The boat that grew with us
Hello from the shore
May 3, 2024, 11:50
High 70ºF/ Low 52ºF, windy and bright, pressure 1017 mb, waning crescent
Hello from Maryland’s Eastern Shore.
Last night we presented stories and photos from our voyage to a sold-out crowd of 60 at the Harbor Club and Chesapeake Bay Yacht Club. This was the first time we attempted to sum it all up for an audience, and we couldn’t have asked for a better reception. Thank you to Kim Corkran and the clubs for organizing and everyone else for your time and attention.
The essay below appeared in the penultimate issue of Good Old Boat magazine, which unfortunately went out of print due to rising paper and distribution costs. Thanks to the GOB team for decades of resources for DIY boaters such as myself, we miss you!
A Boat to Grow With
The idea of our boat Azimuth came about one afternoon in my apartment off Mission Street in San Francisco, California. I was working my first job in the little city and had fallen for sailing and a sailor the previous summer. Increasingly, Wednesdays and Fridays were for beer can racing and weekends were for raft-ups and longer races. My internet browser tabs were filling up with sail tactics, liveaboard tips, and boat listings. I gobbled up interviews and books by those who had wandered farther offshore and wondered if we could do the same.
I remember sketching out a budget and realizing how much money we were spending on rent as we dawdled and worked up the gumption to buy a boat and liveaboard. My husband Scott and I were newly dating and sinking hard-won savings into a good old boat seemed illogical at first look, but also pragmatic and fun. Scott had been scouring lists of bluewater cruisers for a few years, and time together on other people’s boats helped us refine a list of desired creature comforts — a U-shaped galley, a separate standing shower, and a wrap-around cockpit unseparated by winches or a wheel. Our price range necessitated a “plastic classic” (fiberglass hull) and we also preferred them stylistically. A sloop seemed sensible, although Scott dreamed of cutter rigs. For a while, we were keen on Tartan 34’s and even considered trucking one to the Bay from Montana.
Our search slowed while Scott prepared and delivered an Express 37 back to the San Francisco Bay from Hawaii. For the two weeks or so he was out of contact, aside from a Garmin tracker link, I wondered if he would still like sailing after a few thousand miles upwind on a lightweight displacement hull. While offshore, he considered boat designs and the name Azimuth came to him one night in the Pacific when the closest humans aside from his crew were up above on the International Space Station. He loved the notion that with the azimuth and few other inputs, one can plot their place in the world. I work in solar energy and azimuth is listed on all of our design plans — it’s both practical and expansive.
A day or two after Scott returned from Hawaii, we spotted a YachtWorld listing for a Pearson 365 sloop in nearby Emeryville, California. The design passed our seaworthiness requirements and desired creature comforts. The photos showed a bright interior that was livable without any initial projects and the “as is” condition required only a new battery charger and sump pump for the shower. We had mapped out a plan to boat ownership the previous summer and had made progress on pinching pennies, moving from San Francisco to more affordable Oakland, and acquiring a car to make marina living easier. Here was our next step — a boat that we couldn’t stop looking at and timing that seemed as good as any. I called the broker the next day.
We tried our best to keep expectations low, but we were practically buzzing when we arrived at the marina to look at a boat called Panache. We walked the decks, stood behind the wheel, looked up at the rigging, and headed down below. This boat was a few feet (and five inches!) larger than we had been targeting, but we figured that would leave some room to grow. The broker could see he had us hook, line, and sinker and still managed to help us get a good deal after the sea trial. We acquired a small loan through Lightstream and moved in the following week. Stars aligned to grant us a liveaboard slip in Oakland, an exit or two down the highway from the desirable Jack London Square. From there, I could bike, walk, or even kayak to work. We settled into life aboard, which included getting out of our slip most every weekend.
The Pearson designer, Bill Shaw once said, “the 365 is my personal idea of what a boat should be. At that size I can put absolutely everything in the boat that I want and not get into a this or that situation.” Sailors and landlubbers alike are often surprised at the inclusion of a standing shower in a 36-foot boat and the roominess down below. The 365 has a V-berth for the main cabin, followed by the head to starboard, a closet, large salon including a pilot berth, U-shaped galley to port, and navigation desk to starboard. There is no quarter berth, which means the lazarettes are open for systems installs and gear storage. Most of the 365s are ketches, so the sloop cockpit feels like something off of a larger vessel. The engine’s V-drive provides a few more feet for the interior, and the only tradeoff is cramped access to the original Westerbeke 40.
For the first few years, we were beyond content to be bay sailors. The 365 can technically sleep six and we were continually piling friends aboard to explore the various anchorages of San Francisco Bay. I doubt I need to explain the appeal of getting on the water to the readers of this magazine, and perhaps the delight of sharing it with others goes without saying. We felt ridiculously lucky that our paths had crossed with each other and this vessel. Friends came over constantly to help us figure out the latest project or have a meal or complete a seasonal craft like pumpkin carving or gingerbread boat decorating. We strung up lights for the Oakland Lighted Boat Parade and attended monthly raft-ups with the Washed Up Yacht Club, an informal group of sailors, artists, and other DIY-ers. There was something so magical about that time, getting to know Azimuth alongside others who had similar means and skills to maintain and enjoy their ships of choice.
We kept two lists — what was needed to go sailing next and what was needed to head out cruising — and the former was our priority. We aimed to get out of the marina as much as possible and our time on the water informed the upgrades we made incrementally over the years, either as things broke or we had time and money to tackle.
