Yesterday we were excited to view a sailboat for sale in Everett. We had been in touch with the owner for a few weeks via email, text and phone. An older gentlemen from Chelan, (let's call him Jimmie,) who clearly was in love with his Rafiki, Bucket List.
We had to practically twist his arm to actually show us the boat. He loved talking about her and telling us how awesome she was; he was a great salesman.
He waxed on about the new Andersen winches, new sails, Brian Toss rigging, new galley, new running rigging, new cockpit enclosure, new electrical and plumbing. It went on and on and on, to the tune of a supposed $140,000 worth of upgrades.
Jimmie shared with us his dream of sailing her down to San Francisco under the Golden Gate bridge and anchoring off Ghiradelli Square. Since heart trouble a few years back his family has been pressuring him to stay on land and sell his beloved Bucket List.
He spent as much time sharing his dreams as telling us about the boat. We weren't sure he really wanted to sell. But he agreed to meet even though she wasn't "finished" yet. We assured him we could look past the grime of a PNW winter, or a refit, as quality always shines through.
So on Sunday morning at 10am we met Jimmie, in Everett, at a local coffee shop, to meet and talk about Bucket List. Somewhere in the conversation
Shay asked a pivotal question, "how long have you had the boat?"
Four years.
"From who?"
A woman in Kirkland.
Bells and whistles started clanging and screeching, the stars aligned and Shay realized that we knew this boat.
Four years ago we almost bought this boat.
This was Julie's boat. And almost ours.
It wasn't until we were in the car, following Jimmie to the boatyard that Shay mentioned this to me.
I was stunned. I was overcome with emotion and tears streamed out, my heart sank and I felt slightly nauseous. I quickly pulled myself together and joined Shay and Jimmie in the yard.
Standing in the pouring rain, looking up at the dirty, barnacle encrusted hull, it all came flooding back.
The famous semi-annual Fisheries Marine swap meet in spring of 2010 at 6am we were looking at some barely used, Henry Lloyd foul weather gear and struck up a conversation with Julie, a vendor, in the parking lot of Fisheries. She was selling high-end bits and pieces of gear and had a cardboard sign hanging around her neck that read, " Sailboat for Sale, Rafki, 1976."
We asked her about the Rafiki and before long we had exchanged emails and she promised to send photos. It all sounded so perfect... so destined.
And a great reason to get up at 4:30am and drive 90 minutes in the dark to Ballard, to look at marine parts.
Later that weekend we started a relationship that consumed the next month of our lives.
Julie was recently separated from a well-known naval architect who had bled her bank account dry by buying every bit of high end sailboat gear on the market. All this gear was either in her garage, on the boat or in her storage unit. Being a non-sailor gal she had no idea what to do with it all.
The sailboat was in the beginning stages of a full refit. Not sailable; as the rigging was not complete, the interior was not complete, nor electrical, plumbing, deck gear, etc. It was all in the garage, or the storage unit, and she needed to recoup some of her lost capital, by selling the boat and gear, while literally removing these memories from her life.
The sailboat represented betrayal and embarrassment, and the boat was her answer to recouping the funds that were sugar mamma'd out of her savings.
I offerred to help Julie inventory her equipment so she could better estimate it's worth. We were interested in the possibility of purchasing the Rafiki, but we couldn't tell at that time what we were even buying. It worked to both our benefits to move forward together and catalog everything.
I made spreadsheets of all the equipment: spools of line, clutches, jam cleats, winches, plumbing, ground tackle, much of it in new boxes.
We took a day and drove to her storage unit and inventoried that 8 x 10 space. She shared her heartbreaking story of loss and she told me all she wanted was to be rid of the boat (which was without even a name at the moment,) and move on with her life.
I took pictures of each item, attached it to my spreadsheet and later looked up anything online that we couldn't figure out. It took a huge amount of time and energy, but you had to see this boat to understand the draw it had. We also felt for Julie in her time of crisis, and felt obliged to help a sister in need.
The boat, this Rafiki, she was a beautiful thing. She gleamed.
Even tho she was floating in the slip looking more like a beamy powerboat at the time, she glowed.
Everything was shiny and crisp. We were taken under her spell. High gloss everywhere, as if she was just born from the boatyard, launched for the first time.
Shay and I met with a shipwright. We talked about what it would take to put her back together. Her asking price was already at the top of our budget. But this situation, this boat, seem handed to us from the gods.
For weeks we talked to marine contractors, agonized over the spreadsheets, looked at our savings accounts and detailed out the project lists. It would take us probably a year to get her sailing, mostly since we couldn't afford to hire out everything. We could hire out the electrical, some of the rigging and tanks, and do the remaining projects ourselves. It would be long and hard, but she would be practically new when we finished.
We couldn't do it.
The project list was too long. The unknown expenses too risky for us at the time. We were worried she would sit in her slip, or the yard, and languish. Having an 80 year old home and two rental properties ate up our summer weekends. When would we sail? Would we end up like so many other project boats we saw in the boatyards, unattended and un-sailed, a dream gone mossy?
With heavy hearts we told Julie our news.
She was understandably disappointed. And so were we.
I gave Julie the spreadsheets, all the pictures, wrote ads for her to put online to sell the Rafiki and she game us a couple very nice fishing poles. We hugged and went our separate ways.
Flash forward 4 years. Yes, we've been looking for a boat for 4 years. (Well, 3 of those at least.)
The Rafiki is now called, "Bucket List," and owned by Jimmie.
He bought her and got her sailing. Put on the winches, the rigging, some plumbing and basic galley.
Took her a couple sounds up north a few times but mostly let her sit.
Her gloss was gone, her lines were covered in green slime, the varnish had peeled, the beautiful cabin sole was gouged and lackluster. She was older now.
The promise we saw of an elegantly clad, graceful maiden of the sea had not come to fruition.
When we entered the salon all we could see was hanging wire ties from unfinished electrical work, wood work that was sawed and holed, peanut shells littering every floor space and general unseaman-like work.
For a second we considered starting over. Taking out all the shoddy electrical and funky plumbing, the fuel tank in the hanging lazarette (?) and redoing it all. Was this our second chance? Our destiny?
But our hearts weren't in it. All we felt was sad. She did not feel like our home. We were not in love with her.
And Jimmie was.
We sat in the salon while Jimmie told stories of his love, of his dreams and the pressures of his family to sell the Rafiki. We knew she was not ours, but his. He said as much too. If we didn't buy it he would sail south.
When we left we both sat numb and quiet in the car. What just happened?
What lesson are we supposed to be learning? What is the Universe trying to tell us?
Was it a missed opportunity 4 years ago? Why did she come back into our life? We've been looking so long now that we are looking at the same boats with different owners and names? (sigh)
After talking it over, we still trust our decision of 4 years ago. She was too much of a project for us at that time. It was a year later that Shay needed spine surgery and we spent almost the purchase price of the Rafiki traveling to England for Shay's surgery.
She would have languished, both of them, as there was 16 months that would have been impossible for Shay to sail.
We're still not sure what type of lesson this sad experience holds for us. To take more risks maybe?
To trust ourselves since we have seen first hand that four years later that beautiful Rafiki is still not ready to go off-shore?
Or maybe it's just a simple lesson in how much attention any sailboat needs to be kept in good condition.
Maybe we should be looking at steel boats, they have no teak. I hear there is one for sale in Seattle.