The Saga of Spider Boy: A Tale of Blood, Duct Tape, and a Near-Win on the Salton Sea
Restoring a boat—or rather, doing a refit from a heap of weathered bones—takes more than know-how. It demands mule-headed perseverance to stumble through the learning curve and shove the project over the finish line, no matter the cost in blood or sanity.
Come to think of it, this isn’t my first time. I did something similar to a trawler a few years back.
That’s the creed I lived by as of March 20, 2022, when I paused, paintbrush dripping, to survey the half-revived hull of my West Wight Potter 15—a pocket cruiser my grandson Elliott in Tacoma, Washington, had christened Spider Boy.
I’d leapt into this lunacy back in January, no thanks to Kimball Rich, who fired up my sailing gene, willfully ignoring the mounting toll of time, money, sweat, and tears from my wife, Patti.
The numbers thus far, when I dared to reckon them: $1,500 for the boat and her rickety trailer, another $1,500 to forge that trailer into a roadworthy beast (welding, a new axle, and tires), $800 on epoxy and fiberglass, $400 on hardware, and maybe $1,800 for a 6 hp Tohatsu outboard.
Nearly $6,000, and she hadn’t even kissed a wave—until her maiden run, that is, when my son Michael and I took her to Olympia for the Salton Sea 100, a wild race we almost won if the tides hadn’t suddenly decided to turn against us.
In “Captain Ron,” there’s a hilarious scene where everything goes sideways during a storm at sea. The skies turn ominous, and suddenly, Captain Ron’s confident bravado is put to the test. As monstrous waves toss the boat around like a toy, the crew starts to panic, wondering if Ron is just “lost.”
With rain pelting down and the wind howling, Captain Ron tries to keep his cool, but he’s more like a soggy pirate at this point. The boat lurches, and the crew realizes that maybe a captain with a little less swagger and a bit more experience wouldn’t be such a bad idea!
“The cut that I now had inflicted on my ring finger felt so deep I thought I’d sliced a major artery. Patti—my wife, my anchor—raced for the garage medical kit while I mashed an acetone-soaked rag against the gash, pressure whitening my knuckles. Ouch! I screamed at the pain.
Band-Aids gave up fast; the blood mocked them. Duct tape saved the day—sailor’s gold—and I taped it tight.
“Never again will I ever try that again; butyl tape on boat windows,” I vowed, still reeling from the razor knife slip that sparked this chaos. I’d been clawing at that tarry mess, working backward like a deranged restorer, when the blade bit me.
She peeked in, smirking, “I’ll finish it if you bleed out.” “Yeah, right,” I fired back. Then she went for the kill: “Or I’ll sell it on Craigslist as an almost-done project—or give it to Mike.” Mike—Michael, our son in Tacoma—with his Gremlin and Matador rusting into eternity, waiting on parts since the Bush years.
He’d park Spider Boy between them, crack a beer, and call it art. We howled—the kind of laugh that binds a marriage through boat-induced bedlam. And to be truthful, now that’s not a far stretch from the truth.
That’s the small-boat life—grubby, laughable, and a reckless blast. Spider Boy was born from a Craigslist whim in January 2022, a trailerable sailboat I snagged from a guy who’d thrown in the towel.
She was a 1980 West Wight Potter 15, hull number 1,000, a dinghy with a cabin that ignited the pocket cruiser craze in the ‘60s.
Her first photo screamed neglect—gelcoat fractured, lines drooping, a husk crying for redemption. But I saw her destiny: slicing through water, first in the Salton Sea 100 with Michael, then the Salish 100 come July. The name came from Elliott, my five-year-old grandson in Tacoma, during a FaceTime call as I panned over her battered frame. “She’s red like Spider-Man!” he yelped.
“Call her Spider Boy!” Spider Boy she became. By March, she sported a fresh coat of Spider Boy red, windows set, flotation foam queued up—worth every dime, lesson, and even a new scar.
Elliott’s name stuck because that red paint—wet and bold under my brush—evoked a comic-book hero, scrappy and unstoppable. She wasn’t my first build, but the old salts swear your second boat’s the keeper.
Her maiden voyage came sooner—on the Salton Sea 100, a gritty 100-mile race in the Puget Sound. Michael drove down from Tacoma, his skepticism melting when he saw her gleam. “Let’s win this thing,” he said, clapping my shoulder.
We launched Spider Boy under a cool Pacific Northwest day, her Tohatsu purring, sails snapping in the desert wind.
We tore through the pack, neck-and-neck with the leaders, the shore a blur of salt-crusted trailers and cheering stragglers.
This was supposed to be a five-day trip—until the tides, those fickle bastards, shifted against us. The Salton’s quirks—shallow, unpredictable—bogged us down in the final stretch. Days later, we crossed maybe a second, a hair behind. “Next time,” Michael grinned, wiping sweat. “Tides won’t save them twice.”
Days—or was it months?—before I now forgot home, I’d sunk an hour into YouTube, hypnotized by a sailor’s five-minute primer on pouring flotation foam into the bilges. “Mix, pour, let it swell,” he rasped, his voice like a rusty anchor.
I jotted notes, imagining Spider Boy buoyant and defiant, her guts sealed. The project had been a slog. Day one, she’d slumped in my garage like a shipwrecked corpse—hull pocked, trailer wheezing.
I sanded until my arms burned, fiberglass dust choking me like a sandstorm.
Yesterday, we—partnered in this madness—set the glass, her hull now a red beacon with one coat down, more to go, plus flooring and rigging.
Without a vision—Elliott’s spark, my stubborn dream—Spider Boy might’ve been a Craigslist casualty, another hull left to rot.
The Salton Sea 100 proved her mettle, even if the tides stole our crown. Michael and I debriefed over beers, plotting revenge. “She’s a fighter,” he said, and I saw Elliott in his grin.
The journey’s the prize—every cut, every buck, every late-night grind. My wife’s jabs keep me sane. “If you die, Mike’s not getting it,” she’d tease, picturing his junkyard trio—Gremlin, Matador, Potter. “I’d torch it for the insurance.” She wouldn’t—she’s as deep in this as I am, her hands red-streaked, her wit a lifeline.
Aubrey, his little sister, is the heart, though. “Did Spider Boy sail fast, Papa?” she asked. “Fast enough to scare the tides,” I said, her giggle fueling the fire. The Salish 100 looms; July’s the next test.
Should you start your own boat project? Not if you’re a perfectionist, short on space, or tool-poor. My garage became a war zone—sawhorses, drills, so much boat stuff. I’m no master; I’ve learned by botching—epoxy spills I’ll deny, a trailer that took forever.
But small-boat life is raw joy—the itching of fiberglass, the sting of acetone, the rush of red paint.
Spider Boy’s more than a boat; she’s a pact—with Elliott, Michael, Aubrey, and Lisa—to see it through. We nearly owned the Salton Sea 100; next time, we will.
Maybe next year, or one day, father-son or mother-daughter might decide to chase that Salton Sea 100 vision.
Trawlercat Chronicles 