OK, I asked Chris for this section so I might as well post something here. There's a shot of me and my old boat, the Sojourner , in the albums section but here it is again.


I had done some work on that boat for the previous owner and when he needed to sell it he thought of me. It was about 26 feet long, yawl rig with a gaff rigged main. I had bought it on the condition that it was launched and floating before I made the final payment. My wife and I got back from a sailing vacation on the Chesapeake to find it in the slings still taking on water.

I eventually got it sea shape. That picture is of it along the KK River where the current Skipper Bud's boat yard is now. There were quite a crew of owners of older boats there at the time. We ended up jury rigging our own dock, setting up grills and generally hanging out as we all were having a hard time getting our boats ready for the season before mid-July.

It was kind of pirates alley back then. Yes, actual pirates. They would come along the river at night and bust into your boat and steal whatever wasn't nailed down. I lost some sentimental things but nothing of real value, others lost electronics and stuff. Good motivation to finish up the work and head down river I guess. I can still remember the first sail down the river on that boat and finding out how really nice a big gaff rigged main is.

I have to scan a bunch of slides but I'll post some more pictures eventually of other adventures.

I like this story - pirates of the KK river, eh? I'm assuming things were calmer down the river? How long did you keep her?

I believe we had her for 3 seasons. My wife and I found a house in a great location but that needed (and still needs) a ton of work. I actually had to put in a month of work before we could get the occupancy permit. Owning a boat that needed a lot of t.l.c. as well as a house that required even more attention meant one thing- sell the boat.

In those 3 summers though we had great sailing on it. We spent 2 weeks on her up in Door County along with our dog Rollo-the-sea-dog one summer. It rained practically the whole time but we enjoyed it nevertheless.

Oh and the pirates. Uh, well let's just say I could tell you some more stories but I better not post them online. There just might be some people that wouldn't like it. They did try some of their tricks a little further down river and I had another run in with them.

I'll just say that moorings have always been a valuable commodity around here.

Todd nice looking boat. Do you know what happened to her after you sold? Is it still around?

That's too funny... Pirates of the KK River. You know, I've often wondered about that... Lots of people leave their boats moored at SSYC, or McKinley and they aren't locked. There are typically pricey electronics aboard.. Lock your boats up! Moorings do add some level of safety, but still.

I was reading one story about a circumnavigator in the golden olden days... like 1800's that was mooring in South America around the Horn area. Apparently there was a particular anchorage called the Bay of Thieves. The trick of the time was to spread tacks all over your deck. Apparently he was awoken in the middle of the night to howling native south americans who boarded his boat on the bow.

Anyway - that's a great looking boat. Yawls, ketch's and the like are becoming more and more rare. Sloops rule the seas I guess. I'd be interested to hear the story of what happened to her after you sold her.

Somehow this makes me realize that I should've gotten started much sooner.
I'll bet she's still out there with someone new taking care of her. It would be pretty neat to see a follow up on her condition today.
From a cruising perspective, this does surface a concern I've had generically. Let's say I find a great spot in Greece or otherwise. How safe is it to leave the boat behind while I'm touring the local area? Is generally safe to leave it overnight? 2 nights? a week? Anyone have any experience with that?

Yes, the Sojourner was a beautiful boat. As a matter of fact I was visited by a gentleman who had been following the boat for years shortly after I bought it. He had been a previous owner and had loved it. He told me that the boat had been built for the children of the Uihlein family for summer sailing. I may have been the 4th or 5th owner by that time.

I rebuilt the cockpit and combings as well as the engine. I had to fabricate a new head gasket from scratch. I had the crankshaft chromed and re-turned, new rings and I believe I had the cylinders honed. I got it all back together nicely and it fired up fine. Unfortunately there was one problem, it would overheat after about 15 minutes of running. I worked and worked on that problem to no avail. There was plenty of water being pumped through, good compression and I don't know what all I looked at. Eventually a friend, Ev Sticka agreed to take a look. He was the engineer on the old Milwaukee fire boat that was moored at the fire station along the river where Water Street crosses the river.

I had known Ev through my father. They both crewed on the old Quavivor, the boat Louis Quarles had built for a world cruise that never happened because his wife became too ill before the boat was finished. The Quavivor was moored in the McKinley mooring area for years with members of the MYC volunteering to crew along with a small paid crew.

Ev was never able to discover the cause of the overheating either. When I sold Sojourner it was to another fireman, a diver for the fire department. He knew the whole story and it was either him or the next owner who discovered that I had left a rag in the engine when I put it back together and pieces had found their way into the exhaust manifold obstructing the flow of the exhaust gases.

The last time I saw Sojourner afloat, it was named something else then, it had been infected with outdoor-indoor carpeting in the cockpit sole and had enough cheap brass fittings, googaws, bells and whatnots screwed onto it that it was wonder it didn't turn turtle. I was heart sick. Unfortunately that was not the worst.

The last time I saw the boat at all it was in Gene's yard. Scrap plywood had been nailed to cover rot on the decks, the entire boat was gutted, sails were gone as were all of the spars and rigging. Gene offered to give it to me if I wanted to restore it but I just couldn't look at it again. He ended up having to cut it up.

Thanks for sharing that fascinating story, sad, but good. I love the old wooden boats and wish there was a more dignified way for them to sail into that final sunset.