162 October 2014 | cruisingworld.com

HER

B M

�CO

RMIC

K

(The opposite is also true, but that’s a di�erent story.) This is how, last August, I wound up floating about Penobscot Bay on a pretty ol’ gal called Pu�n.

For my birthday, Annie had promised me four days of sail-ing something sweet and fun, then somehow persuaded her boss, Cabot Lyman, to lend us his personal boat, the 48-foot Sparkman & Stephens-designed beauty Pu�n, for a short coastal cruise.

Pu�n? I’d never been aboard her, but the name seemed familiar. Then the light bulb clicked on, and I connected the dots.

My first glimpse of Pu�n was in a full-page photo in Lin and Larry Pardey’s 1979 book, Sera�yn’s European Adven-ture, which I came across while researching my own recently published biography of the couple, As Long As It’s Fun. Commissioned by New Yorkers Ed and Betty Greef as a dual-purpose CCA ocean racer and long-range cruiser,

OFF WATCH Herb McCormick

The S&S-designed Pu�n, shown here o� Maine’s Hurri-cane Island, reminded me of an eccentric aunt. Though some-what odd at first, once you got to know her, she was irresistible.

One of the great perquisites of having a girlfriend who’s a yacht broker — mine, Annie Lannigan, works for Lyman-Morse Boatbuild-ing of Thomaston, Maine — is that you sometimes find yourself on incredibly cool and interesting boats.

Lovin’ Pu�n

she’d been built in Denmark in 1969 at Aage Walsted’s famous boatyard. Five years later, the Pardeys made her acquain-tance in Danish waters when she returned home for a refit, and were suitably impressed. “Pu�n was beautifully con-structed of teak, mahogany, locust and oak, bronze fas-tened,” they wrote.

Even in the early 1970s, she was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, with classic lines above the waterline but a breakthrough fin keel below, perhaps the precursor to the Swan 44 and the Seguin 44, other bench-mark S&S designs. Originally a yawl, she has since been con-verted to a sloop with a taller, carbon mast and rod rigging. Then and now, Pu�n was and remains a drop-dead gorgeous stunner.

All that said, on my first night aboard her, all I could think was: This boat is sort of, well, weird.

Part of that sentiment was attributable to my own clumsiness. Topsides, all 10 of

my toes had been introduced to the abundance of pad eyes, cleats and other assorted hardware that dot Pu�n’s deck, and the black welt under my thumbnail, which I’d slammed while closing a heavy overhead hatch, was also troubling.

But what really ba�ed me was the layout down below. Pu�n’s two heads were opened or closed through an elaborate puzzle of swinging doors that would’ve confused Houdini. There were two companionways; the exact purpose of the forward one, which exited amidships, was a riddle without clues. Every time Annie and I squeezed past one another in the tight corridors running fore and aft it seemed like a bad audition for Dancing with the Stars.

After a couple of days of actually living aboard Pu�n, however, all the mysteries were revealed.

The accommodations plan, in fact, borders on genius. The boat “sleeps” eight in

sumptuous style, particularly the deep, cozy pilot berths in the main saloon. The tidy galley and navigation sta-tion, opposing each other in the center of the vessel, are damn near faultless. Those close walkways are ideal for moving about in safety in a seaway. And when a passing thunderstorm swept by while we were moored in the Fox Island Thorofare, I took it all in, dry and happy, under the closed dodger of that forward companionway, while keeping Annie company as she whipped up dinner down below. Perfect.

Then there was the sailing.You sort of know that Pu�n,

a veteran of the classic ocean races like Newport-Bermuda, Fastnet, Marblehead-Halifax and many others, will haul the mail in heavy air, but the mo-ment I fell hard for her was in a zephyr crossing the bay from Vinalhaven to Camden. In about 9 knots of breeze, close-hauled under blue skies, Pu�n skimmed atop the flat water at over 6 knots like she was glid-ing on air. “It reminds me of an old movie,” Annie said with wonder. “It’s like we’re sitting still and just the background is moving.”

The next day, reluctantly, we returned the boat to Cabot. A full moon would soon rise, and he was sailing the boat south a few miles to a quiet island where he could take it in. I got the feeling he wouldn’t even need the dinghy, that there were no plans to go ashore.

“I just love being aboard her,” he said.

I knew precisely what he meant.

Herb McCormick is CW’s senior editor.

&5:����B2):B2II�:DWFK�LQGG������ ����������������30