“Is yours a boat, a yacht, or a ship?” came the question.

Not a ship, no. PineAweigh is not a ship. A ship is larger than a boat, less recreational than a yacht, and usually a working vessel. Ships require a crew. Ships, I was once told, are water vessels too heavy to load onto ships.

PineAweigh? She’s a boat, sure, but, yeah, she’s a yacht. Technically, until its hull reaches 39 feet, a recreational water vessel is a boat; but at 39 feet, some sort of magic occurs, and a yacht is born. Our knowledgable sea captain son says it’s that, “Above 39' the price for parts and labor doubles.” He must be right. Westlawn Institute of Marine Technology says that yacht “connotes elegance and expense.” I’m wiping tears of hilarity from my cheeks.

Our “PineAweigh” is 44 feet tip to tip, and when shoved by a broadside wind her 14 foot width behaves like a 44 foot wide sail (subject as she is to being pushed about). She is, by definition, a proper yacht. She and I both laugh at this. That is, when her 39-year-old horn works, she honks a ha-ha-ha. We both light up at the idea that she is a yacht. That is, when her seldom-functioning-spotlight, or her unreliable direct current salon lights work, she lights up.

PineAweigh as a yacht reminds me of a used Volkswagen Jetta we Pines bought back in the mid-1980s for our daughter’s college conveyance. When she graduated, she (now very smart) sold the car back to us.

After my husband drove the compact sedan for another ten years or so, drove it with the driver’s window refusing to roll, or the front passenger door refusing to open at all, drove it with rags stuffed in various locations to stem the onslaught of rain, with unreliable brakes, and while insisting the car was fine, he resigned, finally, to its sale only because no one would ride in it with him. Elegance was no longer the Jetta’s style. Elegance is no longer PineAweigh’s style. Expense? Oh yeah, she’s into expense. She nickel, dimes, and dollars like the best of em.

Before the question of boats, yachts, and ships was asked, I never thought much of vessel distinctions. I hadn’t run into the marine term “hogging-and sagging,” a condition of great concern when it comes to vessel insurance.

I have seen some vessels hog a waterway, and more than a few sagging at anchor or dock, victims of abandonment, if you know what I mean. But the technical term, “hogging-and-sagging,” that my sons might understand, being men of the seas, has everything to do with ships, not small crafts. It has to do with stress and bend on a keel, with longitudinal strength calculations, and consequently, everything to do with loading cargo. According to Lloyds, for insuring purposes, vessels under 60 meters, 197 feet, are “small craft.” Any vessel over that length (ships?) can be subject to “hogging-and-sagging,” to critical damage. You know, a major “expense” possibility. It is likely that an fine example of this condition, a car-carrying cargo ship, recently rolled keel-up in St. Simon Sound off Georgia’s coast. 

But, back to yacht ownership, to PineAweigh 

 The first known use of the word yacht was in 1557; Dutch jaght, from Middle Low German jacht, short for jachtschip, literally, hunting ship. Merriam Webster Dictionary

Yacht is a word never used by us to describe PineAweigh unless we are laughing. We weren’t laughing a few days ago when an elegant shore-power system boldly accused PineAweigh of leaking a stray volt and refused to serve her. That minuscule amount of wandering voltage is nothing new—but sophisticated power systems are. They no longer tolerate such mischief. It’s like a salsa spot on a white silk blouse at a black tie event. It didn’t matter that we could yell, “But it’s a Yacht!” 

We thought expense, not elegance, when recently her flybridge floor allowed rain to seep around some radar arch screws, causing water to puddle on the salon counter below. 

And, really, does a yacht’s battery warning light insistently blink  when her batteries are fine? Does a yacht send a small, insistent buzz to the helm; maybe having something to do with the stray volt playing hide-an-seek, but she won’t tell us where or why? Or, not to be insensitive but, please, would you expect a yacht’s Head to fart back toilet water one had rightly pumped away? Like the Jetta, PineAweigh has a few rags stuffed at strategic spots to stem rain, and even a couple of windows that won’t open, and of course you don’t find brakes on a boat. But, over 39 feet, she is. A Yacht she is! And love her, we do. 

Aboard her we are, loving her spacious cockpit, salon, and flybridge; loving her 360° expanse of windows, her custom-made swiveling transom stairway, grateful for her expanded galley, two heads, one shower, and her accompanying old, 11 foot Boston Whaler.

This sweet, white Yacht, PineAweigh, beamy and barely able to challenge a cross-wind, but nose forward, cuts smartly through salt and fresh bodies of water; rocks us gently through our sleep, stores our provisions, provides shelter, warmth (usually), and adventure. She was built for this, this elegant vessel of 44 feet. 

~. ~.