As many of you know, since I bought Obersheimers Sailor Supply, 8ish years ago and I became a business owner, nothing has been the same.
I realize that it is now August 9th, but I am very excited and in the home stretch as far a getting Maruska back into the water. It all started when we made the decision to keep the boat out of the water "for a season" while caring for my ailing mother back in 2011. That decision was an excellent one as we provided 24 hour care that would take us until the end of the 2013 season.
Then it was the business. Overwhelming at best, walking into a business that was also on life support took every ounce of time I ever dreamed of having. Maruska went from hopeful to out of mind. The good news was that she was safe and sound in her boat barn, but like all good things, that also came to an end. It has been three years now since we sold our family home, all 31 acres and the boat barn. On her trailer, away she went to a friends marina where she sat outside both summer and winter, sun and snow.
In the fall of 2019 we had the opportunity to replace the slip we gave up oh so many years ago and we took it. The thought was to get the boat in the water the following year, but Covid killed that dream along with 60 percent of our business. We had rebounded the business after years of hard work, and it went deep six in a matter of weeks. New York of course was one of the most draconian states when it came to regulations and deceptions.
The positive was the ability to sit back and look at the big picture. We had what it took to build and run a business in one of the most business unfriendly states in the country. I say "we" because today we are a true family business. My son runs the sail loft and rigging department. My oldest daughter handles the phones and sales floor. She also posts real-estate listings in her spare time for a good customer of ours. My middle daughter works the store weekends scanning our customers for her financial advisors job, and she does all of our off the deck up the mast work in the evenings. My wife does sail repairs, canvas and keeps customers in the door when things get busy when she is not at her special needs teachers aid job. I do the vast majority of our service work which includes fiberglass, core repair, painting and gelcoat repair. We do custom machining, woodworking, electrical and marine plumbing. This of course is mixed in with my full/part time position as a preventative maintenance manager at a local plastics manufacture. Hey... you have to do what you have to do. Mix in daycare for our very first and only grandchild, and our store is a wonderfully hectic place. It is all hands, all day everyday. Watch out, don't step on the toys, all the lowest product hooks are bare, and yes that is a swing! We have all never worked harder but, it is a where we go one, we go all kind of thing.
Not everybody has the opportunity to see and work with their kids everyday. (my youngest daughter lives around the corner from the store and entertains the grandkid almost every morning) Not everybody probably wants to, but we sure do! Not everybody has hundreds of customers they can call friends. Not everybody is doing what they want to do everyday. It's not all fun and games although we do try and keep it light. We have "purged" more customers this year than all the others combined. Post covid has made the nice people nicer and the borderline impossible. Sometimes you have to loose a cow to save the heard. We have found putting up with a known pain in the ass customer is often carried on to customers that deserve better, so there is the door! So many people have never been told NO before. So many people actually believe they are as special as amazon and the news media has convinced them that they are. The biggest myth we have found is the "customer is always right". Hobie Cat has canceled our dealership (they said we didn't sell enough boats even though they haven't had any for two years) and Quantum is now saying the same thing! See ya! All opportunities...
We haven't regretted a moment. We pray for a better year each and every year, and have come to the realization post Covid, that if it wasn't meant to be... oh well. Money is worthless. One day in our life with family and our customer friends under one roof is priceless. We had a fantastic house, but it was just a house (I do miss the barn). We had a great life but this is better. We use to have more money, but the cost to get it and keep it just didn't pay.
So... Maruska's teak is freshly varnished, the port side hull is buffed (one more half to go) I need to drop new batteries in and we launch! Better late than never. I only hope we can figure out where all of the pieces go, and I should probably test start the motor before we splash. Every item has been stolen time, using her will be more of the same. Customers frown on the fact that your boat is in and theirs is not, for what ever the reason. I have sailed only once this season so far, three times total last year, all for customers. Here is hoping for some miles under her keel this fall but what ever it amounts to it will be appreciated, good or bad. Appreciate what you have, it can all be gone in an instant despite your best efforts. It is better to have less and use it more, than to have lots and use none of it. Stick to your core principles and hold tight. Never be afraid! Never give up! Big changes are coming!
