This month and next we are moving from our 124 acre orchard/farm to our lake house for semi-retirement. We have a 40-yard dumpster half filled with things we unaccountably thought were important enough to keep. We had to purchase a double lot close to the lake house with a shop building on it just to hold our more valuable toys until we can sell them off when it's more profitable (namely; in the spring). In short; we're plenty busy lately. With every load to the storage building (where our new mothership sits waiting for spring) I take another look at just how I'm going to be using that boat. In particular, I've been thinking about the compromises using a mothership means and making an account of the positives and negatives. On the plus side: I. You gain a warm and dry base of operations and no longer have to spend time in a tent. In the Pacific Northwest (which is the Pacific Southwest for Canadians) having a warm and dry base of operations is not an inconsequential detail. It can spell the difference between a fun vacation to be remembered and a nasty ordeal that doesn't bear thinking about. Sitting in a comfortable chair in the stern cockpit with a nice cup of tea in a quiet anchorage after a long day's exploration by kayak will make you feel superior to those paddlers on the beach squatting on logs and trying to be frugal with their fresh water supply. Just having an enclosed bathroom and 70 gallons of potable water can make the entire idea worthwhile. 2. A mothership of modest size (under 28-feet) can still transport a fairly large party to a nice camping spot on a secluded island. Your mothership might not be able to sleep 8 people, but it can surely transport 8 people to a nice camping spot and get them and their gear ashore safely. This could save the price of a ferry ride for everyone plus their cars and any trailers they might be towing. And while you might still have to pay parking fees for those vehicles left behind at the launch ramp, they are likely to be much less than the fees charged at a ferry terminal. We once ferried two Boy Scout troops to (and a week later from) a camp on Cypress Island using a 21-foot Starcraft and a 17-foot bass boat. If you can't load enough kayaks for everyone, you could perhaps bring along enough kayaks for those who want to paddle to share. 3. Your wife may decide to come with you more often. My wife likes to camp and likes to paddle. But paddling to a camp is not what she signed up for 33 years ago. We were "boaters" then and she's still, at heart, a boater. She doesn't mind cooking on an alcohol stove or using a porta-potti in a cramped head compartment but she draws the line at an 8-mile paddle across the currents of the San Juan Islands. Giving her a small galley, her own bed, and a less stressful mode of transportation is going to make her want to come along more often. This will greatly enhance the dinner hour of any camping trip! 4. You can paddle areas formerly out of reach for a weekend trip; or a two-week vacation trip, for that matter. Depending upon the type of mothership you buy and how fast your normal paddling speed is, you can reach paddling areas 10 to 40 miles further than you could by just launching your kayak early Saturday morning. At trawler speeds (7 knots) you can be about 10 miles further than at paddling speed (4 kts) and if you have a planing hull you can get much further (if you want to spend the money for fuel). You also save time by loading the mothership prior to beginning the trip; especially if it's towed behind you on its own trailer. Time formerly spent unloading the kayaks and loading gear into the kayaks can be spent traveling to the first destination where you can grab a mooring buoy, grab a beverage and relax. 5. You can carry more gear or more comfortable gear. Some kayakers (and virtually all canoists) have enough room in their boats to bring along folding chairs, large camping mattresses and even cots on their trips. Not me. I'm lucky to be able to stuff slightly more than what I could carry backpacking into dry bags fore and aft. With a mothership I can carry folding chairs and choose to sit in them on the after deck next to the barbecue or carry them ashore and sit in them around the campfire. And I'm not restricted to just using the mothership either. If we want to we can tie that boat up in a nearby marina and set off for a few days of paddling with the luxury of being in new areas more frequently. Or we can stop at a Marine Park and make camp ashore using larger and more comfortable tents. And my wife is a killer cook when she has a few charcoal briquets and her dutch ovens. 6. You no longer need that pair of expensive "expedition" kayaks. If all you want to do is explore the shoreline or fish from a kayak, using a mothership means you can forego the pleasure of a $4,000 kevlar kayak and buy a used Loon 14-footer on craigslist. On the other hand, if you crave surfing the wild waves in remote Canadian tidal passes then you have just the vehicle to get you there; along with your specialized surf kayak that doesn't paddle straight for crap. Better yet, there are loads of suitable motherships on craigslist for less than $4,000. Hey! You've paid for that mothership already. On the minus side of the ledger: 1. You have a new set of skills to master and rules (rules!) to learn. Kayakers can ignore many of the "rules of the road" by simply paddling in places where they are out of the way of other boat traffic. But when *you* are that other boat traffic there is now an expectation (at least by some people) that a knowledge and understanding of the boating rules is normal. You have to learn to anchor for one thing (and no, sweetie, you don't just pick up the anchor and all that chain and line and simply drop it over the side) and you will have to learn to handle an entirely different type of vessel in wind and currents. Too bad you're not doing all this when you 20 and know everything. 