Photos: Hauling our Kutter out of the water and preparing her for transport to our home in Gig Harbor.

People who love boats know you can’t have too many. A big boat needs a small boat. A small boat is never big enough. It’s a constant imbalance, like eating milk and cookies, and it fuels the yachting industry. When we were building our cruising boat, Woodwind, in our backyard, it was surrounded by assorted craft, each with a different purpose and importance. At least that’s what Bruce, an avid collector of boats, told me.

This past summer season we returned to one boat at our home in the Pacific Northwest. Just one. It’s a small speedster that’s great for calm days, but we felt the loss of not having a sailing vessel the second day the wind blew. We talked about different day-sailor options, fantasized about finding the perfect fixer-upper and vowed to keep our eyes and ears open for one. That boat now sits just 20 feet from our house … a 50-year-old, 23-ft. fir-planked beauty. A Norwegian Kutter, it came to us via the I-5 Freeway and an unusual set of circumstances that started with a visit to the home of sailing buddies, Jan and Tom Tallman.

In their workshop in Longbranch, Washington, sat another Kutter recently acquired from the Center for Wooden Boats on Seattle’s Lake Union. Their boat and several of its “sisters” had been donated to the non-profit organization by former owners and members of a short-lived yacht club on Lake Washington. The members had imported the boats during the early 1980s, and nearly a dozen of them crossed several oceans on the deck of a ship to become Bellevue’s Cozy Cove racing fleet. The Kutters were raced hard and well until time and fresh water took their toll.

Last month, three of the boats sat leaking at the Center for Wooden Boats dock, another two not far away in a boatyard. A few inquiry calls and a Sunday visit to the Center sealed the deal for us. One of the boats would become ours in a trade for a painting Bruce made of the wooden boat Mecca years ago. A down-on-its-luck boat swapped for an auction painting left both parties thinking they had the best end of the deal. Time will tell, right?

As we were settling paperwork and working out the logistics of moving the boat, we discovered the man behind the idea of the Kutter fleet was Fred Sundt, lifetime mariner and entrepreneur. Fred’s dream of starting his very own yacht club was followed by the re-building of a traditional, 60-ft. galleon in Florida. In the mid-90s he sailed that boat, Ayacanora, to the Caribbean, where we met him on the island of Carriacou. Rowing past his gilded galleon one day, I noticed his Gig Harbor Boatworks dinghy. We discovered our Washington State ties and I interviewed him for an article that ran in 48 North magazine.

As I look outside our window at the Kutter, now propped up in our yard, I realize Fred’s dream has segued into ours. The boat will “dry” over the winter and become next summer’s project. In its current condition, some might say it’s a “face only a mother could love.” And Bruce, who will bring it back to life, certainly does.

Jan