God bless and good sailing...
Dale Tanski
Hull #40
Maruska
Dale,
That was the most inspiring thing I have read in a long time, thank you! You will never regret caring for a frail parent -you modelled for your children what family is all about. And yes, sometimes you have to let go of people who really don't deserve the endless patience you show them. In the end, life is all about the relationships we hold close-the rest is mostly a distraction. Money- eh, based on my experience, there is not always a relationship between financial wealth and hard work. Lots of folks wark hard all thier lives and get little reward while others seem to amass wealth with little effort. But family, friends and work that you love is priceless. Enjoy Maruska, you earned it!
Well she floats!
It has been a good many years (we continue to argue just how long it has been) but the old girl is looking mighty fine and floating proud. I have been in the process of removing years of accumulated grime from the outside and cleaning up the interior of lots of accumulated stuff. It is amazing the amount of spider spots the interior had, those tar like black/purple spots. I am surprised even with most of the time spent in the barn it was very dirty. After the topsides were buffed, I applied a quick coat of antifouling and in she went. I did fire the Westerbeke on the hard. It never cranked more than a few revolutions before it came to life. Once her keel was wet the diesel purred and purred. It has been so long I forgot which way of the lever was forward and which was reverse.
No... the sticks are still not up as there was a number of boats exiting the Erie cannel that needed their masts stood. We do mast duty for several of the marinas in Buffalo. We even stood some on Saturday and Sunday to accommodate them. By the way, I was aboard a newer Jeaneau 43 that was doing the loop and would not have traded them even. Hopefully I can finish assembling my masts shortly although we are having a rain day today. I suspect she will sail by the weekend.
I have already spent 2 nights sleeping aboard. The motion is a bit abrupt without 50 ft of stabilizer high in the air. Electrical systems all work, although I have one more house battery yet to change. The ice box is holding right at a steady 35 degrees. I did the math and went back to standard wet cell batteries all around instead of AGM's. The Lifeline AGM's were great and lasted the advertised 3 times as long as regular batteries, but the price differential is now well over 3 times the cost. So... unless you are a live aboard and spend time in places you can't pick up batteries easily, they were tough to justify. Pressure water complete with hot water also works purging gallons of eatable antifreeze. Instrumentation all fired up and the wheel pilot moves when one pushes the correct buttons. It is all a bit of a re-learning curve. Thank heavens I have every manual aboard so I can refresh on what button does what, some of which I didn't know in the first place.
Like most of you, I already have a growing to do list although I have already checked off several. Some I have been wanting to do forever and found they were simple fix. Today I will drag the sails out onto the loft floor and see what's up with them. I have had a lot of thumbs up from fellow slip mates. Most have no idea what kind of a boat she is. There use to be another 365 ketch in Buffalo but she sold about 4 years ago.
Just a side note, it is amazing how many people traveling are so unprepared. We see it all of the time. The two boat we stood masts on this weekend were scary. Neither had any spare rigging pins or cotters. They handed us used cotters to reassemble the rig. One owner dropped a pin over the side while trying to connect one of their backstay turnbuckles. No spares aboard. I asked... what would you do if you saw one of you shrouds swinging free on the leeward side while sailing because a line snagged a cotter and the pin deep sixed because the pin worked its way out? No spare pins, no spare cotters. One owner did not know how to reconnect his VHF masthead coax! How do you travel two years doing the loop and somewhere around 6000 miles and not be prepared? The people on this forum are head and shoulders above most. Congrats.
Dale
I was still working full time but thought doing boat canvas work would be a nice sideline and make foR a nice retirement business. Of course everyone wants something during the boating season! I always felt uncomfortable at the marina, either someone wanted to see about a new project or questions when an order will be done as I try to relax. I finally quit. I still make stuff for myself and will gladly stitch up a seam or two for a friend but thats all. I was in Buffalo a couple years ago while bringing a friends boat to Superior WI and stopped at your store, sorry I didn't get to meet you but your daughter sold us a few things. We spent some time at RCR and Andy Lopez told me he had owned a 365. I hope you get some sailing in and everything works! It's funny that even though everything is working when I put the boat away in the fall ther is always something that gives me trouble it the spring. As far as lists go, it seems whenever I cross something off I add another item or two.
