Finding purpose in sailboats | Ammi Midstokke
Contrary to popular belief, the internet, and whoever is trying to sell you a boat, most sailboats are not for sailing.
A fair bit of literature would suggest otherwise, particularly texts from the time period whence boats had no motors, and bobbed around for weeks at a time until they harpooned a whale to pull them. Training the whales proved to be challenging, and so boats were eventually equipped with engines.
I grew suspicious this winter, when a fair bit of my sailing instruction was dedicated to diesel engine mechanics.
“But I have a sailboat,” I said to myself as I skipped over those chapters, only to discover the next chapters were riddled with diagrams of propellers, propulsion, prop direction, prop wash, prop walk, and various docking methods that are sure to cause dyslexia (or perhaps cure it, if previously diagnosed).
Also, my sailboat has an electric motor, and since I’m a skipper and not an electrical engineer, I don’t plan on using that either.
A friend told me I can just wag the tiller back and forth in a pinch, which is also not sailing, but definitely a workout.
Pretty soon, Lake Pend Oreille will rise, and the marina docks will float, and it will be time to sail my boat. But there are a few things I need to tend to, first.
Despite several visits with the industrial shop vacuum prior to fumigating it, sealing it, covering it, and tarping it, the boat appears to have housed a swarm of stink bugs over the winter.
It arrived from California earlier with some hitchhiker termites, hence the macabre tent-of-death we had to make before the dears took advantage of climate change and became a new Idaho plague.
The carcasses of a variety of insects must be removed, and teeny-tiny no-trespassing signs posted near all openings.
The deck wood, neglected for some time now, needs to be sanded proper with machinery, and the caulking gouged out with patience.
Then it all needs to be sanded again with fine-grit paper. Then all the gaps need to be caulked anew. Then each plank of teakwood must be massaged gently by hand with tung oil while one recites Rumi poetry.
Of course, the boat needs to be put back together, which means staring at a number of cables and ropes in an attempt to decipher where they belong.
This will take approximately four years, at which point, I’ll finally get to use that tension-testing tool, which will have mysteriously disappeared.
Finding a replacement on the internet will take a deep dive into forums that lure the unsuspecting surfer toward conspiracy theories, which will have me purchasing crystal protection against the Hantavirus on the dark web with crypto. The tension gauge I’ll get on Amazon, based on five-star reviews and a mail-in rebate.
By that time, the mast will have been sanded, and then varnished about 14 times.
My husband and I cannot agree on how many coats it needs, so we just add our estimates together.
Between the coats of varnish and the bugs we’ve encased like larvae in amber, the mast will have doubled in weight and now require a proper crane to hoist. Those guys are usually two years out and don’t have a waiting list, their customer service surpassed only by well-drillers and the Social Security Administration.
Meanwhile, all this collaboration with my husband will have led to a number of conflicts, and we’ll have to spend some extra time in couple’s therapy, probably one of those yearlong weekend courses where we sit in a room with other stranger-couples and reveal our innermost embarrassing realities.
If we’re lucky, other people will be even more embarrassing, and we’ll bond solely on the belief that we’re better off than them.
This will make us dream of sailing together.
Inspired anew, most of our boat parked in the driveway (but the leftover parts we haven’t identified, still in boxes), we’ll stand with pride at our progress, and wonder if we’re old enough to book ourselves on a cruise.
Ammi Midstokke can be contacted at ammim@spokesman.com