Bereft....Sold my beloved Santana 22

Nationals 2013

The old adage goes that a sailors happiest days are those in which he buys his boat and sells it.  

I, however,  am bereft, depressed and… sadly relieved.  We have had a bad run over the last few months.  There is the ongoing cost of my wife and daughters simultaneous braces and then the car to fix, airfare to Argentina and the dogs surgery.  Keeping faith with myself I decided I needed a break.  The season wasn’t what I had wanted it to be, home issues and the need to focus my attention there drove me to choose discretion over valor.  

My wife never accepted that I sail, hates it, hated the money I spent on it, the time I would take to work on the boat,  sail or race.  Even though she said she was happy I could find something I enjoyed and helped with stress, I have doubts that in her heart of hearts she felt that way.  We never spoke of my sailing friends or the wonderful days I had on the Bay, she didn’t want to hear anything about it.  Apparently, it wasn’t the time involved, I can easily spend an entire day riding a bicycle or rock climbing, it was something unquantified, specific to sailing. It was time to remove this particular area of friction between us for a while.  

So, I am taking a breather from owning a sailboat.  I didn’t get to accomplish all the goals I had for this boat, but learned much and left what was a near clunker of a boat when I bought it much better for the effort.  Boats can teach and I have loved that learning.  There have been times that were transcendent. Similar to a day after a hard bouldering session watching a cloud slowly rotate or the vanilla sky after a particular trail run.  Riding through the woods on Old Haul after a fast descent.  Sitting at the top of Reed’s Direct collecting myself while Mark followed my lead. There were several days like this spent out sailing.  An epic and beautiful spinnaker run with Dave down to RWC and other amazing sails top my list.  

Dayspring, the boat I never got around to renaming is now anothers little ship.  I hope it serves them as well as she served me.  Hope she gently teaches them trivialities and deeper lessons the way she taught me.  I am not a huge fan of referring to inanimate objects as she or he and Dayspring is no different.  I would gladly replace “she” with “it”, but the moment has passed and I will leave what I have written.  My friends who sailed and worked on it with me, I am as sorry for you all as I am for myself.  We had some great times and I know we all pushed into the red zone once or twice as we tested ourselves.  I promise, there will be more times out for us all, it will just have to be awhile.  Thanks for crewing for me and for trusting me when I made hair brained moves.

This post is going up now, more than a month after Daysprings sale. I just didn't have the heart to reread or post till now.

Loved that boat and the S22 class.