October 12, 2026
Atlanta
Dear Bartow,
There is something elegant, old school and natural about wooden boats. Any antique Chris Craft or Lyman going by Comfort will always get an earnest wave.
I bought my first wooden boat in 2012. It was an 18 foot Chris Craft, beautifully restored with red cushions and a hull painted black. Her name was Starting Over and everything about her was perfect. I was hooked the first moment I started her up.
Clayton, the town upriver, is home to the Antique Boat Museum, a collection of the best wooden boats I’ve seen. They have a satellite building with a few hundred more boats that can’t be displayed.
Between Comfort and Clayton is the Antique Boat America- a warehouse full of classic wooden boats for sale. I’ve spent hours of my life there….and a lot of money. Wooden boats for the most part aren’t super expensive. They fell out of favor for the sleeker more reliable plastic boats that wood boat owners turn up their nose at. I’m one of those guys.
I want to make this clear, this next statement is NOT a brag. I have six wooden boats. Four of them however, are out of the water being repaired because of wood rot. Two had catastrophic board failures, one of which almost sank with 12 people aboard. One has soft boards here and there and is on a trailer. And the fourth, a 1941 Hunter, is undergoing a renovation by Rich Jury, who restored Buzz. Thankfully, the “Buzz” is doing just fine. The Hunter however, has a double hull and as we are peeling back the layers, we’re finding more and more damage. The sixth boat, a small Lyman utility is leaking so badly we have to keep the battery charged constantly because the bilge is running every fifteen minutes.
I know, first world problems. The fact is, fresh water is great for boat engines, but it hasn’t been kind to my boats.
After the large Chris Craft almost sank, I said enough and went to visit Graham Chauvoustie, a local boat broker. He had seen the Chris Craft pulled into his place- with four planks destroyed in the bow…not from hitting anything, merely from rot. I was frustrated and said, “you got any boats that won’t sink?” He showed me a beautiful new boat…with an impossible price tag. I laughed and thanked him and drove away.
Now the thing about Graham: he’s impossibly handsome and probably the best salesman I’ve ever encountered. No hard sells. Just a text, “Hey, I’m going to take the boat out that you liked, if you’d like to go for a ride.” He pulled up when I was sitting on the dock with some of my friends. We hopped in.
Two weeks later, I had a new boat.
And I named her “Starting Over Again.”
So what do I do about the other boats? Living on an island usually means you have to have three boats. There’s always a chance one won’t start when you need it, so you need a backup and a backup for your backup.
No one needs 7 boats.
Can’t wait to see you in a few weeks.
Stephen