S/V Bill of Rights
This lovely vessel is Bill of Rights. She resides in Oxnard, CA, currently doing non-profit outreach work. My amazing nephew, Nate, is educational director and First Mate aboard her. Brock, NJ, and I were lucky enough to get to stay onboard over the Thanksgiving holiday and actually got to go out sailing as well.
The crew, including Captain Stephen Taylor, were incredibly gracious hosts and made us feel so welcome. BOR is a 136′ schooner, built in 1971. She is currently cared for by ATSI. We were immediately embraced as honorary crew for the week and Nat was put on Bow Watch when were cruising. The love of boats has clearly taken root in my girl, which is exactly what I had in mind when we acquired KJ.
Nat was busy and moving the whole time – climbing out on the dolphin striker, scampering up the ratlines (with safety harness, of course), polishing brass to her heart’s content. Out of the three of us, I think she was the most heartbroken to leave, although I came in a close second. The weather was gorgeous; flip-flops and shorts were all we needed. I kept pointing out to Brock that KJ could live there as easily as in Seattle. Ah, but he does have a wonderful job, so we all headed back north in the end.
But not before sharing some of our knowledge of brass polishing with some of the volunteers. It’s all about the products you use, so we presented them with their own tub of Prism Polish…and then proceeded to use a bunch of it up while teaching them.
We were polishing within 10 minutes of arriving and many pieces were gleaming by the time we left. We all felt it would have been wonderful to stay a few weeks and keep working on her.
She was an easy boat with which to fall completely in love. Natalie is scheming and dreaming about volunteering there during school breaks. Best.Thanksgiving. Ever.
experience
Sounds really memorable so glad you had a great time, thanks for sharing.