First sail of the season last evening.
Beautiful night, 10 to 15 off shore, flat as a pancake.
Zero problems with the exception of the steaming light. I think I am going to let that one go until next season.
Five of us aboard, all family. Everyone had a great time. Can't wait for more.
What a great boat a 365 is, lots of room, wide side decks, safety with the bulwarks, very comfortable ride and so many sail choice options.
Dale
I got the chance to go out sailing with a friend named Linc a few evenings back. It was a last second question to a busy day. We didn't even leave the dock before 7:00 pm. In our neck of the woods, this time of year 7:00 is the beginning of the end of daylight. I even flipped the switch for the nav lights as I dropped it in forward for the motor out. We headed out into the lake with the wind in the mid teens out of the WNW. There were two sets of rollers from slightly different directions from two different times of day and it was a bit of a lumpy ride.
We had set the headsail, staysail, 2 reefs in the main and the mizzen. If you are going to go... go big. The boat handled the conditions well and we needed the canvas to push back against the waves. The further out we got the higher the wind speed, and we began seeing steady numbers in the upper teens with gusts into the low 20's. There were times the boat wanted a little less sail area but kept her shoulder down and carried on. The sun was all but gone and darkness was closing in quickly as we sailed a broad reach the six of so miles to the far side of Lake Erie known as Hamburg beach. We are at the butt end of the lake and that's all the width there is at that point, but at its widest Lake Erie is 57 miles wide and 240 or so miles long. At about the 5 mile mark the swells left over from the full 240 miles of the fetch were in running at about 4 feet. Because the lake is so shallow (averages 68 feet, max 210) the wave sets are always short and close together. It has been said that the best length boat for Lake Erie is around 27 feet because longer boats tend to be into 2 waves at once. The deep red horizon dimmed to dark and we would occasionally be on the top of the stack of the two sets of waves at once. The fall from those double crests were impressive. There was no sitting to drive, you had to be on your feet. We took water over the bow on many occasions. Needless to say we were the only floating light we could see for miles. There is something special about being your own island, in the dark, in brisk breeze with sheets of red and green blowing off the bow.
When we spun the corner at the far side, we were seeing individual license plate lights and pressure into the mid 20's with the occasional 27-28 knot blast. It was more on the nose for the ride home and the apparent wind speed rose accordingly. It was now dark enough that individual humps were not easily seen or anticipated. Only if the crest broke into foam was there an indication of a big set roaring through. We took several sheets up and over the side of the hull and slid the companion way shut for boarding water. The rigging sang and it became apparent that we had more than enough sail hung. A better sailor would have struck the headsail in a moment of sanity. The helm occasionally met the stop when the combination of big puff and straight up sea combined. The lights of the approaching city were impressive and to the west we could clearly see dozens of red windmill clearance lights dancing in unison on the high hills of western New York. The high pressure air was fall crisp and the incoming spray was so much warmer. There was enough going on trying to keep a line that no more than a light spray jacket was needed to stay comfortable.
As we closed the gap we slipped back into the lee of the Canadian north shoreline and the pressure dropped along with the chop. By the time we glided into the north gap of the break wall, we were barely ghosting along with no sense of urgency. The wind clocked further to the north as it typically does out of the shore and we scooted into the Buffalo river without the assist of power. It was certainly a evening not to be forgotten as the hands on the clock reached for 9:30. It is so comforting to know the boat besides being pushed too hard, conducted herself well. We could have, should have flown far less canvas. A normal person would have, but the boat did her job. After we dropped the reins around the cleats the collateral damage below was impressive. The roller coaster ride displaced everything that was available on to the sole. Oh what a night!
Dale