1994

Tonya and I were sailing a 30-foot C&C around Puget Sound when it happened. We'd spent a weekend aboard a classic wood boat called RipTide, watching Opening Day of Boating from her deck, and Tonya turned to me and said, "I could live on a boat." That was it — the rest was history.

Not long after, we found Vagabundo tucked into a yacht brokerage, tired and neglected, her canvas top gone, clearly overdue for someone to care for her again. Where others might have seen a project too far gone, we saw what Cass must have seen fifty eight years earlier. My father just shook his head when I told him.

Fifty eight years after Cass built her to be exactly what he wanted, she was waiting for two more people who saw her the same way.