Sundown Musing
(1834 hrs.) Friday, July something, (2024?)
Away from Pilar for several nights, I’m again sitting in her companion way with a glass of wine, watching the sunset and luxuriating in the soft breeze flowing over me, cooling the sweaty efforts of opening up the boat and getting reestablished inside.
How much time do I have left to be able to do this; to savor these beautiful, peaceful, heart-fulfilling simple moments of being home again?
The sky darkens, silhouetting Pilar’s Main mast shrouds. Though they are also dark, I can still see the white paint on the deadeyes, and the softer gray on the galvanized wire serviced with painted rope.
Traditionally, shrouds were black, served with hemp then painted with a thick and messy slurry of tar and linseed oil. The rigging was Bill’s responsibility while I was completing the interior construction of our waterborne home. After launching, maintenance of Pilar for the next fifteen years was both of our jobs but these last fifteen years have been completely mine.
It was daunting, the tasks Bill knew best. I simply followed his ways.
Now, when I look at the main mast shrouds of my old-fashioned sailboat, I look with pride on her hardwood deadeyes, rope lanyards, and the fully parceled-and-served galvanized wire that supports the mast.
I remember how hard the black preservative was on them, soaking up the sun’s heat, drying and cracking them.
They are white now. White and gray. ‘Like a dignified ‘Lady’s’ Yacht,’ I think, and smile.
It’s fanciful to feel that rigging could feel grateful for new coats of white and gray. Silly, even, to imagine audible relief from the quick and dirty ways of ancient sailors. I know that alternative materials were limited for those voyaging workboats. I also know the yachts of the rich tarred their rigging., too. But WHY, in these modern times, did Bill remain unthinkingly faithful to tarring? Less heat-absorbing paint would have been kinder.
I love my Pilar as a mother loves her child. Anticipating the silent needs for boats as well as children requires introspection, not rote. Why did it take ME so long to realize I didn’t have to be slavishly bound to "it’s always been done this way…?”
It was because Bill had great admiration for traditional skills. And I admired and respected Bill's knowledge and skills.
My beautiful Lady's yacht. We've grown older together. Pilar is still young, not yet a dowager, but when she is. she deserves to still be loved.
