Boating — Pretty Boats Turn Heads!
The “Dead End Canal Yacht Club” has an ongoing discussion about who has the prettiest boat. We’ve excluded the sailboaters because they wouldn’t ever think that any powerboat could be handsome or pretty or non-ugly. (I apologize that some sailboaters have taken exception to the term blow-boater so I’ll try not to use the term, but I can’t promise for the members.)
Sailboaters and power boaters are like Republicans and Democrats. I’ll leave it up to you to guess which is which.
In the prettiest boat contest we’ve included all classes of powerboats in this fruitless exercise because there is every kind of boat in the club. No, I didn’t say this makes sense but what else have we got to do in this economy. Anyway, I wouldn’t argue my boat is the prettiest because it is a fishing boat and it just isn’t, okay. I’m proud of that. That elevates me to one of the unofficial judges.
I tried to disqualify myself because of my past association with a very pretty boat. Let me explain in a round about way. Many years ago a retired Railroader told me this story; He’d made the same run for 15 years down the same track and back without a mere notice from the fickled housewives hanging their laundry or the husbands cutting their grass. If they were noticed it was by pre-teen boys who threw rocks at the Caboose as it sped passed.
Then one day in the late 1980s he was called to work and to an unusual job; the engine designation was ‘ste’ which to his dismay turned out to mean ‘steam!’ Sure enough the train was owned by a club that restored steam locomotives and passenger cars.
“It was the most exciting day of my 35-year career,” he told me, “Mothers carried infants and fathers carried small children into their back yards to wave and point. Every crossing was loaded with people and their kids. We stopped at several small towns to have our picture taken! What a day!”
What does that have to do with boating? You have every right to ask. Nearly that same thing happened to me with a replica wooden boat. You may not remember that from 1995 though July 2000 Cap’n Roger Nodruff and the old boatguy had a local television show about boating. (Thankfully all the tapes have been destroyed.) But in the last year of our run we did a story on Hugh Saint, a Wooden Boat restorer and builder in Cape Coral who made beautiful wooden replicas of classic boats.
The segment dealt with the trip from Cape Coral to Boca Grand in a brand new wooden replica of a Picnic Launch. Only this boat was covered with clear resin that allowed the wood’s beauty to shine through. It was more a work of art than a boat. Just like the old railroader we had a day we won’t soon forget.
We were followed by awestruck shutter bugs. A crowd of plastic boats followed us into Cabbage Key and it was hard to film with so many boaters crowding around. Cap’n Roger sat in the cockpit with the delivery skipper and did an interview but with all the people hanging off the dock, yapping and staring down, it was unusable.
I edited the piece and was furious with the rude behavior of the people even after the director and I pleaded with them for silence. The interview was finally conducted on the open water and we got enough for a very nice piece. It aired on the Sunshine Channel in February 2000 with quite a number of comments from viewers.
I remember one in particular. I received a call from a man who was nearly sobbing into the phone. “That was my father’s boat,” he stammered. He went on to tell of his deceased father’s love of wooden boats and his disdain for the work that they demanded in the Florida climate. “I never realized what beauties they were until I saw your show!”
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder but as I watched the segment for the second and third time, I realized it was nostalgia that we see as beauty. I know wooden boats are spectacular but they lose their luster with the tremendous amount of work needed.
I related this story to the “Dead End Canal Yacht Club” members and they disagreed that a wooden boat could be any prettier than their plastic boats. Esthetically I disagree but practically I agree. The cost to restore an antique 20-foot wooden Chris Craft can run into tens of thousands of dollars and a larger boat like a 30-footer can be well over $100,000.
Steve Thurlow, the delivery skipper of the replica on that day, now refurbishes wooden boats and builds new, 30 plus wooden fishing boats. He loves wood so he understands the passion needed to own a wood boat in salt water. “They are a special breed of people. Even though new technology has mitigated the effect of mother nature with new resins there is still a lot of timely maintenance that has to be preformed.” If you have what it takes to own a really beautiful boat, Steve can be contacted at 239-340-3363.
boatguy Ed is a member of the “Dead End Canal Yacht Club.” For information on ‘Super Shipbottom’ paint and putting vim and vigor back into your ship call 466-5670 and find out how.