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PEAPOD AND THE SEA DRAGON
PART 2
by Anne Westlund
Anne speaks:
Returning to the North Channel after quite a few years was a big event for me. I’d sailed there
in mid-1970 and now it was the summer of 2000. In between, I had sea kayaked parts of the
North Channel in the 1980’s and 90’s, but I hadn’t sailed there.
Peapod speaks:
Anne was so excited she could hardly wait to wade ashore and climb the big smooth granite
hills. The rocks are soft looking and pinkish orange with lichens and pine trees here and there.
Up the hill she climbed and took a photo of the anchorage, a shallow lagoon that some folks in
dinghies hesitate to enter. We had come through a narrow channel and snuck into the shallow
anchoring area between boulders. An anchor in the water and a line ashore to a big rock held
me in place. The huge shoal at the entrance would keep out wave action. Ducks swam around
in the lagoon, beggars each and every one.
Blueberries were ripening. Anne brought some back to the boat for breakfast pancakes. She
swam and cleaned up things, organized a bit below and prepared her one pot supper. I bobbed
gently on the little swells that came and went from the lagoon. Soon it was flake out the
sleeping bag and bed time. A netting covered the companionway to keep the ‘skeeters out.
Anne lay on the port side looking up out to the starry sky. She soon fell asleep.
Many days passed in similar ways. We sailed to various islands and explored miles of
shoreline looking for wildlife, birds, and plants sunken treasures. We found an old sailboat
wreck in a tiny cove. We visited many of the islands in the area between the Whalesback along
the north shores and Little Current on Manitoulin Island. Anne became very proficient at
reading the shallow water areas where the bottom rocks and sand showed up lighter blues,
greens and tans. Sometimes dark areas were rocks and sometimes they were depths.
I became her companion as she sailed and exulted in the freedom her home on the water gave
her. All too soon it was time to return to Spanish and haul out for home.
Anne speaks:
That first trip back to the North Channel on my own boat was a really nice time. I’ll never
forget the feelings. Some details about which anchorage I used when are only found in the log
books but the passion for the sailing and cruising on a tiny boat will never die or be lost.
Several summers passed using Peapod as my home, my vehicle, my sport and my companion. I
was never disappointed with her in any way. She lived up to the praise from many sailors and
was always the cutest little boat on the water. We also went to many inland lakes in Michigan,
down into Indiana and out west to Lake Powell where a magical other-worldly environment
helped cure winter blahs.
One winter bug crept in and I bought a Slipper 17. This boat was also a boat I found on the
Internet. It was to be my project boat to help keep me active and, perhaps, sane. I’ve always
had to have a project of some kind or other.
The Slipper 17 was called Sea Dragon. A less likely name couldn’t have been found unless it
was a thought that she dragged on the water. She didn’t, as I found out later.
It was fall before I drove east to Rhode Island to pick up my new old boat that had spent the
summer season parked beside my friends’ garden. I was rather surprised to find her in bad
dress, so to speak.
She was dirty, cushions mildewed and not salvageable, full of old repaired holes in her deck,
and the list goes on. The trailer was in bad shape. I took it to a trailer repair shop for needed
springs, new wheels, tires, coupler, and a complete check-up. From Rhode Island I towed her
down to Georgetown, Delaware. That experience was something else again. Towing is all a
part of the small boat scene but what happened was rather different I guess.
The end of a long day was approaching fast as I came into Dover, Delaware when I realized I
had no headlights. Well, maybe I blew a fuse I thought. I pulled into a Holiday Inn to stop for
the night planning to continue on the next morning. There was no room at the Inn!!
It was NASCAR weekend and homecoming at the university. It was either sleep in the car or
Wal-Mart’s lot. I chose the Sam’s Club lot next to the Wal-Mart. There were several small
trailers already there. They were decked out in NASCAR stuff: banners, flags and grills with
the checkered flag designs. Deck chairs surrounded the carpeted “patios”.
It was quite a nice place to park. I went into Wal-Mart and bought a step ladder so I could get
aboard Sea Dragon. The boat wasn’t very clean inside so I took an old sheet I’d brought for a
paint drop cloth and put it on the bunk, then my camping sleeping pad and my sleeping bag,
pillow and flashlight. It was really dark by that time and I was famished. I walked to a near by
restaurant and had a light meal, walked back to the boat, climbed up, hauled the ladder behind
me into the cockpit and settled down to sleep.
