Today at Novel
Adventurers we welcome the talented Sarah Brabazon who writes romance novels and
lives aboard her wooden boat in Tasmania, Australia. She is a Maritime Engineer
by profession, and worked as a shore-based design engineer and project manager
in Australia and the United States of America. She frequently enjoys chatting
to complete strangers, online and in person.
Whenever I mention
that I live aboard a yacht, I see people’s eyes gleam with imagined romance.
They picture Captain Haddock and me sipping sundowners on the aft deck;
romantic evenings watching the moonrise as we feed each other grapes (or
oysters); Flotsam and Jetsam (our children), neatly dressed in stripey tops and
navy sailor pants leap to co-operate if we suggest a recreational sail. Our
crew takes care of any mundane chores that would otherwise interrupt this
idyll.
 |
| Celebration at the launch of a dream. Photo: Zakimimula |
Some days living
aboard is exactly like this; I’m anticipating one or two in the coming year.
The rest of life however, is much less... and more.
The first boat that
Captain Haddock and I owned was simply a means to get out of rental
accommodation while living in Seattle. Her name was Lady Love and if she had
been a person, she would have spent her days in bed, recovering from late nights
swilling gin and smoking cigarettes through one of those long filters that you
see in pictures of film stars of the twenties and thirties.
 |
| The Lady just home from a wine bar. Photo: Zakimimula |
Lady Love was
a tri-cabin cruiser built from mahogany ply in an age when craftsmanship
mattered and fuel was cheap. Her engines were twin 5 litre V8’s but they barely
ran and we couldn’t afford a competent mechanic, so one or other nearly always
needed attention. When we opened them up in the middle of Lake Washington, the
resulting bow wave was big enough to surf. Lady Love was the ideal boat to take
us to lakeside restaurants, to anchor in lake Union on Fourth of July and watch
the fireworks, and she provided some of our most treasured memories of living
in Seattle, but we hankered after a real yacht; one with masts. We had seen
one, years before, gleaming in the Lake Union Wooden Boat Show, far far out of
our touch. Her name was Elixir, and she was beautiful.
 | |||
| Schooner Elixer on Portage Bay with the author at the helm. Photo: Zakimimula |
Elixir was a proper yacht; a gaff-rigged schooner (two masts,
smaller one at the front) built entirely of teak in Taipei in the nineteen-fifties.
She had been a cargo boat in the Pacific, delivering diesel and other goods in
the days when a small island’s only link with civilisation was the monthly
supply vessel. She had sunk during a storm while on a mooring in Hawaii, and the previous owner to
us had salvaged her and rebuilt her entirely, replacing just about everything
on board except for the teak planking. He spent years labouring over her. After
completion, he sailed with wife and son directly to the Oregon Coast from
Hawaii. The trip took months (so long that the boy carved scenes of cows and
oak trees into the timbers of his cabin in the bow) and the wife filed for
divorce on arrival. We first saw Elixir at her gleaming best but over the years
neglect began to take its toll and the varnish deteriorated, along with the asking
price. Our rule of thumb these days is that maintenance costs ten to fifteen
percent of the value of the boat per year, and if we aren’t spending it now, we
are banking it for later. Elixir hadn’t had that for several years and the
price drop made the broker weep. Inside, she was a study in simplicity and
thoughtful design. For a tropical climate, she was perfect.
At the time, I worked
in a ‘white boat’ yard. We built the kind of boats that if you had to ask how
much they cost, you couldn’t afford one. When a prospective client called, some
discreet enquiries followed and if they weren’t worth upwards of four-hundred
million dollars, they didn’t get a call-back. I was a project manager on their
smallest vessels, the 124-footers. By day, I would supervise the installation
of custom joinery, platinum leafing, sound systems that cost more than the
average house, and enough ‘lightweight’ Italian marble to sink a small ship. To
make lightweight Italian marble, glue aluminium honeycomb sheet to each side of
normal thickness marble (for stiffness), then slice it down the centre; this is
half the weight and twice the price of normal Italian marble.
At night, I would go
home to my forty-two foot yacht that had no hot water and kerosene lanterns for
light. It was the middle of the dot-com bubble. Haddock and I lived like
two-bob millionaires. We earned piles but spent every cent. When the bubble
burst, we came home to Australia a little older and much, much wiser.
It took four years to
find another suitable boat. Jetsam our oldest son, born in America, gained a
little brother, Flotsam. When Flotsam was two, we found Hagar, a thirty-two
foot double-ended wooden ketch (two pointy ends and two masts—shortest at the
back).
 |
| Sailing on the River Derwent. Photo: Richard Phillips |
If Hagar were a person, she (yes boats are always she, even when they
have a masculine name) would spend her days in flannelette shirts swinging an
axe and singing lustily. Nights, she would frequent dockside bars trying to
find a bloke who could outdrink her with big enough arms to span her ample
bosom. Hagar is a nurturer, but she does it with a gruff voice and a meaty
fist. For six years, she has been our home. She has weathered storms and kept
us dry, shouldered the Tasman Sea and kept us upright, and consistently rewarded
our maintenance efforts with eye-catching lines and an easy motion. For all the
discomforts of living aboard, we have a home that promotes the important things
in life: family, friends, community and daily random encounters with the public
that sometimes turn into long-term friendships... in other words, the
relationships that nurture our souls.
Have you ever lived
in a place with a personality? Have random acquaintances enriched your life? Do
you know how to scull a dinghy? I would love to hear from you. Come and join
the silliness at https://www.facebook.com/SarahBrabazonAuthor
 | |
| Captain Haddock, Flotsam and Jetsam win the sculling race in the Australian Wooden Boat Show. Photo Dave Plumley |
