The Ripple - Mine and my Grandfathers

When I bought my boat, the first big decision I was faced with was what to name her. 

Now, I know some of you will immediately respond, "Isn't it bad luck to rename a boat?" Well, some people believe that, yes. 

However, by rather uncommon circumstances, the previous owner of my boat never actually named her (which I consider EXTREMELY bad luck). So technically, I was naming her, not renaming her. That's what I tell myself anyway (and Posiedon, if he's listening).

So where did Ripple come from then? Well, the Ripple was the name of my grandfather's 27 ft wooden sailboat, which he restored, cruised and raced on Lake Huron, long before I was born. 

The original Ripple; my grandfather's 27 ft sloop on Lake Huron

I never had the pleasure of seeing the Ripple, but my grandfather described her well in his memoirs...

Ripple was also an old wooden boat, run-down and in need of extensive repair. She was Gardner designed to be a small cruising cutter, twenty-seven feet long plus an impressively sturdy three foot bowsprit. Unlike Sea Waif, her mast was heavy solid spruce. She was a minimal cruising boat with a four cylinder engine for which parts were still available, a curtained off head, four bunks (two upper pipe berths), and alcohol stove and an ice box. We rebuilt her and raced her, primarily as sloop. We stripped her hull, working winter night knee deep in the snow with blowtorches in the empty boatyard, and terrifying the yard owner. A boat-building friend designated the rotted planks and ribs and we removed some twenty six of each, digging out scores of screws when their heads stripped. He fitted the replacement ribs and planks and we screwed them in with grosses of screws. We replaced the oak ice box, insulated with 1937 newspapers, with a built in Coca Cola cooler, bought new sails and sailed away. 

My grandfather was the master of DIY fix it projects. During my childhood, my parents would load my sister and I into the car and drive to my grandparent's cottage, located on Lake Shupac in northern Michigan. Every trip involved a series of "20 minute projects", which was my grandfather's code name for anywhere from 2 hour to 7 day jobs. My grandfather also taught us to sail in a small fleet of dinghies, some of which he built by hand. 

My grandfather at Lake Shupac with the dinghies I learned to sail on in the background

Unlike me, my grandfather was a natural racer. I would always take the dinghies out to putz around on lake, and my grandfather would stand on the lawn outside the cabin and yell to me that I was sitting too far foreward while running downwind. 

My grandfather sailed in over 25 Mackinac Races in the Ripple and later the Prester John, his next boat, landing him in the prestigious "Old Goat" club.

We gave our wives a winch for Christmas and we were off to race the annual Port Huron to Mackinac race, the longest and most prestigious sailboat race in our part of the world... In 1964, the Ripple won everything in her class, not only in the Mackinac but also in the local inter club races. 

While my grandfather was definitely much more of a racer than I am, we still had a lot in common...

After the Mackinac races, Pat and I and the neighbor couple would cruise Georgian Bay, four of us happy in a twenty-seven foot boat with fifty or more bottle of beer in the bilge. They had to be washed before consumption. 

I sold Ripple in 1966. On the demonstration ride, the bilge was bone dry and, trimmed on a close reach, she held her course with no one at the helm while I casually went below and fixed myself a drink and a pipe. She was a do it yourself accomplishment. We more than recovered the money invested. The pleasure was a dividend on Do-It-Yourself. 

My grandfather passed away a number of years ago. Sadly, much of my sailing "career" came after he died, which I really regret as he was an absolute wealth of knowledge. I would have liked him to see that his passion for sailing was passed on to me, even if it took a little while to truly sink in.

My sister and I sailing the Barn Cat, a catamaran hand built by my grandfather

But given the fact that my grandfather was the whole reason I even know the difference between a halyard and a sheet, I thought it was suiting to name my first boat in honor of him.

I hope he would approve.