The Little Pink Opti and her Sea Monster Friends
When Hurricane Sandy hit our family home in Mantoloking, NJ, in 2012, the foundation was swept out from under her by the ocean. The porches were all detached, the kitchen wall was missing, and the house settled into a permanent grin that said, “I may have a two-degree tilt, but I’m still here.” All that was left of the front porch was its roof compressed onto the ground. Upon getting to the scene, we didn’t know if any of our belongings or furniture were still intact or what had been claimed by the raging water.
We also didn’t know if my pink Opti sailing dinghy was underneath it or not, the boat my parents purchased new in roughly 1993. I called her Sunburn because of her bright magenta coloring. Sunburn and I had so many adventures, including two transformative memories: when I knew I wanted to sail forever and when I knew I wanted to race forever.
Back before I knew how to steer…
My instructor, fed up with so many other nine-year-olds meandering around in circles, said, “Hold the tiller right here and the mainsheet right there, and don’t change a thing,” and shoved me away from her boat. I went zooming across the bay toward Swan Point. It was the first time I’d gone in a straight line for more than a few seconds. I had always been surrounded by the cacophony of the other boats, but no longer. I was on an adventure all by myself.
Everything got so much quieter as that noise faded away. I could hear the birds, feel the wind build, drop, and shift. I loved it. I went all the way across the bay and didn’t know how to stop, so I ran aground into the marsh. Everything got even quieter: just the water lapping up against my boat and the wind in the tall grasses that were taller than me. I saw a shadow. My heart leaped. I thought for sure it was a sea monster! It was my sail’s shadow.
I was in control of my own destiny and now had to figure out how to get turned around and back toward the rest of the group. I thought it through and figured I should lift up my stuck centerboard. I got out of the boat with my bare feet in the sandy mud, spun the boat around, and climbed back in.
After getting in, I was sailing sideways, so I put the centerboard back in and tried some things with the sails and tiller until I was aiming back toward the east side of the bay. I got back to the other side where the rest of my class was, but I was never the same.
Before I knew how to race…
I knew I wanted to race forever in 1995 when I raced my first Junior Olympics with 100 or so other Optis. It was a follow-the-leader type scene, but six other sailors and I decided to go left up the course instead of right. When we got to the top mark, we were so far ahead; looking back at so many boats was invigorating. I knew I had guessed and only went that way to be different, but I decided right then and there that I wanted to learn how to do that on purpose to feel that rush again and again. When I got into Laser sailing, chartering the Opti was one of my first sources of income, besides mowing lawns and babysitting.
Back to 2012: We stood there, looking at our house sinking into the land around it and wondering what had happened to the hot magenta boat and if it had been squished or if it had floated away somewhere. We got into the house and recovered almost everything. When the house was eventually demolished, we asked the demo company to report back to us if Sunburn was under the rubble or not. They reported the pink Opti was not under that collapsed roof.
We figured that during the storm, when the winds picked up and the Atlantic Ocean met Barnegat Bay, Sunburn had said to herself, “I can swim!” Swim she did. Along with parts of houses, refrigerators, and anything else that could float, the sea monsters from my childhood memories guided her to the north, under the Mantoloking Bridge and seemingly gone forever…
Almost a year went by…
My mom got a phone call that a fisherman on a kayak, Bill Buchanan, had found a tiny pink sailboat with a Mantoloking Yacht Club (MYC) lot sticker and the last name of a little girl who had chartered her before the storm. The dinghy sat in a marsh practically in the Metedeconk River to the northwest of Manto in F Cove. A photo on his cell phone helped community members to trace it back to the Loves.
The fisherman and my mom, Peggy Love, walked into the woody marsh, almost a half mile past two lagoons on overgrown paths until they got to her. Picking her up and turning her sideways, they wiggled her out between some trees and got her to the water. Bill towed her on his kayak around to a boat ramp where his truck was waiting to bring her back to MYC.
To everyone’s surprise, she was just fine. Optis are actual tanks. A scrub down and a used sail from Bacon Sails, used blades and a dolly from the Shrewsbury Yacht Club, and Opti #3406 was ready to sail again. And sail she did. Many more beginners fell in love with sailing over those first few years. A few years later, Bill, the fisherman, and his wife, would have a daughter. When she was of age, 10 years after the storm, she wanted to learn how to sail. Sunburn, aka Ashley’s Boat, returned to the summer program with Cora Buchanan at the helm.
She learned to sail on 3406 and was even awarded the sportsmanship award at the Little Bay Day Regatta. She will now graduate to a bigger boat, so the next sailor who’ll dance on Barnegat Bay with Sunburn is to be determined. Sure, there are newer, less-used Optis out there for people to buy or charter, but they’re also less-loved. 3406 is covered in stickers, permanent-markered names, makeshift straps, replacement parts, and love taps from many young sailors. The adventures this boat has seen, characters it has met, challenges it has sailed through are unmatched.
The Love family isn’t able to beach-bike-cruise down to MYC anymore but are absolutely touched to still have a tie to the sailing program. Thanks to the Buchanans finding the Little Pink Opti, multitudes of youngsters will sail and fall in love with this sport that has given our family so much.
~By Ashley Love
Find more sailing stories.
