There are well-meaning folks who decisively declare that the best two days of boat ownership are 'the day it's bought and the day it's sold', but their sardonic stance has never dulled my desire for this particular beauty.
It's the item I won't be buying today: the 1937 twenty-five foot Chris Craft Triple Cockpit Runabout.
Some want a party barge.
Some want a fishing boat.
Some want a luxury yacht.
But me, I want a mahogany girl with copper fuel lines and flame red leather seats. I want double flags and chrome gauges and a rumbling engine that sounds like the purring ambassador of a bygone era. I've wanted the sound and smell of a boat like this since having been introduced to one at the age of fifteen by some affluent friends; friends that included me, much to my middle-classed delight, in their highfalutin', moneyed adventures.
Fortunate to have grown up when and where I did, I know what poor looks like. I know what middle class looks like. And man, do I know what rich looks like. Being around the well-to-do as much as I was as a young teenager made an indelible impression on me. You know how baby ducks imprint on whatever is around them at birth? Well, I am pretty sure I unwittingly imprinted upon things like Mercedes Benzes and antique Chris Crafts when I was hitting my hormonal stride. My taste preferences for cars and boats have always been above my budget and, yes, I know precisely from where those preferences come.
Today's case in point: I had friend whose family was chummy with a New York State Senator, and damn if he didn't have the nicest restored prewar beauty, which he entered yearly into summer shows. My friend and I scored an invitation to a show that summer and were directed to sit in the senator's boat and answer whatever questions we could (while also discouraging any boat defacers) as he walked about, hobnobbing, perusing, and socializing with other big money boat owners.
In my madras shorts and docks with no socks, my legs were mid-July tan and my collar was half-popped in that lazy "Yes, I just wandered in from prep school" way. I gelled my hair into a ballet dancer's bun and, with my pearl earrings and Tom Cruise Wayfarers, looked like any other teenager lucky enough to be from a family with an antique wooden masterpiece stored in their boathouse on the lake. Except I wasn't. I was just along for the ride in this upper class world, acting as though I belonged there, blase' in my appearance while discussing things like the best options for charitable giving and Peter Gabriel's Biko album.
Walking around that afternoon, I encountered my most favorite, to this day, wooden motorboat. Running my hands back and forth over the thickness of the varnish, I hovered, I suppose, too long, stunned at the luxuriousness of it all; so sleek and powerful, with its marbleized banjo-style steering wheel, and flawless bench seats heating up in the midday sun. Stupefied, and frozen in place, I felt the vibrations of all the years that this boat had been owned and prized, its history rolling up my legs from the floorboards. I saw myself in the water with the hull splitting the reedy grass of the shallows, and I knew in my bones I belonged on it. But, as I grew uneasy in the owners' collective gaze, I also knew I'd probably never have one. Families with money will act like something is no big deal even though they are showing you something that is a very big deal.
Me: gesturing about the 1937 Chris Craft, "I love your boat."
Rich Guy: "This boat? Oh (chortle) Gooby ordered this from Algonac in 1937 when he graduated from Brown and had it delivered all the way to Rhode Island. You know, all soooorts of water in Rhode Island! The perrrrrrfect spot for a tool around the bay! Econometrics, right, Lovey?"
Rich Guy's Wife: "Old Gooby! Yes, Econometrics from Broowwwn. Gooby was the best, darling, simply the best."
Family members aboard the boat: (clinking Waterford flutes) "Three cheers for Gooby!"
As I stepped away, I remember committing to memory, specifically, 1937. Specifically, the triple cockpit. Specifically, those red leather seats. Maybe I could have one someday.
Well, here we are, well past 'someday' and I'm not buying one, though I do love thinking about it. The desire got lodged in my developing brain where it sits, occasionally kindled back to life when I spot one of these classics either in person or online. I suppose there's no harm in letting that desire remain there.
If you were lucky enough to have a Gooby who bought, and maybe even left you one of these, I raise my glass.
Cheers to Gooby. Simply the best.
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