eye candy

TomY

Alden Forum Moderator
Jun 22, 2004
2,758
Alden 38' Challenger yawl Rockport Harbor
Re-rigging an old pond sailer: My wife did some painting on a commodious second floor landing in our old house. She decided to set up a 'marine room', mostly for me!

Before we were even married, she gave me an antique pond sailer that she found in a shop on Lake Champlain(she designed interiors then).

Our 'art collection' is nearly all valueless; mostly hand made by family members, photos, painting, etc. It gets used and moved around and often suffers because we love it so much.

The pond sailer had crepe thin ancient stained canvas sails and intricate rigging. It never saw the water but suffered the abuse of use, over the years. The sails were in tatters, the boom snapped, the rigging (what was left of it) was a rats nest. It should have been in a glass box all these years but it was enjoyed, as it was nearly destroyed.

I decided to resurrect it. No restoration,...just a sort of preservation of what is left. Glued the boom, cleared away the rats nest and 'rigged' the double spreader rig with a heavy natural colored sail thread(that's been on our boat for decades, looking for a job).

I realized what I really loved at first sight was the hull lines, the impossibly long overhangs and the 'radical' short shapely keel and attached rudder. The old hull still has the original red paint which has a beautiful sort of pox of the old coating. The heavy sail repair thread just outlines the rig and gives my eye all it needs.

The marine room has all the important parts: The charts of my favorite sailing ground in the world, a globe,...for zooming out, a bunch of sailing related books including several 'books' our children made of cruises over the years (precious), all collected over the decades, and a salvaged art deco love seat that's big enough for two sailors.

Marine room switches removed.jpg