Mission Aborted

Running errands this weekend, I planned to take the family to have a look at the aluminum vessel. Here was a boat 4 feet longer, 2 feet wider, and with three feet less draft then our current boat - an improvement in every aspect that, as of late, were most important to me.

The owner and I had been playing phone tag (or more accurately, message tag over the classified app that we were using) throughout the week and decided on Sunday afternoon. The weekend came, my excitement grew and the research into aluminum vessels went into overdrive.

Unfortunately I couldn't find anything on this particular boat, but did get quite a refresher on aluminum hulls:

The Good Stuff
An Aluminum vessel should be light, and far more resilient then a brittle fiberglass hull. Modern welding practices allow for seemless shaping - although I don't know if the age of this boat would qualify for that benefit. Aluminum hulls are, supposedly, inexpensive to repair because (if you have the tools) the process is not too dificult.

The Bad Stuff
Aluminum repair requires a special machine and a skilled welder. This kind of confuses me, as (noted above) I keep reading that they are inexpensive to repair; I would think hiring a skilled laborer or renting/purchasing special equiptment and learning the skills would be pretty costly! Aluminum is not well insulated. It seems to be always too hot here in Texas - would we be constantly fighting a cooling battle in the cabin? Aluminum is noisy ... no big deal, so are my kids!

Anyway, the weekend progressed quickly and when Sunday came we started the hour Trek to the Kemah area. We set out early in the morning, getting breakfast, shopping, and finally looking at a house that we had noticed earlier in the week. (this was the ruse for our current trip - I head yet to mention to the gang that I was going to look at another boat).

The house was a bust, which we half expected, but the realtor seemed trustworthy and we lined her up to look at our property - when we were ready to list. Next we were heading to lunch - only 10 minutes away from the Marina. I was plotting the mention of what our next stop would be, but (as if via physical presentiment of the way she was going to react to my 'surprise'), Misty was hit with a sudden attack and uncontrollable bout of nausea. We pulled the car over waiting for it too pass. I jogged into a convenience store to grab some ginger ale, then started on again. Less then 10 minutes later we were, once again, pulled over. I saw the writing on the wall and discretely messaged the owner that our meeting was not going to happen, started the car back up, and turned our vehicle homeward.

As someone who has a strong belief that things happen the way that they need to, I couldn't help but work through possible meanings of this perfectly timed stomach issue. Did this mean that I needed to once again close the book on the possibility of an aluminum vessel? Is this vessel just not the right one? ...or...Did my wife know I planned to look at yet another 40 year old 'dream boat' ?

I looked over at Misty, who smiled pleasantly at me. As she turned to look back out of the passenger window, it seemed that her pretty lips were a little more terse then usual - forming the ever so subtle smirk...just the nausea, I'm sure.

Considering Aluminum

While perusing the various online classifieds, a daily ritual for me, I recently happened across an add for a 38' sailboat. An older and smaller design then I would hope to eventually upgrade to, but two items caught my attention and quickly turned my casual perusing to semi-obsessive contemplation. My first pause came as I read that this was a swing keel boat - a dream come true for for my local cruising grounds. This would open up nearby waters that, with my previous 5-6' draft vessels, I'd never before even thought about traversing in a vessel of that size. The second item, though, is what really drew me in - the hull material: Aluminum...very interesting...

Throughout my lifelong obsession with sailboats, I've considered various marine building materials: fiberglass, steel, wood, and ferro-cement. I've poked holes in various alternative materials such as ferra-lite and ironed Dacron. I've even played with laughable ideas such as stacked/carved hardware store foam or paper-mache! Yes, I was as much an 'armchair boatbuilder' as I was a sailor. Throughout my 40 years, dreams of boat-building have been repeatedly and unfailingly re-ignited during times in which I was landlocked. Times when my boat had to be sold for the move, vehicle, medical, child, or whatever the next necessary expense was. In fairness to my patient wife and placating family, I've never made enough extra money to truly justify owning a boat. Not even a day-sailor, let alone the mono-hull cruising sailboat which was, for me, the creme de la crem of boats. This financial dilemma is probably whey every time I parted with a vessel, the insurmountably of acquiring another immediately drove me to the flighty idea of building a boat - my perfect boat. I was also determined to build this boat as cheap as possible! All though I long ago decided aluminum would be an almost ideal material for a sailboat, all of my armchair boat building never led me very far down that path. The simple reason for this was cost.

Now, a middle aged sailor with a wife and 5 kids, cost is as big an issue as it ever was. Although, I find myself less inclined to strive for (and less of a believer that there actually is) my one perfect boat, there often do seem to be perfect opportunities for a boat . Here is a boat, already built, possibly large enough for us to take some extended cruises on, that could be had for about what I could sell my project of a boat for. That sounds like a good definition of perfect at this point in my life! Time to re-open the book on Aluminum...