My first boat was huge, as well as what they call “all show and no go.” I never sailed the boat. I resold her at a small loss, but she did deliver successfully from Charleston, SC to the Gulf of Mexico. Still, no sense in thinking backwards: everything happens for a reason.

I owned my second boat for about six months. It was a Com-Pac 16′ with a bent mast, found at a steal by a savvy boat broker. Rather than replace the mast, I flipped the boat and doubled my money because I needed the cash, but not before I named her. A would-be perfect day sailor, she never saw the harbor. It was easy to let go because, while my experience was limited to the harbor and a double-hander to the Abacos (during which I mostly made hot chocolate and read), my horizon was far beyond the harbor.

Too big, too small. So, another cliché: third time’s a charm. My second Christmas after making the decision to move back to Charleston to “live on a boat” my boyfriend gave me a copy of Ferenc Máté’s Best Boats to Build or Buy. It was a beautiful introduction to basic boat design. I’m pretty sure that’s where I first saw Bruce Bingham’s Flicka, and where the crush began. Book-approved, boyfriend approved. When I began to look for my own boat–a serious pocket cruiser right in size and capability–the Flicka was an ideal choice. Still, those for sale were scattered around the U.S. Few were less than $25,000. That seemed like a lot for a 20′ boat, but I reminded myself it was a real 20′ boat.

This spring, I began to scour Yachtworld and Craigslist weekly. I was determined to find a real boat I could afford. My budget was somewhere between slim and non-existent, but I’d been inspired by characters who’d rehabilitated abandoned fiberglass sarcophagi. I was tempted by the rediscovery of yet another “all show, no go” boat with both size and sentimental value on her side. The owners were willing to bend over backwards to sell her. However, all the google searches in the world turned up forum after forum of negative feedback. She was the worst of both worlds: a pig. It’s hard to shy away from the knowledge of well-designed boats once you’ve seen them, read of them, and listening to countless opinionated salties sing their praises. It was just one salty, my friend Walter, who I first heard use the term pig. Island Piglets.

It was also Walter, two years later, who told me my Flicka was sitting on the hard behind an office building off Highway 17. Walter is the kind of local man who knows every road, every cranny, and every character. All that time I’d spent looking, and all I had to do was ask. I went to see the boat and stuck a note on the door. A week later I heard from the graduate student enthusiastic to have a buyer. The boat had been his father’s, but he had no interest in sailing. We struck a deal.

I took Walter by for a “survey” and lunch, and later that morning he gave me an invaluable resource: his copy of This Old Boat. My sailing dreams had been inspired by my dad’s twenty year readership of Wooden Boat Magazine, and a copy of this book sat on our shelf back home. Four years into a winding, initially misguided journey to get my dreams off the dock, here it was again. This time I actually cracked it open. The only way to the other side is through the squall, and this book is practical must for a real, old boat. The only prerequisite is knowledge you’re working with silk. You can’t, as they say, make a purse from a pig.

Here is the “new” Flicka the day I moved her, and before her makeover.

If it grows together, it goes together.

Right plant, right place.

Read the New York Times article.