The Refit Begins: Our Ugly Duckling

By the time we found Tortuga, our family already knew how to take the slow road. Years of traveling by camper had given us the name. Now we were taking that spirit into a project that would test our patience in a whole new way.

She was a little ugly duckling. There is no point pretending otherwise. She needed a lot of work, and my wife could see that just as clearly as I could. She looked at me and asked, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

“I think so,” I told her. “I think so.”

That was an honest answer. I could see the possibility. I could also see that we had a job ahead of us. What I couldn’t see yet was how much bigger that job would become.

We knew we were buying a project

We had the boat inspected before buying her. There were problems, and we expected problems with an older boat. The price reflected the work we knew she needed.

But knowing that a boat needs work and finding out exactly what that work involves are two different experiences.

As we got further into the refit, we uncovered more than the inspection had revealed. More problems meant more work, and we ended up gutting more of the boat than we had originally expected.

Had I known the full extent beforehand, I probably would have asked for another reduction in the price. Looking back, that is simply the truth.

Finding it while we could fix it

Even with the extra work, I think it is turning out for the better.

Finding those problems pushed us to open things up further and deal with more of the boat. It made the project bigger, but it also gave us the chance to address things while we had access to them.

That matters to me. The goal is to finish this refit with more confidence in the boat and in the work that has gone into her. We want to enjoy the sailing life we are working toward, with fewer unresolved problems following us out of the yard.

We found more than we anticipated. We took on more than we planned. That has become part of Tortuga’s story.

Remembering where we started

These photographs come from a short video taken during the early refit. Tortuga is out of the water, supported on stands. You can see the patchy finish on her lower hull and the ladder leaning up against her side. From ground level, that ladder gives you some idea of the size of the project.

I want to keep this part of the story visible. When we eventually show the finished work, these are the images we can look back at to remember where we started.

There is a lot between this boatyard walk and the boat we are working toward. In the chapters ahead, we will get into the individual jobs: what we found, what needed to change, and what each part of the rebuild involved.

For now, this is our ugly duckling—and the beginning of the refit story.

More from the early refit