Spray has
been sold. No exclamation points, no champagne
corks flying. There is a saying that a
boat owner only knows two days of joy: the day he buys the boat and the
day he sells it. It’s just not
true.
It’s not
that I’m overly sentimental about Spray.
In fact, I just don’t feel much of anything except relief that the
process of selling her is over and a lingering sense of responsibility
to hand her over to her new owners in good condition.
In a rare
moment of sitting idly over coffee this morning, Patrick and I reminisced about
all our adventures with Spray. While we
are thrilled at the prospect of a new boat, we realize how important it was for
our education to start out with an old boat.
After 3 years and nearly 4500 miles under the keel, there’s not much about
basic boat maintenance that we don’t know how to handle now. Electricity, plumbing, diesel engine
maintenance, mystery leaks, epoxies and general repairs of all sorts no longer
frighten us the way they did in the beginning.
If we’d had a new boat from the beginning, I dare say we’d still be
anxious about our ability to manage a boat.
That said,
we fully intend to savor our graduation from “Boat Maintenance School” and
enjoy the relative pleasures of sailing a new boat where repairs should be
minimal. (Remind me I said that in a few
months…).
Spray by
numbers:
Bought:
June 2012 Sold: May 2015
4450
nautical miles in 2.5 years of sailing from the Channel Islands to the
northwest tip of Spain.
264 days
sailing (5 over-night sails)
3 countries
visited (France, England, Spain)
Euros
invested in upgrades and maintenance: way too many !
Cost of a solid
education in boats, a sense of accomplishment, and the strong desire to continue the
sailing life: priceless.
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