Article by Capt. Mark Sampson
The nor’easter that pushed through here a few weeks ago gave me a couple days off to finish a project I’ve been trying to get done for over a month. Late last January, when I hauled it out of the water, I realized that the little 15-foot wooden boat that my wife and I use for clamming, exploring, trips to Assateague and just playing around in the bay, needed some serious TLC. The stem (bow) had some serious rot going on and needed to be replaced. Even for a little boat like that, such a project is not something you do in a couple days, so I had to table the task until after I got back from Florida in early May. Of course, by then I was knee deep in our fishing season up here and could only pick at the little boat whenever I had a spark of free time over the last three months.
Finally, last Sunday with a brand new stem, fresh paint, a couple handfuls of fasteners, some globs of 5200 adhesive and a dab of West-System epoxy, the little boat slid down the ramp and back into the water where it belongs and will hopefully stay until the end of January.
The little plywood boat was built in 1968 and started it’s life as part of a fleet of rental boats at “Captain Joe’s Marina,” which sat just north of the Rt. 50 Bridge where the Lazy Lizard Restaurant is now. We bought the boat about 20-years ago from Captain Joe’s widow after the marina was long gone. It’s my understanding that the owner and his helpers made all their rental boats and this one he kept for himself after selling the marina. When we acquired the boat it had been sitting in an old chicken house off of Sunset Avenue for I don’t know how long.
Suffice to say that it’s an “old” wooden boat, and to keep her “right” over the years I’ve had the pleasure of replacing the transom, the seats, a couple of the bottom runners, as well as sanded off and re-applied more gallons of paint than I want to think about. Yea, compared to shiny, waxed fiberglass boats she’s “different” but still “pleasing to look at” and my wife and I have had her so long she’s certainly both a labor of love and a joy that has allowed us countless good times on the water.
Whether it’s made of wood, fiberglass or metal, maintaining any boat is a constant learning experience that will have you dabbling in engine repair, sanding and painting, carpentry, fiberglass work, sanding and painting, working with knots and lines, sanding and painting, cleaning, waxing, varnishing, and did I mention that there would be a lot of sanding and painting? Folks don’t usually buy boats just so they can maintain them. They get a boat so they can go out on the water and use them to do whatever they wish to do with them, whether it’s fishing, skiing, sailing, hunting, cruising – whatever. But one lesson every boat owner quickly learns is the value of taking care of what they have. Boats cannot be neglected - they won’t allow it.
After a few months of being tied-up in a slip or parked in your driveway, without any attention at all, how much confidence will you have in that boat? Do you think that with nothing more than a turn of the key, your boat will be ready to whisk you out for a trouble-free day of offshore fishing? Boats don’t just need our attention, they demand it, and if we let them down they’re sure to do the same to us when we need them most to perform at their best. When you think about it, owning a boat, maintaining a boat and using a boat mimics the relationships we have with our friends and family. Boat ownership can teach us some a really good and basic lesson on life – “treat me right and I’ll do the same for you.”
Considering the aforementioned benefits of owning and taking care of a boat, I wish I could suggest that every kid should have one of their own - but we all know that wouldn’t work. There are some kids that for one reason or the other should not be left alone to push around the waterways with their own boat. But for some kids, having the opportunity to maintain and operate a boat will translate to many good (and sometimes hard) lessons learned.
The first boat I had use of was nothing more than a little 10-foot dingy that my sister and I would paddle around the bay. The tough plastic hull was unsinkable, and aside from scooping out the mud and sand that collected from our daily jaunts to the local marshes and sandbars, the boat was virtually maintenance free. It was the perfect starter boat for an eight-year-old. Aboard that boat my eyes were first opened to the abundance and diversity of life that thrives in the shallows of Delmarva’s back-bay waters.
The next boat my parents turned me loose on was a 14-foot McKee Craft with an Evinrude 25 horsepower outboard. I was about 12 at the time and suddenly my world expanded from where I could “row” to how far I could “go” on a 6-gallon can of gas. Now that I had more of a “real” boat to take care of I began to learn much more about maintenance, repair and certainly the expense of keeping a boat. I also learned my first lesson about neglecting a boat when I was in such a hurry to get it in the water one spring that I didn’t paint the bottom first. In midsummer I realized the price of my impatience when the boat was so fouled up with growth that it wouldn’t come up on plane. Days of scraping barnacles, sanding and finally painting had my boat back in shape and this kid back on the water with a hard lesson learned about getting work done first before going out to play.
Boat number three was a 19-foot center console with a single 150 horsepower outboard and the first boat I actually ran offshore. I had the boat a number of years before I got my first LORAN (GPS hadn’t even been invented yet) so I can’t say exactly how far I pushed the little boat offshore, but I’d guess we regularly ran 20 to 30 miles off the beach. Since we never knew exactly where we were, and I only had a CB radio if we needed assistance, I became very aware of the importance of being able get out and back on my own. Routine and preventative maintenance was something I knew was important, but didn’t know a lot about. So I made an effort to learn as much as I could, as fast as I could, and did my best to keep the boat in top condition. In 12-years of running offshore, she always brought me home. Running that little boat offshore taught me a lot about watching the weather and knowing that sometimes, no matter how much you “want” to go fishing, there will always be times when Mother Nature suggests in her own way that you need to sit one out.
There are countless lessons in life that await young and old boaters with young or old boats. Our little wooden skiff is now pushing 50, but she’s still able to keep most of the water on the outside of her hull and is always waiting to whisk us away to whatever adventure we point her “new” bow. She might be “old” but with a steady flow of TLC (and a lot of sandpaper and paint) there’s no reason to doubt that she’ll be around for a bunch more years – just another lesson in life.
Capt. Mark Sampson is an outdoor writer and captain of the charter boat, “Fish Finder”, docked at the Ocean City Fishing Center.
