On 12/04/17 new photos and were added to The Hull album and The Interior album.

The restoration project is now complete.

To follow our sailing adventure click on THE ADVENTURES OF s/v PERFECT LOVE under FAVORITES at the bottom right corner of this page.

The Vagabond 47 ketch is a world renowned, classic, blue-water cruiser designed by the famous Canadian naval architect William Garden.

Her form captures the spirit of a time when sailing ships represented the height of technology and her function embodies the strength, safety and comfort of a serious ocean-going yacht.

This blog is a chronological narrative, in words and pictures, of the demolition and total restoration of my Vagabond 47.

The story of how I came to own my VAG47 is told below. Click on Gallery in the menu just above "Latest Update" at the top of this page to follow my progress in photographs.

December, 2007

Almost fourty years ago I came across a new Vagabond 47 ketch while walking the docks at Shilshole Bay Marina in Seattle Washington. I was instantly and completely enamored with her; it was love at first sight. She was the most beautiful sailboat that I had ever laid my eyes upon. I then promised myself that one day I would have my own Vagabond 47.

Fast-forward thirty three years.

During a short sailing vacation on Tampa Bay with a couple of buddies I happened upon a derelict Vagabond 47 ketch, quite by chance, while waiting for a drawbridge to open. She was moored to a dilapidated dock at Tierra Verde Marina on Boca Ciega Bay. She was an absolute garbage heap. Junk was piled high on her battered and broken teak decks, her sails were shredded, dozens of tattered and tangled lines ran chaotically across deck and dock from cleat to winch to rail, her hull was scrapped and discolored and her bottom was a brownish-green jungle of foot-long seaweed and sharp barnacles.

But she was absolutely beautiful! I committed myself to finding out more about this severely neglected but classic sailing yacht with the ultimate intention of buying her.

Mechaya was built in January of 1975 by Blue Water Yachts of Taiwan, Republic of China; she was hull number 148. I bought her for $6,000 and brought her back to Cincinnati where I began a complete restoration. She has been taken down to a bare fiberglass hull and deck and is now being rebuilt from the inside out.

Soon she will take me wherever the wind blows. She has been re-christened Perfect Love.

In the fall of 2005 business took me to Australia. Six of my ten days were spent in Sydney. One free afternoon, while pursuing my habit of walking boat docks whenever I am near water, I found myself in Quiberie Park on Lavender Bay. There, spray painted illicitly on a concrete wall, was a solitary, poignant verse.

The verse was eloquent yet simple and, for me, this single phrase is, to this day, worth a thousand pictures. I committed it to memory. I later learned that the sentence came from a book published in 1856. It is included in context below:

"Of all things, living or lifeless, upon this strange earth, there is but one which, having reached the mid-term of appointed human endurance on it, I still regard with unmitigated amazement.

I know, indeed, that all around me is wonderful, but I cannot answer it with wonder; a dark veil, with the foolish words, NATURE OF THINGS, upon it, casts its deadening folds between me and their dazzling strangeness.

Flowers open, and stars rise, and it seems to me they could have done no less. The mystery of distant mountain-blue only makes me reflect that the earth is of necessity mountainous; the sea-wave breaks at my feet, and I do not see how it should have remained unbroken.

But one object there is still, which I never pass without the renewed wonder of childhood, and that is the bow of a Boat."

from The Harbors of England by John Ruskin

PERFECT LOVE

I believe that there exists, within the heart of every man, a singular image of his perfect love. This perfect love, if she actually exists and can be found, would quench every want, every need, every desire that lingers unsatisfied deep within his thirsty soul. A very lucky few have found that perfect love. Those of us who grow tired of the search must eventually settle for a proxy; a poor substitute for the warmth of flesh and blood but still a worthy second best.

I have found my proxy, my second best. Her figure appeals to me in a uniquely personal way. I find the elegance of her bow, the curve of her shear line, the rake of her masts and the hour-glass shape of her stern to be voluptuous and strong. She is rich and full-bodied and grows more beautiful with each passing year.

My perfect love is reliable, steady and responsive to my touch. She speaks with wisdom and a subtle authority and only argues with me when I am wrong. She demands respect but always takes me where I want to go. She is playful and mysterious; an adventure just waiting for me to step on board and weigh anchor.

I am proud to be seen with her, I want to grow old with her and, if endings can be chosen, I intend to go down with her.

She is my PERFECT LOVE.

March, 2008

Business brought me back to the Tampa Bay area and while planning my trip I arranged to stay an extra day to visit the Tierra Verde Marina and check out the Vag47 that had been on my mind since December. I stopped at the marina office to inquire about the down-on-her-luck yacht that still sat moored in the same spot that she had occupied three months earlier when I had first seen her.

I learned that the boat had not moved for the past eight years. She had weathered two hurricanes and had taken out several telephone-pole-sized pylons during one storm with only minor damage to her hull. I also learned that the owner had not paid his mooring fees for the past eight months and that the boat was now impounded.

After being granted permission by the marina manager to take a closer look at her I climbed on board to investigate.

There was garbage everywhere. Two rusted-out room air conditioning units sat on the deck house and broken teak decking was pealing away from the fiberglass substrate all around me. She smelled of rotten fish and stale oil. The fumes of an unthinkably nasty stew rising from the bilge filled the cabin. Old gas cans, dead batteries and loose wires were everywhere. But she felt solid.

The manager had warned me that homeless people occasionally used the cabin and there was ample evidence of his claim as the trash of hasty and indifferent occupants could be seen everywhere.

Food wrappers, cigarette butts and various items of very dirty male and female clothing were scattered around the master's cabin. The heads were disgusting.