Renaming My Cal 29
I've been a sailor since my father first took me aboard our 22 Folkboat when I was six years old. Summers on the Chesapeake Bay taught me the pleasures of sailing and I've had it in my veins ever since. I've owned or partnered on several boats over the past 42 years but until two years ago I never had the opportunity or need to rename a vessel. I came across a run down Cal 29 in Port Aransas, TX, desperately in need of a new owner who wouldn't mind resurrecting her from the downward spiral her condition had taken. Striking a deal to the satisfaction of all, I moved her from Port A, near Corpus Christi, to her new berth in Clear Lake, just off Galveston Bay. That trip is another story in and of itself. I have no idea what this particular vessel was christened when she was launched in 1970 but when I took her reins she had Las Estrellas En La Mar (Spanish for "The Stars In The Sea")decaled across here transom, emblazoned with blue shooting stars, pink flamingos and green palm trees. Not only was the name more than a mouthful but the graphics were a bit more than I could stand from an aesthetic point of view. I came to learn that she was given this name by the lesbian couple who had owned her years before and subsequent owners simply didn't take the time or effort to change the moniker. Having decided to give her a new title, I gathered a group of friends, assorted and sundry h'ouvres and libation, and several bottles of fine champagne to toast Nepture and the gods of the four winds for future luck. "Las Estrellas En La Mar" was inscribed on a silver ingot in water soluble ink and at the appropriate time and with the appropriate incantation was cast into the waters to permanently erase the name from Neptune's records. With great fanfare and much consumption of libation previously mentioned, this particular vessel was renamed "Dolce Vida", an Italian term meaning "Sweet Life". It's a saying I've used for many years and seemed perfect as the reference to such a sweet little boat. She's been returned to a bit of her original lustre, re-configured with a new set of sails and boom, interior reconstructed as necessary and the old Farymann diesel plugs along like the day it was first installed to the irregular, Harley-Davidson sort of thurump-ump sound created by the V-twin configuration. All in all a pleasant experience, most satisfying when she starts pulling under sail and I pull the fuel shutoff for the auxiliary that leaves nothing but the sound of the water against the hull and Jimmy Buffet wafting from the stereo below. Ahhhh... it's truely a Dolce Vida.
