My boat sang to me…

Warning: Anthropomorphizing and metaphors ahead. Continue at your own risk. You’ve been warned.

On my first visit to the boat that would come to be named Kotona, it wasn’t the lines, or the styling, or the gear that got me. Those were all great, but it wasn’t that, or really anything else that you could put your hand on. It was the songs she sang.

The first was a song of loneliness. It had been a while since she had gotten a good washing, or a fresh coat of varnish or, more importantly, a good run on a beam reach with a full main and yankee and stays’l and a delighted crew aboard. “My Friend hasn’t come back” she sang sadly. “I’ve been here a while. Just here, not out there where I’d like to be.”

As I moved forward on deck, toward the bowsprit, the second song began. It was a song of gently rising and falling through slow rolling waves. It was a song of dolphins playing in the bow wave, so close you could reach out and almost touch them. It was a song of dropping the anchor in a quiet cove just before sunset. It was a song of night birds and the galley sounds and smells of the evening meal. It was a song of peace and joy.

In the cockpit, the third song started. A song of stretching out in the cockpit to enjoy that first cup of coffee in that quiet cove, before the next leg of the journey. A song of guiding her through water so blue it didn’t look real. A song of sharing sandwiches, on the nicely varnished cockpit table, with nieces and nephews and their new found love of sailing. It was a song of quiet and beauty and hope.

The last song began “Welcome, Friend.” Down below, amongst the wood, and the brass lamps, the bronze ports and the comfy cushions, the song continued - a song of the next chapter of our lives. A song of opportunity, to reach places we’ve dreamed about, to revisit places that we love, to discover new places, and new things about ourselves. It was a song of love, of friendship, of the future. It was and is, the best song - and we will help her sing it.