Two Weeks Into the Unknown
There are moments in boating that no amount of preparation can prepare you for.
This was one of them.
After months of sanding, varnishing, troubleshooting, replacing, upgrading, cleaning, commissioning, and more than a few late nights wondering what we’d gotten ourselves into, our “new-to-us” Morgan 384 finally slipped her lines.
Not with Canadian Ken, Green Mountain Josh, and me aboard.
Not for a weekend sail. But for two weeks with a family we’d only recently met.
As she motored away from the dock, I realized something. We weren’t just launching a boat, we were launching an idea.
The idea was simple enough: put a beautiful old sailboat back to work, share her with families who wanted to experience the Maine coast, and let the charters pay for the dream.
Simple.
Until reality showed up.
Every old boat has a list. Ours apparently came with chapters.
Electrical gremlins.
Brightwork.
Plumbing issues.
Spent windlass clutch.
Bottom paint that looked like a layer cake.
Systems checks - and system failures.
Safety gear replacement.
A pooched fuel system and fuel that looked more like tapioca than diesel.
Endless cleaning.
Provisioning with sheets, towels, and blankets.
On and on it went.
What we thought would be a spring commissioning slowly became a race against the calendar. There were moments when I honestly wondered if we’d make our first charter. Fortunately, BoatFools has something better than a business plan.
It has its people.
Green Mountain Josh.
Canadian Ken.
My stepfather—whose Sabre 36, Moondance, is legendary around Camden Harbor. After more than 40 years, she still looks better than boats half her age.
And then there’s Save the Day Jay.
Around here, that’s not just a nickname. It’s a job description.
If something broke...
Jay fixed it.
If something looked questionable...
Jay had already figured out three ways to solve it.
Diesel.
Rigging.
Electrical.
Plumbing.
You name it.
Without Jay—and the rest of the BoatFools crew—I honestly don’t think the old girl would have been ready. It was literally an all-hands-on-deck situation.
Still...
Nothing prepared me for watching our guests arrive with duffel bags and lots of groceries in hand.
This wasn’t a boat we were selling.
This wasn’t a YouTube walkthrough.
This wasn’t a day sail with friends.
This was our boat.
The boat we’d poured ourselves into for months.
The boat we’d imagined sailing ourselves all summer.
And now we were explaining where everything lived, walking through the systems, demonstrating the diesel, showing them the head, reviewing safety gear, handing over the keys.
Then stepping off.
It felt...weird.
Really weird.
We trusted the family - which included two youngsters.
We trusted the boat.
We just weren’t sure we trusted ourselves to let go.
As the dock lines were hauled aboard and the Morgan slowly backed away, we caught ourselves doing what every nervous boat owner probably does.
Did we remember everything?
Should we have mentioned the...
Wait...did we...
Too late.
She was already heading toward Penobscot Bay.
The funny thing about worry is that it usually fills the silence.
In the mad dash to finish the boat in time, I was up every night at 4 AM making mental lists of everything that still needed to be done.
Those first few nights after the charter left the dock, I barely slept at all.
For the first days and nights, every time my phone buzzed, I wondered if this would be the call.
The one about a system failure. (None came).
A question (we had several easy ones).
A problem (an easy fix).
Then...
“We’re anchored in...”
“What a beautiful evening.”
“The sunset tonight...”
And then one message changed everything. I immediately forwarded the text to Canadian Ken and Green Mountain Josh.
A few minutes later Ken called. “I ran outside and pumped my fists in the air,” he said. “I might have cried a little.” Josh sent back an enthusiastic, “Heck yeah!”
I understood exactly what they meant.
“My granddaughter is using the swim ladder. Too cold for the grownups!”
That was it.
One simple sentence.
But it told us everything we needed to know.
A little girl was climbing up and down the swim ladder somewhere along the coast of Maine, laughing at the adults who thought the water was too cold.
The Morgan wasn’t sitting on her mooring.
She wasn’t waiting for “someday.”
She was exactly where she belonged.
Doing exactly what Morgan built her to do forty years ago.
Helping another family create memories.
That’s when it hit me.
None of the projects mattered by themselves.
Not the hours spent fixing the plumbing or the fuel system.
Not the endless brightwork.
Not the late, sleepless nights.
Those things only mattered because they made this possible.
Boats aren’t meant to become museum pieces.
They’re meant to become the backdrop for someone else’s stories.
For these two weeks, our “new” Morgan isn’t really ours.
She’s theirs.
And somehow that feels even better than sailing her ourselves.
Maybe that’s what BoatFools has really become.
Yes, we feature beautiful old sailboats.
Yes, we help people buy them.
Yes, we spend a really unhealthy amount of time talking about standing rigging, diesel engines, and hull shapes.
But underneath all of that is something much simpler.
We’re trying to get more people sailing.
Because somewhere off the coast of Maine, there’s a little girl climbing a swim ladder into water that everyone else thinks is too cold.
And I have a feeling she’ll remember that day for the rest of her life.
If that’s what all those months of preparation made possible...
I’d say it was worth every scraped knuckle.
Maybe the unknown wasn’t where the Morgan was headed.
Maybe it was where BoatFools was headed next.
And after one little text from a proud grandfather, I have a feeling we're headed in the right direction.
THE BOATFOOLS MARKET REPORT
I am sorry to say this is NOT 100% complete - but the boats that have sold and the ones that are still available are noted.
Have been a tad busy getting boats ready for the season! A more detailed report will be available in the coming weeks.
Thanks for sharing. 😊 The line that stayed with me was, “We weren’t just launching a boat, we were launching an idea.” It’s such a familiar feeling. There’s always a moment when a project stops being something you can keep refining in private and finally has to meet reality, imperfections included.
I also smiled at “Every old boat has a list. Ours apparently came with chapters.” That feels true well beyond boats. Whether it’s restoring something old, building a business, or taking on any ambitious project, the first version of the plan rarely survives contact with the work itself. The people who eventually make it aren’t usually the ones who avoided problems, but the ones who kept treating each unexpected chapter as part of the story rather than evidence they’d chosen the wrong one.
Looking forward to seeing where this voyage takes you.
A lot of work but duly rewarded🏆