I was tired and more than a bit disgusted with the lack of headlights problem. Replacing fuses
twice had convinced me there was more to the problem than I thought and that convinced me to
try a Sam’s Club/Wal-Mart parking lot to camp in for the first time.
In the morning I took off in full daylight and drove to Georgetown to my boat builder friends’
home. Dave and Donna were happy to see me and we immediately took off towing the Sea
Dragon with Dave’s truck. Over to the Atlantic we went. At Indian River we launched Sea
Dragon with no motor. The sails got raised and looked at for the first time.
The wind was not exactly light but not stiff either so we were able to navigate the sailed boat
out into the bay where we sailed around for several hours. Dave went over the things he
thought should be worked on and made me decide if I felt it was worth really fixing up the boat
or not. He saw it as a fairly expensive fix-up. He was also concerned that the boat might be too
powerful for me. I thought not and with a 4:1 block and tackle on the mainsheet it would be
easier than what the boat came with and I had no trouble with that.
So we hauled her out and went back to Georgetown. I put up my camping tent and hit the
ground after a blue crab feast with Dave and Donna.
Peapod speaks:
I hadn’t seen the Sea Dragon yet but I knew about her. That summer before she picked up the
boat Anne and I had continued to enjoy sailing, and yet Anne thought about the looming fall
project time. As much as she loved sailing me, she had a yen for a larger boat. That disease is
called two-foot-it is. She had it. When she left in the fall I was tarped and parked by her house
in DeTour, Michigan for the winter, all alone. I was kind of lonely.
Anne speaks:
Three weeks of work from 8 to 6 every day soon put the Sea Dragon into clean shape with
many, many repairs, fixes, a new gunnel, leaks taken care of, new centerboard pennant, and
much new stuff on the deck to lead all the lines aft.
There were many, many small tasks to do, including painting the interior of the boat after three
power wash jobs to clean it up. I did the work in consultation with Dave who had built boats
for thirty years. He let me use his tools and showed me how to do many, many things.
There was a looming wait for new opening ports and a larger foredeck escape hatch so I
decided to go cruise for several weeks.
I launched in Cambridge, MD, and sailed out of there for places like Oxford, Tilghman Island,
St. Michaels and many creeks, inlets and rivers nearby. I used Peapod’s 2hp motor as the
auxiliary. It was too short in shaft but worked good enough for short stints under power, so
almost all movement was sail powered.
I liked the boat. The action was mild and sedate. Where Peapod has some frisky aspects, the
Slipper 17 does not frisk around much. I found out later that my new old boat weighed in at
just over a ton, four times the weight of Peapod and only two feet longer. Plus, the Slipper 17
is eight feet wide while the West Wight Potter 15 is five feet wide. That initial stability helps
make for a quieter motion on the water.
The time on the water came to an end and I drove back to Georgetown. At Dave and Donna’s
again, I put in the new opening port lights and fore hatch. They had to have platforms made of
epoxy with micro balloons and then get installed. I had a little bit of extra time as the epoxy
cured and used it to go to the sailboat show in Annapolis. That was great fun. So was the visit
to the various marine chandleries.
With the work pretty much finished except for deck painting, I took off for North Carolina’s
mountains. I left my new old boat there for the winter where my brother could keep an eye on
her. In the spring I drove Peapod down to her new owners in southern Michigan and went down
to the Asheville area again. I spent a week with my brother and his family before going down
to the coast where I launched and sailed for about six weeks, exploring many small towns and
finally did the Dismal Swamp Canal. I’d been on the Virginia Cut before but this time I took a
huge loop around from Elizabeth City, NC to Norfolk and back.
The Sea Dragon had become Raggedy Annie over the fall and winter. At first I wanted to call
her Miss Piggy because she was fat and ate lots of money. But, no one liked it except me.
It came to me looking at her patched deck that she was raggedy and Raggedy Annie was the
new name.
Peapod speaks:
Anne went off to get her boat and I went to a new home in southern Michigan. My new people
live on a small lake, have two young daughters and they all like to play with me. We sail, the
girls nap aboard and it’s a good life. I’m cared for and enjoy my retirement from a life of
cruising and exploring.
