‘Pepsi’

While working at Crinan Boatyard (see CV attached on home page), I bought a 1974 Half Tonner. This 30 foot sailing yacht, designed by Peter Norlin, had been sitting at Largs Marina for 9 years. Luckily, fibreglass is very impervious to water absorption. The hull was still sound, but many crucial and noncrucial tasks lay ahead.

The rigging needed to be checked by a professional, and the engine pistons had to be rebored, also by professional. The rest of the work was done by myself. There were a couple of places water would have entered, sinking the yacht. The rudder bearing needed fixing to be watertight. This involved lathing a new polymer bearing, and it was the job that most tested my abilities. The thru-hulls needed servicing, and the keelbolts were checked for rust. The bottom paint also needed to be taken back and redone. All of this was done with the wisdom of the shipwrights at Crinan Boatyard. Later in the summer evenings afloat I worked down below on the furniture. What I desired to accomplish, all along, was to raze the interior and build a new architecture within.

After a year of working, restoring, and saving up, I lived aboard ‘Pepsi’ for the summer. On paper, I was grossly underprepared to skipper 7,500 lbs of sailboat through the notoriously challenging Hebridean waters. My sailing career had been casual dinghy sails and one offshore trip after university. However, I knew that really all my life experiences, from Legos to cars, had been preparing me for this. I was exhausted at the end of each day. The physical strain wasn’t intense, but every second underway was spent in a problem solving headspace. I invited my friends to join me one by one, each for a couple weeks at a time. None of them were sailors, so problem solving all fell on me alongside teaching and some leadership. I sound like I’m inflating myself, but I can’t understate how important these months were to me. I had to use every tool I possessed – engine repair, navigation, composure, sewing – I guess I’d wrap it all up into something like “engineering common sense.” The beauty of the Hebrides is unreal, and I still think about that summer every day.