A Beautiful Disaster

I think most have no idea what it means to acquire a dream. Most of them start out as nightmares while only a few end that way. Settling into my final glide path, it’s easier to talk about it now than it was to hear it nearly 4 decades ago when I purchased my first boat from a professional hitman. Let’s just leave that last bit at what it is but somehow I lived through it and learned a very large lesson. If you can’t afford to pay cash, you can’t afford it. That was my first boating lesson. My second was don’t hit anything you can’t afford to buy. Boats aren’t necessarily a worse investment than cocaine, hookers, and fire engines, but they are equally as much fun.

When I decided I wanted a larger boat, I cleared my mind of everything I thought I knew about boats. Above and beyond anything, I want a beautiful boat. I looked at thousands of designs. I knew things were getting out of control when I started getting serious about a 2 million dollar aluminum pilot cutter. Without a large amount of effort, I reduced those desires to a 40′ wood pilot cutter. From there again down to a 34′ plastic Hess.

I sat down with Kimi and a great bottle of Cab and laid it all out on the line. When all the adds and subtracts were done, I settled on a boat that I thought I could have. Turns out the seller had changed her mind. Then this little unnamed cutter came calling. I tend to fall for things that make no sense till you try them on and they do, from what some may say was far too small to what others would call far too large. In the end, I found my goldilocks and she is just right.

We have always called her Ooku, even before she arrived but this little fairy tale of a boat still has no name. We threw around Sookie as she’s kinda sorta a larger version but I just can’t commit. It took me six months to name my last boat only to learn many years later her true name of Starlet.

I may have gently wandering eyes but it’s a rarity for me to fall in love. While the bonding process continues I patiently wait for her name to arrive. There are a thousand ways to describe what all of this is like but for me, it’s always the same: First I make her a safe boat, then I make her a comfortable boat, then I make her a pretty boat. Let’s just call it what it is, a beautiful disaster.