In the crepuscule of pre-dawn each day, I silently pop out the forehatch like a woodchuck to hop in a dinghy with a couple of new friends who sailed their Wharram 30 from England. He had been a policeman, which struck me funny for some reason. And she was like a Viking, long blonde braids, always wearing a navy blue turtleneck sweater with her jeans. It was winter in Miami (but still, not that cold.) Nevertheless, they had a big contract up at Jones Boatyard refinishing the exterior of a 90-foot yacht, Southwind (or some wind, I don’t really recall).

And aboard the boat anchored next to us, the playboy model American girl came up on deck with her walkman hooked to her string undies. I think we call them thongs, now. Things. Thongs.

Personally when I cast my eye over my 100 year old boat her signs of age endear her to me. My aesthetic is that of the cathedrals gloomy with the smoke of innumerable candles, the scars of the sackings by the Ottomans, the steps worn hollow by a thousand years of kneeling penitents. Further to that my humble vessel belongs to a vernacular tradition based on the Queenscliff fishing boats from the turn of last century. A tradition of hard usage, hard knocks, and short pockets.

This is how I like to think of wooden boats. Infinitely repairable, like grandpa’s axe. And even though philosophers have long debated whether an object consisting of multiple parts is still fundamentally the same object if all of its parts have been incrementally replaced over time, very few of us are curmudgeonly enough to question the authenticity of boats like TALLY HO, PEGGY BAWN or VARG