Mona Risa stayed in storage for several months. Upheavals in my personal life got me to pondering what I wanted to do with my boating life. I knew that I would be working full-time for the foreseeable future. Which wouldn’t leave much time for a boat that required a lot of assembly/disassembly time. Even if I avoided assembly time by renting a marina slip, it seemed like a waste to keep a fast boat on a small lake that could only be sailed a few months out of the year.

And, frankly, I think I had known for a while that this wasn’t the boat for me right now or for the next few years. Compulsion had driven me to finish rebuilding the boat, but an unease about its suitability had been bothering me for a while. I’m still a fan of the Wharram design and philosophy, but not sure if these designs work for occasional sailing. I imagined a life of sailing for weeks and months at a time when I chose this design, but that was not reality for me right now.

Over the winter, I contacted someone on a Wharram Facebook group who was looking for a Tiki 26. At the time, I wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to sell, but I wanted to consider it. Nick and I chatted some and he checked out the building blog. Satisfied with my work and unable to find a decent 26, Nick and I made a deal and he picked the boat up in early May. He trailered it back to South Carolina.

Handing off to Nick

I said goodbye to Mona Risa with mixed emotions. It had been an emotional four plus years - from disappointment and near-despair to the highs of doing good work towards a dream life. But, selling to a fellow dreamer was some balm to my soul. And I felt like I had started a new relationship as well. Nick invited me to join him on the boat sometime - hopefully in the Caribbean.

Bon voyage, Mona Risa.