Finding "The One"

© Melanie Neale

Is this the one?

Join us each week as we follow Melanie and Will and their quest for freedom on the high seas in Boat Makes Three...

The dealer from Wholesale Marine seemed baffled by the fact that I was the one crawling around below-decks on the Starwind 19 sailboat that he was showing us. He and the owner stood on the ground with Will as I popped open every compartment that I could find and examined the bilge for any signs of rust or leaks. “Usually it’s the other way around—the husband is the one looking at everything and the wife just wants to know what color the cushions are,” he said. The three men looked amused.

We’d found the boat online this week and drove up from Fort Lauderdale up to a mobile-home park in West Palm Beach to see it.

At 19 feet it was well on the small side of what we were looking for, but the photos online made it look big and comfortable. It was a make that I had never heard of, built in the eighties by Wellcraft, a builder that primarily built powerboats. It sat on a rusty trailer, looking quite literally like a fish-out-of-water.

While the owner told Will about all of the fun he’d had sailing the boat around Palm Beach, I continued to try to find something wrong with it. But the truth is that you never really find anything that wrong with a boat until after you buy it. This one looked shipshape on the outside and seemed comfortable enough on the inside.I’ve seen a lot of boats that have been neglected and pretty much trashed, and it appeared obvious that this one had been cared for.

Technically, four could sleep inside the cabin, but that's like saying that four could sleep comfortably inside a four-person tent. The sleeping accommodations were just a small v-berth that took up most of the interior of the boat, and an old porta-potty sat under where one of our heads would rest. There was a small sink, but it wasn’t hooked up to a water tank or anything. You could sit on either side, where quarter-berths ran back underneath the cockpit, but you couldn’t stand.

Its name, Tranquilo, had been applied with the same stickers that you use for the registration numbers on the bow of a boat, and they had faded into a different shade of white from the hull. Cosmetically, we would have our work cut out for us.

Driving home, Will and I were silent. Will was waiting for my verdict, and, truthfully, I wasn’t sure what to say. It was a nice boat…but I hadn’t fallen in love with it. But I know that, for the amount of money we have to spend, were aren't really going to find anything nicer. And what if I kept waiting for a feeling that doesn’t come? When I bought the boat that I lived aboard in North Miami during grad school, I knew the instant I walked down the dock that it was “the one.” But I’m a little older and (only slightly) wiser now, and am a little more cautious when it comes to gut feelings.

“By the way,” Will said, as we were pulling up in front of our Fort Lauderdale apartment, “do you remember what color the cushions were?”