so soon after rediscovering sailing from twenty years ago, has me feeling almost like it is a big daydream. It was about a month ago, when I woke up early one morning, to drive twenty miles to the lake to take a chance there may be some sailboats for sale. It was no pre-plan. Just had a whim I wanted one. From far back memories of my youth. Summers spent on lakes. Always too poor for any boat, as a kid. Family had only money for nessary things. Seldom anything in the way of extravagant. We did not own a car the whole time I grew up, let alone a boat to pull anywhere.
At the lake a month ago, I looked almost with passion, at the boats laid out before me. Big ones, small ones. Green ones, yellow ones, and one boat stood out from the others. It was a MacGregor 25 I was later to learn.
It was ever bit twice the size of the two sailboats I owned as a young married man. Those sailboats had only one sail, and no below deck areas. No complicated rigging. Only pure joy from flying in the wind with the boat between myself and the water. This Mac 25 seemed huge. Daunting, impossible to ever think I could go from a small boat twenty years ago to something with two, and even three sails, and what looked like 200 ropes, wires, and pulleys and wenches controlling it all. Well, in an hour, I owned that boat. In two hours, I had a boat motor. Never owned a boat motor before. Never operated one, or really ever imagined sailboats even used them. In a couple of days, I was spending my free time, sailing on the lake, something I had not done in twenty plus years, and had never done in such a commanding way with multiple sails, and such a fast boat.
As I pushed through the fog I was in, I saw other MacGregors, larger, more powerful, with many more refinements.
Well, that was a month ago. Today, that first sailboat is all tuned up, and the engine is serviced, and the whole kit n kabootle is for sale on Craig's List. Not because I changed my mind, or got tired of it, or because It was a passing thing. No, I have it for sale because three sailboats purchased in the first month back on the water, would be a pain in the neck to mow around! Yep, I purchased a second sailboat that first day, and three weeks later, the next move was to call John at Super Sport Marine and twist his arm into selling me an
So in three weeks, I went from no thought of sailing, to dreams of power sailing.
Yep, my wife thinks I have lost it. She is for the most part, somewhere between respectful of water, to down right afraid of it. Her memories of small sailboats with 20 mph winds are not good ones. However, she is a good wife, and can roll with the punches when she sees her hubby has gone off on an adventure. She is a good wife. Good wife of twenty eight years putting up with my odd ball nature.
Enough about me, what has brought you to this point, of wind in your hair, sun in your face, and a MacGregor between the water and the sky, under your feet? Why sailing, and why now? What does it mean to you, and why the pull at your heart? I know the pull, I feel the force, so I know what you are going through. Tell us your feelings about sailing that has brought you to this place.
was a forgone conclusion from that point on. Two years of lurking on this site may have helped a bit as well!
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