Coming About

Since I was a kid my family and I have been into sailboats. When I was small we had an 8 foot, single sail, El Toro. Some people might think it strange to see a 6 year old (me) and 8 year old (my brother) sailing around a lake by themselves, but in my family this was totally normal. When I was 8 my dad got a 17 foot Tanzer sloop that someone had removed from the bottom of San Francisco Bay. The owner said “tow it away and it’s yours” and thus began my introduction to sailboat restoration. We spent over a year scraping, sanding, fabricating and painting. Not to mention, hunting down proper sails and rigging and this before the internet. You may ask yourself, “Why would anyone want to take on such a grueling, messy project? Why not just buy a boat ready to sail?” The answer is complicated but I think there is a feeling you get from bringing a thing back to life and actually taking it out and using it, not sitting it on a shelf or in your garage like an antique, but resurrecting it to bring you hours of fun and satisfaction that cannot be bought. A couple of years ago I saw a Craigslist add for a 1959 Lido 14 “has sails and rigging boat needs work $200” after much deliberation about the project I decided to go take a look. It hadn’t been on the water in years and I can’t wait toget it back out there.

Nathan Walker