Seeing What She Could Become

We spent probably five years looking for a boat.

There were plenty to look at, but none fully met my needs or my family’s needs. Then we found her in Mexico.

What caught my eye first was her size. She was big and roomy, with a full keel and lines and curves that made me stop and look. She had good, solid bones. There were problems, and she needed work, but I could see past that. I could see the beauty hidden inside her.

I could picture my family aboard, sailing, enjoying retirement, and making memories together. I could see her potential—and the potential for a different kind of life.

My family thought I was a little crazy to take on such a big project.

They may have had a point.

The location helped, too. Who doesn’t love being in Mexico?

Once we bought her, we knew we needed to be there full time. This wasn’t going to be a seasonal project or something we could tackle on occasional weekends. So we decided to move and give the refit our full attention.

We knew there was work ahead. We didn’t know how much.

As we started opening things up, we found termites and dry rot. She had spent a long time sitting on the hard, and there was damage we hadn’t found during the inspection.

Fabián, my carpenter and buddy in San Blas, was right there digging into it with me. We might start by replacing a door, then find damaged wood around it. We would remove that and discover more. The deeper we went, the more we uncovered.

What looked like a handful of repairs became something massive.

Unfortunately—or maybe fortunately—we kept finding it. Finding the damage meant we could get it out. We kept removing rotten and termite-damaged wood because we wanted to make her healthy again.

Then there was the engine.

What had started as a few hoped-for fixes turned into a complete engine and transmission swap. The original engine was more than forty years old, seized up and rusted. It wasn’t worth saving.

The mast was rotten, too. That meant finding a replacement in San Diego, California, and arranging to have it shipped to Mexico. The replacement motor also had to be brought into Mexico.

There were plenty of moments when we questioned whether to keep going.

At one point, the question was whether to walk away and lose the money already invested, or put more into her and carry on. That wasn’t an easy decision, especially when each discovery seemed to make the project bigger.

What kept bringing me back was the dream.

I could still picture us sailing her. Making memories with my family. Having the freedom to travel the world, reach places very few people get to see, and watch the sun rise and set from aboard our own boat.

Even with everything torn apart, I could still see her potential.

And somewhere along the way, the way I looked at the refit changed. After so much damaged wood had come out and so many plans had changed, she became a blank slate.

We could build her around the life we wanted to have aboard.

We were only limited by two things: our imagination and our wallet.