2. No matter how thrifty your mothership is, it's still likely to be more expensive to operate than your kayak. There is no escaping it, like a car, a boat adds expense. We've all heard the description "hole in the water into which you throw money" and there is some truth to it. There are fixed costs like storage, insurance and maintenance that you don't normally encounter with a kayak. Most of us can store our kayaks in a garage or in the backyard (or living room), few insure them, and maintenance is minimal. With a mothership you will have insurance costs and maintenance costs. And depending upon where you live (and the rules of your community) you might have storage costs even if you have enough room on your property to store your mothership on its trailer. 3. You stand a chance of getting so far afield that a change in weather conditions can isolate you from family and job. On a nice day I can launch my 26-foot Carver at Neah Bay and 5 hours later be in B.C.'s Broken Group (after entering customs at Tofino, of course). Too bad there aren't more days like that because you can rest assured that a new weather front will arrive on whatever day you've picked to return to Neah Bay. Similarly, someone in Long Beach, California can be at Catalina Island in an hour of motoring when the weather is fine and settled. Returning is more problematic. And if you absolutely, positively *have* to be in your office Monday morning at 8am you could be setting yourself up for an escalation of small errors culminating in a disaster. 4. You may end up doing more "boating" and less "paddling". You have arrived at Sucia Island and it's a beautiful June afternoon. The dinghy is towed astern and the kayaks (which do not tow well) are tied down securely. Which one are you going to choose to get the dog ashore so she can do her business? And if the dinghy has an outboard and the kids are along too then you may end up spending a "boating holiday" instead of a paddling holiday. This can be good or bad, depending upon your approach to being on the water. 5. You won't be quite so "macho" driving that mothership around as you were in a drysuit in that high-performance sea kayak. Choosing to use a mothership approach to kayaking doesn't necessarily mean you have to give up your previous kayaking life. But, let's face it, if you are contemplating a mothership there is a reason. Whether it's to get the family more involved or because your shoulder no longer lets you put in those 8-hour paddling days moving your on-the-water activities up (or down, depending upon how you look at it) is going to involve some compromises. 6. Your inexpensive "suitable mothership" might surprise you with details that make you realize exactly why the former owner was so eager to sell it to you cheap. This is the biggest potential headache you face when you buy a mothership. The former owner is selling it, cheap, for a reason. If the reason is that he knows it needs a new transom then you are in for an expensive education. If he is selling it because his wife just found out that he had a teen-aged-girlfriend and now both of them want everything he owns, you could be getting a swell deal. It's not a pig-in-a-poke but it can be close for inexperienced - and even experienced - boaters. If you aren't pretty sure you know the danger signs of a problem on an older boat it pays to cultivate the friendship of someone who does. Or pay for a "survey". A surveyor is a person who will look over the boat carefully and write out a detailed explanation of the good and bad things he's found. With luck he'll be experienced and thorough. You can console yourself with the thought that he's bound to be more experienced than you are. As for me, the memory of a cup of coffee in the salon of a 41-foot chartered trawler at Stuart Island after a few hours of pounding along the open waters of the San Juans is enough to encourage me to move to mothership kayaking. That and watching the sailboaters pull in, anchor, and then pull out all their cushions to dry them out enough so they might be able to get some sleep that night. Like I was thinking that afternoon, I've suffered enough. Craig Jungers Moses Lake, WA *************************************************************************** PaddleWise Paddling Mailing List - Any opinions or suggestions expressed here are solely those of the writer(s). You must assume the entire responsibility for reliance upon them. All postings copyright the author. Submissions: PaddleWise_at_PaddleWise.net Subscriptions: PaddleWise-request_at_PaddleWise.net Website: http://www.paddlewise.net/ ***************************************************************************
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