krista schlyer
conservation writing & photography
SV Maggie May: The final countdown
Sailing around the world was a 5-year-plan launched in 2002. It’s now 2020 and we still haven’t left. How did 5 years stretch into 18 you ask? Well let me try to tell you in one blog post.
If you are rich you can buy a new boat, maybe even hire a captain and be ready to launch in a year or two. If you grow up eating government cheese things are a little more complex. This was factor one in the long timeline.
FACTOR 2 The Original Maggie May, the boat’s namesake, might have been able to make an around the world sailing voyage in her youth…she was a spry pup who climbed trees and scaled rocks like a mountain goat. But as she got older she developed arthritis and other ailments and by 2007 (our theoretical departure date) she was almost 10 years old. We didn’t want to put her through life on the boat, and we wanted to enjoy her golden years.
FACTOR 3 There was another important reason. Bill and I are both very devoted to our work. Bill crafted government policy that would help the city of Washington DC become more sustainable and climate responsible. I worked as a photographer and writer to engage the American public in wildlife conservation and ecological protection, including a 10-year+ effort to stop the construction of border wall on the US-Mexico border. While Maggie was healthy, we were content working for environmental conservation.
Maggie died in December 2012. This was a devastating loss for us. Our triumvirate was broken and in some ways she was the best of us. So we found a new role for her, as inspiration for a dream.
We had long been setting the stage for the sailing trip on the sidelines of regular life. In 2009, we moved into a very small, very cheap and unloved house and rented out our previous house, a 1,250 square foot bungalow. We are pretty good at living simply and cheaply and therefore we save a good amount of what we make. So in 2013 we were ready. We sold our rental house and bought a sailboat. Everything was finally coming together nicely. We would be on our way in a year or two.
We bought Vilkas, the werewolf, in Florida and sailed her up to the Chesapeake Bay in Summer 2013. Our boat search had spanned many years and the werewolf seemed to have the right balance of interior space, hefty build, and care by previous owners, as well as some extras that would be very useful on the trip: life raft, generator, water maker, wind generator, dingy with motor, sails and backups, a relatively new diesel inboard, and a totally redone hull (due to a problem with osmotic blisters). The only problem we would need to address would be the decks, which were original and a bit of a mess, but an easy fix for about $10,000.
What we didn’t know was that the full moon had not yet risen.
Bringing our new bundle of joy, Vilkas, up from Florida.
I was more excited than I’ve been most of my adult life. Bill was immediately feeling buyer’s remorse and less than excited. There was immediate conflict due to these contrary emotions. And then the moon came out and Vilkas bared her teeth. The only thing in the list of positives that turned out to be positive, so far, was the diesel engine. Everything else was either broken or breaking and the deck repair turned out to cost 10X our boat broker’s estimate. A year or two stretched into 5 as we fixed all the problems and drained our hard-earned savings, but in fall of 2019 we were ready to go. Vilkas had been transformed, or so we thought.
The first round of repairs for Vilkas
We pulled Maggie May, (newly named but not yet christened), for one last bottom paint job before our scheduled launched in November. When first we set eyes on her, Bill immediately noticed hundreds of puffy spots on the bottom of the hull. His face turned grey.
“If this is what I think it is, we’re done. The trip is over,” he told me.
Vice on heart. Shake head. Move forward.
I’m usually the optimistic one in boat-related matters so I proceeded to inspect the hull. I poked one of the spots and an oily liquid poured out. I smelled it… vinegar. Weird.
I took out my phone hoping some quick research would throw us a lifeline. Instead, the Google had dire news about the search terms puffy spots + sailboat + vinegar smell. You have osmotic blisters, aka boat chicken pox, the Google declared in no uncertain terms. And you can expect the cost of repair to be $20-$30K.
Vilkas is officially transformed into Maggie May
My role over the past 15 years had been to stay positive when Bill was losing faith in the dream. But I couldn’t figure out how to spin this in any way that allowed the trip to continue. What had been more than a decade and a half of planning, and had consumed most of our life savings; what had sustained me through years of heart-rending documentation of environmental destruction, this dream, was going to dissolve into nothing.
Nausea set in so we headed to Burger King, figuring it couldn’t get any worse. We sat down to something like food, and silence.
My mind was mostly blank, but as ever doing some background calculations about what could be done. We had set aside some funds for the trip and some savings to get us by when we returned, until Bill could get a job again. But we had exhausted our budget for fixing the boat. Any further expenditures could put us in a risky position upon our return. We had promised we wouldn’t spend that cushion. And based on our research we would need at least $15K a year while we were sailing. I planned to keep working, writing stories for magazines, licensing photos, but even in a good year I am not our primary earner. I was running numbers when all the sudden a thought occurred to me. We have to fix the boat.
Even if we could no longer afford to take the trip, we would have to fix the boat in order to sell it and return to our regularly scheduled lives. No one was going to buy a boat with blisters. And we had to fix it right, because the people who repaired this exact problem before we bought it, did not do what was needed for the boat to be permanently fixed. I told Bill as much.
“We have to fix it,” I said. “How about we start there and then later make a decision about whether we can still go?”
Bill was too heartbroken to say much, but he agreed we would figure out the cost of fixing it, and let this new catastrophe percolate for a while.
We ate our fries.
The initial reports from Bill’s research were grim, with estimates at or well above what we had expected. But then he talked to a contractor who said they could do it for less. There was a chance if we could save some money on fixing this, we could still go on the trip, and just eat into our yearly budget and our cushion.
But the issue wasn’t just cost, it was also time. The process of fixing boat blisters right took months. And there was no way it would be done by November 2019 when we planned to depart. Sailing out of the Chesapeake in January can be challenging or impossible but sometimes you get a window in February. This was the best we could hope for. And there was a moment we just looked at each other and said, “This is our dream. We can’t give up on it.”
So we made arrangements to get the boat to the shop in December, the first available option the contractor had. December rolled around and we set everything up…but the machine that would remove Maggie May’s mast so she could fit in the shop was broken, for the whole month of December and half of January.
Finally in January Maggie May was placed in the shop and the work started. We began a two month countdown to our departure. We would finally, after more than 15 years of planning, launch our sailing circumnavigation on or around March 15, 2020.
Enter the Coronavirus.
2 Comments on “SV Maggie May: The final countdown”
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My plan was always to do a free blog to share the journeys of Maggie May and any cool, interesting and important things we might find along the way. Even with all the setbacks we've had, I want this to be a free blog. But if you are enjoying the story, and have some funds to support this journey and ongoing storytelling, you can help us continue on this path. Thanks!
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Read more about Krista and Bill’s previous journeys with the Original Maggie May
Where in the World is Maggie May?
krista schlyer 
WOW – what a story! I’ve only heard murmurings of most of this, but seeing all of it laid out makes me realize how truly inspiring you both are. Holding fast to dreams LONG deffered is one of the most daring and inspiring things we can do in this life. I trust the universe will provide a favorable pocket for departure soon and that our sweet Mother Earth will watch over you. Wishing you the best on your journey!
Thank you so much Alexis! Hope you are well!