I know how a sailboat sounds and feels on a reach or beating up wind, but what about the end of the season when it’s pulled from the water? Is there a secret side of wintering boats?
Portland Harbor was gray and cold with only working vessels toughing it out. I longed for the months ahead with warm wind and blue water. To get closer to that day I visited a boatyard after a fresh snowfall to see if the residents were of like mind.
It looked like a graveyard marked by tombstone masts. Wrapped in ghostly white cocoons, the decking, bright work and rigging were suffocated under the protective wonders of heat-shrink polyethylene. I looked through the fencing topped with fresh snow. Row upon row of proud vessels with countless stories to tell stood with their hands tied. Propped on jacks looking like crutches, the boats wait for the diagnosis of off-season repairs. It had the uneasy feel of a hospital visit that is painful to endure, but you know it’s the right thing to do.
I entered the marina and walked down the central corridor where to either side boats huddled like orphans wondering what they did to deserve this. Out of the water and out of their comfort zone, the stress and pressure of gravity exacts a toll. Instead of being cradled by the resilient buoyancy of water, they stood poked and prodded by cold steel jacks and lowly eight by eight chunks of pressure treated wood. It hardly seems conducive to the refinement and rhythm of sleek lines and full sails.
This out of water experience cannot help a boat’s psyche. Imagine your underside exposed for all to see your cracks, patchwork or the dreadful need of new paint. The worst indignity must be the keel planted on solid ground. Striking a ledge or muddy bottom during the summer is hopefully only a fleeting embarrassment, but to be stationary with no water to ply and asked to bear the weight of topside interests must be down right humiliating.
I want to be clear that boat storage is not created equal. There is the professional, wrapped up like a piece of Tupperware, or the, ‘I can do it myself,’ blue tarp and bungee-it-death. The latter is employed by boat owners with their pride and joy atop a trailer beside their garage. The masts lay horizontal in a slight frown as gravity tugs at each protruding end. A blue tarp is bungeed down with an amazing configuration of creativity. A mind boggling criss-cross of high tension awaits the poor soul who, come springtime, forgets which bungee to release first.
Knowing the owner did the best they could does not absolve the humiliation of hosting a family or two of stowaway mice or squirrel’s treasure chest of acorns. Even a delicate spider’s web can turn the day sailer into a live-a-board with off-season rates. The leaves and rain that make their way to the cockpit to mingle together and form a drain clogging conspiracy is dishonor enough. It’s the insects and larva that party by the pool of stagnate water that insults the proud centerboard housing that lives for clean rushing water.
I left the yard as a clump of snow plummeted from the top shroud of a 40-footer, slid off the shrink-wrap and graced my boot. The marina may be covered in white, but blue waters do lay ahead. I have to keep that in mind. If misery truly does love company, or just an excuse to get out of the house, my visit to the boatyard lifted the tide knowing I’m not alone.
Tim Tyler grew up on the coast in Brunswick and now lives in Cape Elizabeth. He’s a teacher and a writer and is currently working on a mystery set in Maine.