I had heard the distinctive crunch of car on gravel and estimated that the once-flashy-red now dull-rustish Mercedes parking on the lawn was around the same age I am, five and a half decades or so. The be-whiskered gentleman that climbed out of that vehicle must have been thirty years older.

He walked over purposefully and simply stood, stock still, gazing up at STEADFAST for long, long minutes. In my mind she isn’t all that pretty at this particular juncture, hauled out of her natural element for repairs, holes for projects begun here and there, original materials showing some age. She does make an impression regardless, I have to say that much. Our scaffold isn’t tall enough to reach the top rail or long enough to encompass her 56 feet. When he glanced at me I raised my eyebrows in a silent ‘Can I help you?’ but received no response. We are on the fringes of the Richardson Maritime Museum here in Cambridge, Maryland, but we aren’t part of it. We’re not ready for that, yet.

 

Arms folded, he stepped closer and without preamble or introduction asked where she was built. Wheeler Shipyard in Brooklyn, we told him as we worked, and he raised his eyebrows in turn. For the first time, someone we met had local knowledge of the place, which he spewed with no further encouragement, slowly edging his way into our space, inspecting as he went, murmuring unasked and unanswered questions.

“Crazy old coot, that’s the fourth one this week,” my Sailor said to me. We smiled at each other. It is rewarding, and heartening, to have people understand THE WOODEN BOAT PHENOMENON instead of just thinking we were crazy. (Which we are, make no mistake.) I tried to properly convey that phenomenon. Read that here.

The gentleman meandered along on his own tour, stepping and then backing up, taking in the topside teak and rig. Unable to resist, I toddled after him, volunteering random answers to common questions. Each time, he put his hand up to his ear and indicated that he hadn’t heard, so each time I repeated myself, a little louder, not sure if he was actually interested in the facts that I was now spewing, un-encouraged. It reminded me of Waterman Johnny Kinnamon, in fact, his story is here. He told me once that if he always wanted to hear what folks were saying, he’d put his hearing aids in. But he doesn’t. He sits in church beside me and appears to listen attentively. At first I commented occasionally (to no avail) and he finally said to me, “I can’t hear any of this.” Now I sit quietly, too, appreciating the simplicity of not trying to make conversation. Johnny is 87 and chooses carefully who he spends his time and energy on.

“Who are you?” I inquired. “Who am I?” he repeated, laughing. “Who am I. Well, I’ve been around these places my whole life. I’ve seen people working on boats and fixing them and most of them weren’t worth fixing.” He shook his head at the world. “But this girl, she’s worth saving.” My appreciation of his words was so vast that I said nothing at all.

Unfortunately, we had somewhere to be when that stranger showed up; we were already hot and tired of trying to put the puzzle pieces of our quickly changed life together while making sure we had all the ones we needed. We definitely don’t. There was no plan to be where we are.

Our appointment was ticking closer. We made it to the bow, where three weeks ago we had discovered Mother Nature had endowed STEADFAST with an insidious rot not visible from the outside or the inside. We are still assessing, peeling back the layers. She’ll need rare, expensive materials and even rarer expertise, which we found in the local Shipwrights of Deadrise Maritime. These are the puzzle pieces I refer to. The elements to bring our home back to where she needs to be. We are in a new town, a new boatyard, living on land. It’s an uncomfortable place, depending on others when we are used to being both independent and fully mobile.

 

I apologized and invited him to come back anytime. Since I (somehow) had not yet learned the lesson, had to repeat myself. “She’s worth it,” he called after me. “This is a special boat.” I stopped in my tracks, because that’s what we say, too, when we are trying to explain THE WOODEN BOAT PHENOMENON. “I hope I won’t be a pest. I’ll be back.” I smiled at him then, this stranger who had encouraged me more than he would ever know.

“Crazy old coot knows his boats.” I said as we got into the seen-better-days boatyard loaner car, and I smiled again. SOME THINGS AREN’T WORTH SAVING. And some things are.

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