It's a small world after all

Sailorgurl86 · #1 (**permalink**) 12-27-2010

I just love hearing small world stories and the cruising community is so small anyways that I'm sure some people have some awesome ones to share!!! As for mine...

I grew up cruising with my parents on a Young '43 named sunflower. We unfortunately had to return to a land-locked life when it was time for me to go to high school and my parents sold the boat.

I'm now at the stage in my life where I'm searching for a boat of my own and was curious about any other Young '43s out there so I put in an internet search and lo and behold I came up with our old boat!!!! A wonderful Kiwi couple own her now and are currently in Morocco and maintain a website/blog about their travels. Of course I had to email them and introduce myself. I was so relieved to see she looked beautiful, they kept her original name and color (yellow) and she is well loved!

chall03 · #2 (**permalink**) 12-27-2010

Wow, must of been a real thrill to find your old boat!
Whereabouts were you cruising with your family when you were younger??

WanderingStar · #3 (**permalink**) 12-27-2010

Sailing is a small enough world. A few times I've run into (not physically) boats or sailors I knew while cruising.
When I bought my current boat, the seller was out of town for my inspection. He sent a colleague to show me the boat. That colleague was a CG shipmate of mine from twenty five years before. Small world.

CaptainForce · #4 (**permalink**) 12-27-2010

It truly is a small cruising world. Years ago we were unaware that we had lost our dog overboard in the Neuse River. When we noticed he was missing we turned back and found another sailboat had rescued him. Three years later a man came to our boat in a dinghy at Provencetown offering some extra fish from his catch and recognized the dog that he had saved. Last year I took a photo of a sailboat entering the inlet at Little Harbor, Abaco. When I later anchored nearby I offered to email him the photo. It turned out that years earlier we had met and shared favorite anchorages in Hilton Head. Once, at night in Daytona, a pretty ketch anchored nearby and after setting their hook one of the crew aboard called out to my dog, "Hey, Zorro, how are you doing?" They were gone in the morning, but somebody knew my dog! Take care and joy, Aythya crew

Sailorgurl86 · #5 (**permalink**) 12-27-2010

We left from California when I was 6 months old, went down to Mexico for a year and then crossed the Pacific. We spent a year sailing around the Pacific and my parents were running low on funds so my dad found a job in American Samoa. Our first boat, a Rafiki '37, was wrecked in a hurricane so we were stranded there for 6 years until my parents saved up enough money for another boat. We bought her in New Zealand and then went from there to Australia, Indonesia, and a few other countries. Crossed the South China Sea, went up the Red Sea into the Med, and in France we took our mast down and went through the canals in Europe. Came out in Holland and put the mast back up. We went to England, then Spain and Portugal. We crossed the Atlantic from the Canary Islands, did the Caribbean and East Coast of the US, through the Panama Canal and then back up! That's the cliff notes version...the whole trip took a total of 13 years.

It was very emotional to find Sunflower again!

chall03 · #6 (**permalink**) 12-28-2010

Wow. You probably did more living and saw more on the world by the time you were a teenager than I have done in my 30 years on this planet!

I can imagine it would of be hugely emotional.... Morocco is not exactly convenient but if you are in contact with the current owners it would be amazing if one day you got to go for a sail on her again...

boatpoker · #7 (**permalink**) 12-29-2010

I lost a hat overboard in the Abacos, it had my "Port Credit Marine Surveys" logo. 18 months later I met a guy wearing my hat in Port Credit, Ontario. This guy had a buddy who found it afloat in the BVI's and brought it back to Canada and gave it to him because he knew he was from Port Credit.

Jeff_H · #8 (**permalink**) 12-29-2010

My favorite "its a small world story" happened some years ago. Perhaps 10 years ago I used to be active on the Woodenboat forums. One day, I received an email from a fellow in California who had asking about replacing keel bolts on an H-28. The H-28 was constructed similar to a Folkboat that I had owned and had replaced the keel bolts on and so the fellow hoped that I had some tips.

I wrote him back with some advice and a bunch of details and he wrote back with come questions, and that was that.

A few wednesday's later, I showed up to go racing on a boat that I had raced on for a few years and as I got on the boat, Pierce, a crew-mate who I had raced with for several years, said, "Geez, Jeff I could have saved a lot of time if I asked you directly."

Sure enough, Pierce had written to some friend in the south, who wrote some other friend, who wrote the bloke in California who knew this guy on the internet who seemed to know something about keel bolts and so e-mailed me.

Of course my response went back through the bloke in California to the friend of the friend in the south and back to Pierce, who owned the H-28 in question and who could have saved some time if'n he had simply just asked me.

Jeff

FishSticks · #9 (**permalink**) 12-29-2010

That's a moving story Sailorgurl! You and Sunflower shared more experiences during your childhood than many folks encounter in a lifetime. I can understand how emotional it must have been for you to reconnect with such a major feature in your life.

Old boats do have a way of reappearing with new lives in surprising places. Here's a small world story from my experience. It began 50 years ago.

http://www.sailnet.com/forums/genera...n-mystery.html