Trucked Up: A Classic Pearson 365’s Fateful Ride North

Strapped down and ready to roll, my beloved Pearson 365 looked poised for a fresh chapter. None of us suspected the end was near. Courtesy Herb McCormick

Moose McClintock—with whom I attended Sunday school a millennium ago before he became an America’s Cup sailor and local racing legend in my home waters of Rhode Island’s Narragansett Bay—asked me a pointed question: “Did you actually see this boat before you bought it?”

I glanced at my forlorn old Pearson 365, August West, still all nicked up after this past fall’s Hurricane Milton, which creamed the marina in Florida where I’d lived aboard the previous three winters. McClintock’s inquiry was completely understandable. The boat was many things, but pretty wasn’t one of them.

We were standing alongside it at Safe Harbor New England Boatworks in Portsmouth, Rhode Island, where Moose works, in early May. August West’s bow pulpit, anchor platform, headsail furler and forward stanchions had been swept away. The gelcoat in the bow appeared as if someone had whacked it repeatedly with a sledgehammer. The teak in the amidships rub rail and topside cap rail was splintered aplenty. 

This was nothing new to me, and I’d cleaned it up as a ­temporary measure the best I could. But now, seeing the damage from ­someone else’s perspective? Yeah, it looked pretty dismal.   

Still, I’d known all that before I’d hired a trucker to haul the boat north from my slip in Longboat Key, from which I’d recently been ejected so that the docks could be repaired. With limited options—post-Milton dock space is extremely hard to come by in greater Sarasota Bay, and August West was in no shape to sell—I’d decided to bite the bullet (gulp, $10,000, not counting getting the boat hauled and launched), bring it home and slowly resurrect it. Down below, the accommodations were still comfy. And there was sentimental value too. The previous owners were friends. It felt like their legacy was in my hands. 

This is when matters quickly, irreversibly, began to go sideways. 

Let me preface all this by stating emphatically that I’m not here to assign blame to anyone other than myself. For example, on the morning of departure, the friendly and helpful trucker took one look at the mast prep and shook his head. He thought that the shrink-wrap surrounding the shrouds was inadequate. He was also in a hurry. I did my best to address the situation quickly, but long story short, somewhere one of the spreaders went missing. Had it actually been wrapped with the mast and fallen off en route? I’d accounted for only one of them. Did it ever make it out of the boatyard? Its answer was an emphatic yes. Either way, it meant that the mast couldn’t be immediately stepped once it arrived in Portsmouth. Strike one. 

Next, I’m no electrician, but I’d bought new batteries, and they were well-charged when I dropped off the boat at the yard in Florida. Once in Rhode Island, the house batteries were discharged and then flatlined completely. What? How? A solar panel and onboard battery charger couldn’t address the situation. The electrician at New England Boatworks couldn’t sort it out quickly. And the boys at the yard made it pretty clear that they were a bit too busy to deal with an issue-plagued vessel from 1977. I couldn’t leave it there, sail it or motor away. Strike two.

Finally, and most importantly, I was committed to delivering a boat from Newport to Ireland. The clock was ticking. I’d run out of time, money and patience. Strike three. 

I was on the verge of turning August West over to a salvage yard to extract the engine, windlass, lead, and other bits and pieces when I got a call from one of the chaps at New England Boatworks. He’d been looking for a fixer-upper for this family, had a mooring in nearby Bristol, Rhode Island, where he could get the thing towed, had been stashing some teak that could address the damaged brightwork, and would be more than happy to get the boat back up to snuff. 

Luckily, I still had my old Pearson ensign to hang off my mooring. All things considered, this seemed like the happiest of quick, immediate endings. August West would live to sail another day. 

And that, my friends, is the story of how my old classic-plastic cruiser got, well, all trucked up. 

Herb McCormick is a CW editor-at-large.

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