I have very fond memories of the old wooden boat we simply called our “cabin cruiser” when I was a boy. I don’t remember how we ended up with it, but since Dad worked in a bank and clerked many an auction sale, my assumption was always that he picked up a defaulted loan for it or bid just a little too much on it at one of the sales he clerked.
He used to keep it docked at the home of a family friend who happened to live two blocks away on the Baudette Bay. In the summer, we we would often get up before dawn and take our cooler and sandwiches down to the boat for an adventure. Dad would start the old diesel engine and chug through the bay to the Rainy River where he’d point the boat downriver and make the trip all the way to Lake of the Woods. I don’t know if it was the under-powered engine or my Dad’s hesitation and fear of blowing an ancient diesel on the river or lake that kept our speed to a leisurely 5 mph or so. Whichever it was, we still usually got where we were going, eventually.
One Saturday I remember particularly well, we took our boat to the Lake of the Woods sailing regatta. There were many beautiful, big sailboats with huge taut sheets for sails. Solid white sails with just a few symbols, colorful sails, and sails with many different patterns. We watched them race as we sat anchored out of the path with the other motorboats. Many of the other boaters knew my parents. They would wave and shout greetings as we would sit and watch the race. Mom was in charge of the cabin and snacks. I don’t remember now what my sisters ate, but I liked peanut butter sandwiches, with potato chips stuffed inside, and milk.
The highlight of this particular day was when the Coast Guard called to us on a bullhorn. They called out “Ahoy, the Tranquilizer” because, of course, our boat was named “Tranquilizer”. They wanted to talk to Dad about something. It seemed like maybe he had drifted into the path of the racers, but since this was probably 40 years ago, I don’t remember exactly what they wanted. I’m sure it was important. 🙂
Other times, when we had guests on board, they would sometimes be nervous about the old diesel engine. One guest, –I’m not naming any last names, cousin-in-law John– told a story about how he had heard that an old diesel engine had blown up and killed a person sitting on the engine cover. This guest happened to be sitting in the stern of the boat on the bench seat. Dad immediately invited him to come up and sit next to him, at the helm, on the stepped platform that led into the cabin. Us kids all snickered and rolled our eyes when he did this because we had seen Dad lift up that platform many times to look, and swear, at the Tranquilizer’s oily old engine.
One weekend I talked Dad into an overnight on the boat. It was probably his good forethought that dictated we anchor in the middle of the bay, maybe a football field out from our friends dock. He said he didn’t want to get too far away from the dock simply because we had never slept overnight on the boat before. Obviously, I thought we would be doing this all the time, in many exotic lake locations, for the remainder of the summer after this trial run. As it turned out, his caution was warranted. When we woke up the next morning, we stepped off the bunks into several inches of water. Apparently the automatic bilge pump had failed to come on during the night and the old wooden boat had been taking on water. I don’t remember bugging Dad to try this little excursion again that summer.
When I look back on it, I remember several incidents involving a lot of water in that old boat. There was more than one time where it basically sank at the dock, and I’m amazed that the engine seemed to keep on running after it was dried off.
Each fall Dad would have the boat dry-docked for storage. The boat mysteriously disappeared the fall that he asked a friend of his to give him an estimate to fix the dry rot and have it repainted.
I remember all the fun my sisters and I had on that summertime Tranquilizer. I remind myself that memories, thankfully, seem to highlight the positive and fade the stinking, oily, slow, leaking, expensive, hole in the water into which my parents threw money. These are memories of family and fun that neither I nor them will likely ever forget.
