Larkie History

It has taken me some time to find time to get this blog started. It really should have started last year, when I aquired Emerald. Alas, between having my laptop stolen, getting engaged, quitting my job, moving, and holding onto my shredded strands of sanity...well, I'm gettin' to it now, awright?

Brief history, here. I saw what was to become my boat on good old usedvictoria.com. I had been looking for a boat to restore/play with for a while. This one, at least, was floating (one dude from Oak Bay Marina was trying to convince me to float and repair a sunken boat) and the price was doable, if not perfectly reasonable. I mean, she had a bilge pump, all her sails, and a little outboard. And a mooring, for a while. And she was the real thing...real wood. I know fibreglass well enough to do underwater surveys and major repairs, but wood is something I have always wanted to know how to deal with. Beyond making plywood furniture and framing in closets, I mean.

So I started a little research, hoping in the meantime, nobody else would snatch her up. The design was a Seabird Yawl. For those of you (most, I suspect) who have no idea what a yawl is I will explain. It is a sailboat with two masts, the one aft (at the back) being shorter than the one in front. Furthermore, a yawl has that mizzen (back) mast stepped behind the rudder post. The mizzen mast carries only a single sail, known as the mizzen sail, or jigger. The mainmast carries a mainsail and a staysail, often mistakenly called a jib or genoa. The Seabird design carries a rich history as well. It dates back to the early days of the last century. There was a famous and important American yachting magazine known as The Rudder, and
the editor of The Rudder was a well known old salt by the name of Thomas Fleming Day, and he had some contentious opinions about yachts and boats in general. With the help of Charles Mower, a boat designer and naval architect of some note, he set out to design a seaworthy boat with enough room to actually make passage on...one that most novice or intermediate builders could make in their backyard. The result was the Seabird. The original design called for a centerboard, and sailed well, but was a bit "tender." That is, she heeled over easily in light gusts of wind. In order to "stiffen her up" Day had her re-fitted with a shallow draft keel incorporating 700 lbs. of ballast. It also opened up her already-small cabin space. To further prove his point, he sailed her to Portugal from Chesapeake Bay (and back) with two other men. Day referred to the Seabird design as "ugly" but was quick to note that she'd handle any sea, any storm.

The design was brought further note by an intrepid farmer named Harry Pidgeon. In the summer of 1925, he decided he'd like a boat...and chose the Seabird design, only enlarged to 34' in length. That particular type is called a Seagoer (and there is a larger version as well, known as a Naiad).



In 1927, after building the Islander by himself, he set off from Los Angeles...returning in 1929 after circumnavigating the globe by himself...and only the second man ever to do so (Joshua Slocum was the first in 1895-98).

I romanced myself into wanting the boat, and managed to pony up the $3200 to buy her.

Ok, so she was out on a mooring in Cadboro Bay...part of the Royal Victoria Yacht Club. The guy who sold her to me (a sculptor named Derk Wolmuth) took care of the RVYC moorings, and before I even got a chance to SIT on my new purchase, she had changed moorings 3 times. I finally bought a little tender so that I could get to my boat!

Well, sitting on that old gaffer, I realized that singlehanding her on a maiden cruise (with no flares, marine radio, or life jacket) was pure folly, but that's exactly what I did...realizing that there were no fairleads for the staysail only after I was underway. I sailed her off her mooring, around Discovery Island, and back onto her mooring, nice as you please. I sailed her Main and jigger, and she pulled to windward like a horse. Having no experience with her outboard, I sailed her right back to her mooring, dropping the main, and nudging her up with the jigger...which gives little if any push.

OK....next was to get her to a location that didn't involve me sailing or rowing all my tools out to her. I looked all around, and decided Deep Cove Marina was the place for me. But never could I get hold of the guy to book a slip. So I finally settled for the Goldstream Boathouse Marina, formerly known as Hall's Boathouse. I decided I couldn't move the boat alone, and recruited my friend Matt to help me. Well, that was an unmitigated disaster. First, we were late. Blame Matt. Blame me. Blame Subway. Then my little outboard kept stalling as we left the mooring...no wind to sail with. As I messed with the outboard, Matt decided to break my boat in several places, and once I got the auxilary outboard going (I borrowed a Honda just in case) we had to motor around in circles trying to pick up the pieces he dropped overboard. Suffice to say, it was a bust, and we headed back to the mooring.

The next day I got a call from RVYC saying they needed my mooring for people coming for Swiftsure, and I had to get the boat MOVED. This time, I recruited Dean, and he is as reliable as the Rock of Gibraltar. The move went off almost without a hitch. We stopped and explored a bit along the way, ate our sandwiches, watched a house burning on the Saanich Peninsula, sailed a bit, and generally had a great day. Stacey came out to the marina with my van to pick us up. I cunningly pulled into the wrong slip at the marina, and correcting that was...interesting, but all went rather well.

Over the summer we took Emerald, now called Larkie, out a handful of times. Each time I discovered new rigging issues, and learned that she really really hated to tack without backwinding the staysail. I imagined she must have a lot of crap on the bottom, and I resolved to get her out of the water by September.