Anne Westlund
westlund@lighthouse.net
(Note from the Editor: In the fall of 2009 Anne Westlund purchased a 1982 Potter 15 that she
named Peapod Also)
PART 2
by Anne Westlund
Anne speaks:
Returning to the North Channel after quite a few years was a big event for me. I’d sailed there
in mid-1970 and now it was the summer of 2000. In between, I had sea kayaked parts of the
North Channel in the 1980’s and 90’s, but I hadn’t sailed there.
Peapod speaks:
Anne was so excited she could hardly wait to wade ashore and climb the big smooth granite
hills. The rocks are soft looking and pinkish orange with lichens and pine trees here and there.
Up the hill she climbed and took a photo of the anchorage, a shallow lagoon that some folks in
dinghies hesitate to enter. We had come through a narrow channel and snuck into the shallow
anchoring area between boulders. An anchor in the water and a line ashore to a big rock held
me in place. The huge shoal at the entrance would keep out wave action. Ducks swam around
in the lagoon, beggars each and every one.
Blueberries were ripening. Anne brought some back to the boat for breakfast pancakes. She
swam and cleaned up things, organized a bit below and prepared her one pot supper. I bobbed
gently on the little swells that came and went from the lagoon. Soon it was flake out the
sleeping bag and bed time. A netting covered the companionway to keep the ‘skeeters out.
Anne lay on the port side looking up out to the starry sky. She soon fell asleep.
Many days passed in similar ways. We sailed to various islands and explored miles of
shoreline looking for wildlife, birds, and plants sunken treasures. We found an old sailboat
wreck in a tiny cove. We visited many of the islands in the area between the Whalesback along
the north shores and Little Current on Manitoulin Island. Anne became very proficient at
reading the shallow water areas where the bottom rocks and sand showed up lighter blues,
greens and tans. Sometimes dark areas were rocks and sometimes they were depths.
I became her companion as she sailed and exulted in the freedom her home on the water gave
her. All too soon it was time to return to Spanish and haul out for home.
Anne speaks:
That first trip back to the North Channel on my own boat was a really nice time. I’ll never
forget the feelings. Some details about which anchorage I used when are only found in the log
books but the passion for the sailing and cruising on a tiny boat will never die or be lost.
Several summers passed using Peapod as my home, my vehicle, my sport and my companion. I
was never disappointed with her in any way. She lived up to the praise from many sailors and
was always the cutest little boat on the water. We also went to many inland lakes in Michigan,
down into Indiana and out west to Lake Powell where a magical other-worldly environment
helped cure winter blahs.
One winter bug crept in and I bought a Slipper 17. This boat was also a boat I found on the
Internet. It was to be my project boat to help keep me active and, perhaps, sane. I’ve always
had to have a project of some kind or other.
The Slipper 17 was called Sea Dragon. A less likely name couldn’t have been found unless it
was a thought that she dragged on the water. She didn’t, as I found out later.
It was fall before I drove east to Rhode Island to pick up my new old boat that had spent the
summer season parked beside my friends’ garden. I was rather surprised to find her in bad
dress, so to speak.
She was dirty, cushions mildewed and not salvageable, full of old repaired holes in her deck,
and the list goes on. The trailer was in bad shape. I took it to a trailer repair shop for needed
springs, new wheels, tires, coupler, and a complete check-up. From Rhode Island I towed her
down to Georgetown, Delaware. That experience was something else again. Towing is all a
part of the small boat scene but what happened was rather different I guess.
The end of a long day was approaching fast as I came into Dover, Delaware when I realized I
had no headlights. Well, maybe I blew a fuse I thought. I pulled into a Holiday Inn to stop for
the night planning to continue on the next morning. There was no room at the Inn!!
It was NASCAR weekend and homecoming at the university. It was either sleep in the car or
Wal-Mart’s lot. I chose the Sam’s Club lot next to the Wal-Mart. There were several small
trailers already there. They were decked out in NASCAR stuff: banners, flags and grills with
the checkered flag designs. Deck chairs surrounded the carpeted “patios”.
It was quite a nice place to park. I went into Wal-Mart and bought a step ladder so I could get
aboard Sea Dragon. The boat wasn’t very clean inside so I took an old sheet I’d brought for a
paint drop cloth and put it on the bunk, then my camping sleeping pad and my sleeping bag,
pillow and flashlight. It was really dark by that time and I was famished. I walked to a near by
restaurant and had a light meal, walked back to the boat, climbed up, hauled the ladder behind
me into the cockpit and settled down to sleep.