Over time, our weekends shifted more toward offshore racing to gain the experience necessary for the nebulous cruise that inspired our boat purchase. [Azimuth] became more of a crash pad as we worked in office buildings, and spent time at the gym to prepare for racing and at the yacht club before and after races and practices. At the height of our racing frenzy, we enjoyed hosting crew members overnight before and after races, taking our dinghy to the yacht club to step aboard lighter, newer vessels. Sailing on various teams improved our sail handling skills and informed running rigging, sail purchases, and other nuances of our boat.
We enjoyed the mix of racing and living aboard and wanted to spread the fun to others, so we started an informal liveaboard race. It was open to all, but Scott required those who didn’t live aboard full time to have an unsecured potted plant along for the ride. The winner received a nice bottle of rum and second-to-last place received a bottom shelf bottle. The debriefs on the docks in Jack London Square were always a delight as folks figured out some new way to get their boat to go faster or discovered a new feature of the winds and currents of the Bay. The race continues on in the hands of friends.
When COVID-19 put a halt to racing, rafting up, and gatherings of all kinds, we found ourselves working office jobs from the confines of Azimuth. This prompted a few projects like upgrading to an electric toilet and a larger sink to help with the endless parade of dishes. At first, we made the most of things by having a festive, midday tea time and learning recipes that had long been dog-earred in our cookbooks. Eventually, the thrill of being in our favorite place together wore off and we began asking ourselves — what are doing here?
Since buying the boat in 2016, we had continually said we would go cruising in three years time. This interval required no immediate action toward the goal, but kept us aligned with the dream. We were nearing our 30th birthdays and tired of cramming our workdays, hobbies, and relationship into a small space, tied to a dock. Renting a shipping container at the nearby Bay Area Maker Farm, a junkyard turned workshop and farm, alleviated some of the pressure and gave us space for various boat and hobby projects. We felt far from family and the Bay lost some of its appeal without fun gatherings, collaborating with coworkers in person, and sailing alongside others. One day, Scott said, “What if we sail to the east coast?”
The plan resonated right away. We’d be closer to family, living in a place with more affordable housing and marinas, and have a transitional adventure along the way. To borrow the phrasing of a friend, we would be sailing around a continent to start a new life, just like people centuries prior.
We threw ourselves into identifying and doing the remaining projects to prepare Azimuth, a process that took almost a year of nights and weekends and a marathon haul out. On April 30, 2021, we sailed out of the Golden Gate Bridge for the last time.
Heading down the coast in the spring was chilly and challenging as we balanced working and weather windows. We waited for the seasons to turn in San Diego and joined the Baja Ha-Ha cruising rally for some company. Our boat felt packed to the gills with supplies and spares when we first left, but gradually rose on its waterline as we gained experience. Every hundred miles or so, we bested notorious features like Point Conception, Cabo Corrientes, the Gulf of Tehuantepec, Papagallos winds, and Punta Mala. Each felt difficult and doable as we broke down every challenge into tiny next steps.
By the time we arrived at the Panama Canal, Azimuth had transitioned to a performance cruiser, oscillating between sailing and anchoring. We were moving quickly because of our budget and desire to get to the other side, a point that confounded many we met along the way. The highlights were the time spent offshore, the victories of fixing problems in remote places, and the simplicity of our priorities. We were granted many incredible experiences because we had the courage to leave our dock in Alameda and every dock after that. We observed nature at the pace of five knots (or less!) in that soothing silence of being under sail.
On the Caribbean side of Panama, we were given the chance to exchange our maintenance skills learned from the boat for room and board at an off-grid nature retreat, enabling an extra year on our planned one-year voyage. This extra time meant we could hone our language skills, explore Bocas del Toro and the San Blas, and head over to the urban center of Cartagena, Colombia to get some eastward progress while waiting for the trade winds to die down for safe passage north. We crossed the Caribbean to Isla Mujeres, Mexico in March of 2023, a 980-mile passage that was mostly uneventful aside from an extra tack or two to avoid a northerly cold front.
We crossed back into the United States in Florida in April and sailed offshore up to Charleston, South Carolina where we were trapped for a few weeks of unseasonal northerly weather. Once in Southport, North Carolina, we dipped into the Intracoastal Waterway for the final 365 miles of the trip. We enjoyed the many free docks in North Carolina and chose the scenic Great Dismal Swamp route to round out this cruise. Relying on our old motor was a test, but we made it without incident on June 15.
After almost seven years living aboard Azimuth, the hull has dropped on its waterline with the addition of solar, extra anchors, a life raft, a desalinator, storm sails, a dinghy and an outboard. The bulkheads have been filled with tiny trinkets and other artwork. We move about our vessel with a fluidity that feels akin to playing an instrument. Azimuth feels like a member of the family and a connection to our past.
Now that we have stepped off the boat to live on land, I have a greater appreciation of how efficiently we lived within our boat’s design and the connection to nature it provided simply by floating on the waterways we sailed. Azimuth taught me what we needed and what we didn’t, and because of that boat, I live frugally and question the accumulation of stuff that seems so prevalent. Our time on board was significantly less expensive than a Bay Area apartment, and yet it unlocked the riches of the ocean and time together.
Azimuth is tucked into a slip in Virginia now, and we’re heading into a new chapter as weekend sailors, exploring the many coves and creeks on our new coast. It seems this boat will continue to grow with us.
wonderful as usual ashley.