When you buy a sailboat, it’s only natural that the wind refuses to blow. There isn’t really any reason for it to. You have your sail, you have your boat, you have a very tall mast to hold the sail up above the boat, and now the only thing you need is wind. It doesn’t matter if the boat is fast or the sails bright, if the wind won’t cooperate then what you have is a buoy ornament. Buoy ornaments are expensive, but common, and if you’ve ever sat in a screened porch and watched such a tethered ornament float in the blue water beyond your pier, then you know that with wind or without it, sailboats are pretty fun.
Several weeks ago, in the middle of my lost summer, a new boat joined the Curry fleet. If we were to go to war against some other boat owning family, we would likely lose. None of these boats of ours are particularly fast. None are particularly fabulous. But each has its place in any sporting fleet, and each will do just fine if deployed to duty or left to hang in their slip or cling to their buoy or rest on their lift. It isn’t easy to amass such a fleet. Lest you think this fleet was cobbled together dishonestly, or through excessive use of fast money, I assure you that the fleet is now 40 years in the making and that the sum of its cumulative parts do not total the price paid for a decent used Cobalt.
First there was the Chris Craft. The one I’ve written about here before and the one that I am still not permitted to drive. And then there were other boats, a red Laser sailboat with a heavy hull. That hull became so waterlogged that the boat had to be laid to rest many years ago, which was sad, unless you didn’t care about that boat. Which I didn’t. And then a Boston Whaler, a Montauk with powder blue interior and a shaky mahogany center console. If you took the boat for a ride back in the late 80s or early 90s, it was best to tighten as many console screws as you could before you left, and then tighten them all again once you returned. And if you ever drove it to Hansen’s gas pump in Williams Bay to fill up the tank and only after filling it you realized that you hadn’t brought any money with, it’s not really a big deal. Mel forgives.
When that Whaler was sold to make way for a rather horrible teal striped Sea Ray, things were getting better. This was our first bow rider, our first I/O engine, and the first boat that seemed like it mattered. But it didn’t. And soon after it was sold to make way for an identical Sea Ray, only this one traded the dreaded teal accents for blue ones. It was better, but not great. It was also small, and anyone captaining a 19′ bow on Geneva during a weekend will know that small boats aren’t just ugly to look at, they can also be dangerous to drive (see post below).
When the teal and then blue Sea Rays had run their course, another upgrade was in order. A blue boat again, but a Cobalt. A delicious, blue, Cobalt. To the chagrin of Gordy’s employees everywhere, it was bought in New York. For shame. But it was placed on Geneva and it still resides on Geneva, so in that I think everyone can be happy. There were other boats too, a South Coast sailboat, my famed, if smoky, Pursuit fishing boat, and another Laser with an unrotted hull to replace the red hull that hadn’t fared so well during the winters it spent uncovered on sawhorses on my parents front lawn.
But those were just the boats that lead us to now, to the newest addition. To the new sailboat that looks curiously like the old sailboat. This boat, a Bridges Point 24 named Kestrel, is the only one of its kind on Geneva Lake. There is some pride in that, as even Pat Ryan’s Hinckley has to share the water with at least two other Hinckleys, even if those other boats are the $300k variety and his sailboat is the $1.4MM sort. The Bridges Point is a Joel White design, a name that means nothing to you unless you’re either related to Joel or you’ve been following sail boat design for the latter half of this past century. Joel is dead now, but the Bridges Point isn’t what killed him.
The sailboat was bought from New Jersey, and I’m certain that as happy as we were to see the boat arrive on the shore of Geneva Lake the boat was indeed happier. The lines are graceful, classic, the power an inboard diesel, the sails big and white. The wood rub rail is quite glorious, as is are the wood accents and the contoured seats that look as though they might be uncomfortable but are, in fact, quite pleasing. There are all sorts of lines and gadgets, and as a guy who sails with the sole intent of raising a sail or two and catching the angle of a little wind, most of these extra accoutrements are lost on me, and my father. Thomas, having been the only one to attend any form of sailing school, likely knows more about this boat that we do.
There are hesitations with this boat. The only sailing I’ve ever done prior to this has been on a Laser. When you tip a Laser completely over, you just climb up on the centerboard and your weight pulls the boat right again. When you dump a Bridges Point, you must call the insurance man and hope your coverage covered user error. Nonetheless, the Kestrel handles brisk winds with ease, and the low belly allows those on the low side to carelessly drag their hands through the lapping waves. But this is to assume that the boat is being sailed, and this is to assume that there is wind to push. If Obama is attempting to sail on yesterday’s wind, I’d just be happy to find some new wind tomorrow and sail on that.