I was tired and more than a bit disgusted with the lack of headlights problem. Replacing fuses
twice had convinced me there was more to the problem than I thought and that convinced me to
try a Sam’s Club/Wal-Mart parking lot to camp in for the first time.
In the morning I took off in full daylight and drove to Georgetown to my boat builder friends’
home. Dave and Donna were happy to see me and we immediately took off towing the Sea
Dragon with Dave’s truck. Over to the Atlantic we went. At Indian River we launched Sea
Dragon with no motor. The sails got raised and looked at for the first time.
The wind was not exactly light but not stiff either so we were able to navigate the sailed boat
out into the bay where we sailed around for several hours. Dave went over the things he
thought should be worked on and made me decide if I felt it was worth really fixing up the boat
or not. He saw it as a fairly expensive fix-up. He was also concerned that the boat might be too
powerful for me. I thought not and with a 4:1 block and tackle on the mainsheet it would be
easier than what the boat came with and I had no trouble with that.
So we hauled her out and went back to Georgetown. I put up my camping tent and hit the
ground after a blue crab feast with Dave and Donna.
Peapod speaks:
I hadn’t seen the Sea Dragon yet but I knew about her. That summer before she picked up the
boat Anne and I had continued to enjoy sailing, and yet Anne thought about the looming fall
project time. As much as she loved sailing me, she had a yen for a larger boat. That disease is
called two-foot-it is. She had it. When she left in the fall I was tarped and parked by her house
in DeTour, Michigan for the winter, all alone. I was kind of lonely.
Anne speaks:
Three weeks of work from 8 to 6 every day soon put the Sea Dragon into clean shape with
many, many repairs, fixes, a new gunnel, leaks taken care of, new centerboard pennant, and
much new stuff on the deck to lead all the lines aft.
There were many, many small tasks to do, including painting the interior of the boat after three
power wash jobs to clean it up. I did the work in consultation with Dave who had built boats
for thirty years. He let me use his tools and showed me how to do many, many things.
There was a looming wait for new opening ports and a larger foredeck escape hatch so I
decided to go cruise for several weeks.
I launched in Cambridge, MD, and sailed out of there for places like Oxford, Tilghman Island,
St. Michaels and many creeks, inlets and rivers nearby. I used Peapod’s 2hp motor as the
auxiliary. It was too short in shaft but worked good enough for short stints under power, so
almost all movement was sail powered.
I liked the boat. The action was mild and sedate. Where Peapod has some frisky aspects, the
Slipper 17 does not frisk around much. I found out later that my new old boat weighed in at
just over a ton, four times the weight of Peapod and only two feet longer. Plus, the Slipper 17
is eight feet wide while the West Wight Potter 15 is five feet wide. That initial stability helps
make for a quieter motion on the water.
The time on the water came to an end and I drove back to Georgetown. At Dave and Donna’s
again, I put in the new opening port lights and fore hatch. They had to have platforms made of
epoxy with micro balloons and then get installed. I had a little bit of extra time as the epoxy
cured and used it to go to the sailboat show in Annapolis. That was great fun. So was the visit
to the various marine chandleries.
With the work pretty much finished except for deck painting, I took off for North Carolina’s
mountains. I left my new old boat there for the winter where my brother could keep an eye on
her. In the spring I drove Peapod down to her new owners in southern Michigan and went down
to the Asheville area again. I spent a week with my brother and his family before going down
to the coast where I launched and sailed for about six weeks, exploring many small towns and
finally did the Dismal Swamp Canal. I’d been on the Virginia Cut before but this time I took a
huge loop around from Elizabeth City, NC to Norfolk and back.
The Sea Dragon had become Raggedy Annie over the fall and winter. At first I wanted to call
her Miss Piggy because she was fat and ate lots of money. But, no one liked it except me.
It came to me looking at her patched deck that she was raggedy and Raggedy Annie was the
new name.
Peapod speaks:
Anne went off to get her boat and I went to a new home in southern Michigan. My new people
live on a small lake, have two young daughters and they all like to play with me. We sail, the
girls nap aboard and it’s a good life. I’m cared for and enjoy my retirement from a life of
cruising and exploring.
Anne Westlund
westlund@lighthouse.net
(Note from the Editor: In the fall of 2009 Anne Westlund purchased a 1982 Potter 15 that she
named Peapod Also)