What’s THIS in our meadow? Is it a classic boat? A sculpture? For me it’s both, plus a bunch of fun? It’s a Lightning class 19-foot sloop, #7108 that was built at the Livingston Boat Shop in Michigan in 1959. Old-growth cedar at it’s finest!

In 2010 after we sold Sea Witch, our 1940 sloop, it took me exactly 10 months to find this boat. Rebuilt by a very fine gentleman in the Bay Area, it was perfect for crashing around our local bay, and if you live in Port Townsend, you have to have a classic wood boat to crash around the bay.

I sailed it all last summer, but promised myself I wouldn’t make any changes to it until this past winter when I got a good feeling for the boat and what I wanted it to look like. So, with new paint colors and bright varnish almost everywhere, we’re now closing in on a spring launch. I still have to refit the sails, do some sewing and tighten things up, but we’re closing in.

To me, this is high art, sculpture that’s both form and function working together, and just pure beautiful. Under one of the original fittings, I found what appears to be the original deck color, a 1959-era pale-green that coincidentally I had already chosen as a color that would match the cedar planking. How’s that for intuitive thinking?

The boat carries a spinnaker, main and jib, and let me tell you all that when this boat gets off the wind on to a reach in some wind, it’s a real rush when I feel it rise up on a plane and take off. The first time it happened, I said “wow, what a Thriller of a ride” and so that apprears to be the boat’s new name. Stay tuned to more posts as I get this thing together more. Just consider it an on-going art project – which it is!

Quite a sled, don’t you think? Want to go for a sail?

Thanks for reading this week.
Larry Eifert

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