SV BOREAS

This is the story of two kids, a huge dream and a life unplanned.
We were in our mid - twenties and lovers of everything water.  The ocean, lakes, rivers, if it was wet we were there.  Tina came home one evening with a surprise.  “Let’s learn to sail".  A few weeks later found us in a cheap 14 foot day sailor with a book and a new passion. If we had become addicted to cocaine it couldn't have been any more consuming.
The next life altering event seamed innocent enough. “Hey, let’s go to the Annapolis Boat show!” We fell through the looking glass. Here was a world we never knew existed. Sail boats of every size, shape and purpose.   Day sailors that put our poor boat to shame. Racing, wow!  A then, there it was, CRUSIERS.
They were beautiful.   From the little eighteen foot Pacific Seacraft  Flicka  to the 65 foot Oyster, and everything in between.  Tina could hardly pull me away from the Cape Dory's lovely classic lines touched a nerve.
"No don’t go in there!” the tents called like Gullem from some dark evil cave. You knew by then if you went in you would not come out the same person.  The attraction was to great and we were drawn across the threshold to the land of no return.
Small masts showing rigging, shackles, lanterns,   lines of every color, radar, radios, wind vanes. No this isn't fair. No mere mortals could survive this. Sensory overload.  Get me and our checkbook out of here before something very very bad happens.
We fled to the Marriott next door for a beer, a burger and a free lecture from some sailor dude. “Ladies and Gentlemen we are proud to welcome to this year’s boat show Mr.  Hal Roth and his wife Margaret just back from their rounding of Cape Horn aboard their 35 foot yacht Whisper. ”
Cape Horn?  35 foot yacht?  Paragon? Just the two of them? I had just met Mr. and Mrs. GOD.
At home that winter we devoured their book “After 50,000 miles" and every other cruising book we could get our hands on. Quickly our hero’s began to emerge.  Eric and Susan Hiscock aboard Wanderer sailing the north Atlantic. Rolf Bjelke and Deborah Shapiro froze themselves into Antarctica aboard the 40 foot Northern Light.  Tom Cunliffe sailed his small wooden pilot cutter in the wake of the Vikings.  Dodge Morgan solo circumnavigation on American Promise.  The Pardeys and Joshua Slocum.  And the colorful if not small exaggeration of Triston Jones.
Two things became obvious quickly. We loved the lines of traditional yachts, and high latitudes held a great fascination for both of us.
Now nearly 30 the adventure began. We first joined the power squadron and started taking a long list of classes. Seamanship, piloting, navigation, weather etc. Next came the purchase of our first real cruising boat, a very used Tartan 30. We named her Aeolus, after the GOD of the South wind and started sailing the Chesapeake Bay.
As our skill level increased so did our range.  On our first trip north to New England we knew this was the life we w anted and north is where we belonged. We just had to make it happen.
The next hurdle that we would have to overcome was the boat to take us there. Selling Aeolus was one of the hardest things we had ever done. She fit like a glove. She was our magic carpet.  She was the first. But when you get the courage to enter a different tent, sometimes new great things await.
BOREAS, the GOD of the north wind was waiting for us in Charleston South Carolina. A Hans Christian 43T.  Big, heavy, and very traditional . This was the ship of our dreams.
The next several years were filled with semi living aboard,   coastal cruising from the bay north to Maine as often as we could. Working to pay off the boat and build up a cruising kitty. Even a few years traveling around the country racing our Thistle “Between the Sheets".  Everything was right on course.
Then life happened.
When you have spent 20 years living in the Movie Ground Hog Day and everything in life seems to be following the script you wrote and you n ever saw the dominos waiting to be knocked. Then one day everything changes never to be the same again.
First the very unexpected passing of my sister, the patriarch of the family followed by moms heart attack.  Dad’s first of several strokes. My brothers a so unforeseen passing and the loss of my best friend to a brutal disease.
Now Boreas found her way to the hard and eventual as the years passed, to the very back corners of the marina. The land of forgotten boats and lost dreams.  Dirt, mold and neglect accumulate as the years roll by.  It was hard to look at her as more and more of our time was spent on the responsibilities of the only surviving sibling in your parents closing chapter. Everything was asked to pay a dues not least of which was our marriage.
How slowly those nine years passed.
One morning you wake up in the same fog you have been floating, your obligations were fulfilled over a year ago but here you drift still.  It is time to start a life again. Time to take a couple of fixes on known things in your life.  Plot it out and see exactly where you are.  Draw a new course to the future and set sail again.
On May ninth, one day before our 39th anniversary Boreas went back in the water. Dirty, moldy and neglected but floating. We have turned the page in our life’s log book and restarted the adventure we dreamed of these last 35 years.
Come join us on our refit and adventure of a lifetime. 
The north is calling. Only those who are willing to search will be rewarded when they discover.