but I had never been lucky enough to own my own deep keeler. A sudden windfall in a small business venture meant I had enough money to pay off my American Express card or put in an offer on "Lucy". As you may guess I did not owe a lot of money to my plastic account and eventually Lucy and I got more acquainted.
Her decks looked like they had been painted with a bamboo leaf rake, and still do. She has large pieces of two pack paint peeling from her hull. Down bellow the plywood fit out had slowly been slowly sucking up water that slopped up from her bilges and carpet, to delaminate and stain an awful black greasy colour. The engine, a Yanmar12 horse purred to life easily each time I needed until it slowly started to give me a hint of trouble to come by clearing it's throat with a horrible cough at the least expected moment. In one of its past lives as a racing machine, the whole interior was laid out in ridiculously thin plywood. When my copious form needed to sit or sleep on the bunks they would groan, crack and give way. I tried to mend them in the normal fashion but to no avail. I have now thrown some good sized boards over the bunks and at the risk of all that weight I now have steady sleeping habits when down bellow.
I bought her with my eyes wide open, warts and all. Best of all I had found a boat that at last I could afford. Well I could when the past owner accepted a ridiculously low second offer. I would rub her down, paint her, race and cruise her. As a newly accredited bachelor I would use her as a passion pad and just have fun. The first day I mentioned casually to a lady friend that I was going down to my boat to spend the day painting, I got my first offer. "Great, I'd love to come down and watch, share a wine and some lunch". Right I thought, this is what yachting is all about. We bought a chicken, a cask of Chardonay and when we got on board, and I had unloaded the paint pots and brushes out of the dinghy, my friend stripped down to her G string and passed me the block out to rub on her. Well from there on I have never got round to painting poor old Lucy's decks or top sides. Mind you she is not the Passion Pit I thought she would be either. I have looked at a lot of cruising boats and I have always
marvelled at the tiny double berth that cruising couples share for anything up to twelve years at a time. Then cruisers are real adventurers I suppose.
I have won races with her, I have had short fun cruises and incredible laid back good times. She has taught dozens of people to sail and I get a friendly wave or finger wherever we both go. She's a bit of an ugly duckling, she's too old to become a Swan but she's my girl!
TomN
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