This boat could be yours “For Free”- Story by Martin Van der Wal

By Martin Van der Wal

Lost loves and broken dreams lie low in backwaters all over the world. Most have little to recommend them. Sure they meant something to someone once, but now their days are over. Entropy will drag them back into the cosmic soup. No-one will weep their passing as they either rot into an organic sludge or decompose into nano-plastics . Another nuisance littering the waterway gone ! Perhaps a photo lingers in a family album, maybe a name mumbled on dying lips. Occasionally; as the last rites are read over one of these floating vagabonds their past resurfaces. Sometimes this past enshrouds the hobo in a golden aura. A mythical past of heroic journeys, survival against the odds, human cargo saved from the abyss, home-comings of Homeric proportions: Resurrections! PAGAN is yours for nothing — a giveaway. My feeling is she has a pretty sound foundation. Huon pine strip planked, Resorcinol glued, sheathed inside and out with epoxy heavy chopped strand fibreglass. Put her in a shed — fix her up — know her inside and out — keep it simple — go adventuring — she will look after you in style. Contact the Sydney Amateur Sailing Club Particulars - LENGTH 8.4 —LWL 7.6—BEAM 3.1— DRAFT 1.6

I give you PAGAN. In her own words. Here are some excerpts from a storied history.

“In the troughs, we seemed to be in a valley entirely surrounded by sheer walls that towered up higher than the mast. I found it impossible to sleep with the roar of the wind which I put at 60 mph, and the crash of the waves. My barometer reached an all-time low-985 millibars. The radio reported an intense depression off the New South Wales coast with winds of Force 9. Anything stronger would have been cyclonic. There was nothing I could do but run on- and pray. Once, at the height of the storm, the furled jib looked like being washed off the bowsprit and I had to go out to put another lashing around it. It was the most hazardous job of the whole trip. One slip would have been the end.
From my precarious perch, little Pagan looked like a fly on a hillside as the great seas rose up astern in a mass of purple and white. Once I was buried up to my waist as the bowsprit crashed into a wave, but the ocean was much warmer than the air so it was no discomfort. Anyway, I had no clothes on for I wanted to keep them dry. A sea had washed beneath the hatch cover and swept off my oilskins and thereafter I went naked on deck. It was far quicker and easier and safer too, for I felt less encumbered and offered little wind resistance.
That gale took me 150 miles out to sea. It was frustrating to have been so near the coast and then so far away. I was beginning to feel like the Flying Sydney was proving Dutchman-condemned to wander the seas forever . . .
as elusive as Lord Howe Island!
seas. Pagan made 75 miles in the 12 hours, although she was under triple-reeted main and staysail only. I doubt if she had ever sailed so fast before. At times we seemed to be actually surfing on the breaking crests.
Finally Pagan made port. I cast anchor in Port Stephens at 5 pm on July 16, to end a voyage of 5 weeks alone at sea. I had made good in all 1718 nautical miles, but probably sailed closer to 2000. As the sails came down, I looked around at the damage on deck and aloft, then at that staunch and shapely little hull that had carried me so far, and I breathed a silent prayer of thanksgiving for the wonderful seaworthiness which stood by me right through the winter fury of the turbulent Tasman.”