Sometimes you add value to the boat, other times the boat adds value to you.
Own a sailboat? Pete Van Hamersveld didn’t even know how to sail. Plus, who’d be crazy enough to pay slip fees? The year was 1988. Pete was 29, newly married, and looking for a hobby to replace hang gliding. Something safer, he thought. Something he could do with others. One day while walking the marina in Long Beach, California, a sailor introduced himself, took Pete out on the water, and pointed out a boat named Zest, a Cal 24. “Now there’s a sailboat that’s small, trailerable, and seaworthy,” he said.
Jensen Marine had built just 187 Cal 24s down the beach in Costa Mesa. A Bill Lapworth design, the boats were well loved by their owners, and therefore relatively rare on the used market. Pete filed it away in his mind until the day he and his wife spotted a used sailboat in a dealer’s lot in nearby Marina Del Rey. The boat, then named Foolish Lee, was in bad shape with a delaminated cabintop and the centerboard rusted in the trunk. It hadn’t been registered in 18 years, but it was a 1963 Cal 24.
Pete couldn’t resist. He snapped it up for a cool $500. But, there was a catch: The boat needed work, and he was no shipwright.
“Growing up, my family wouldn’t let me hold a hammer, let alone help with home projects. I couldn’t hammer straight and still can’t,” he admits. “Back then, I didn’t have confidence that I could ever be handy.” Despite himself, Pete spent the next couple of months working on the boat. He repaired the rudder and centerboard. He buffed the gelcoat so well the seller thought he’d repainted it. Soon, he also found a junky trailer and restored it.
“I’ll bet a hundred pounds of rust flaked off,” he says. “And, I realized: Hey, if I ask the right questions, maybe I can figure this boat stuff out.”
Pete launched Halobates in 1989. In time, he learned how to sail and took on more projects beyond his skillset. He added mahogany veneer to the bulkheads and a small pressure-water sink. He also updated the electrical panel. At one point, he unstepped the mast to address corrosion and left it off an entire year.
“My wife, Julie, liked the boat better as a motorboat,” he says. “So, we spent 12 months floating the Long Beach canals like a Duffy.”
Fun, for sure, but Pete’s Cal 24 was also a legit pocket cruiser capable of bigger adventures. When their son was 3 months old, Pete and Julie circumnavigated Catalina Island on Halobates while their kiddo rocked happily on the cabin sole. After long workdays, they enjoyed moonlit sails around Long Beach. Pete also singlehanded.
“On weekend passages, I’d lay in the V-berth and stick a mirror through the hatch to watch for ships. On Catalina Island, I sailed, hiked, kayaked, and learned to scuba. The boat opened up so many new experiences.”
The years wore on, and the varnish wore out. By 2022, with paint wearing, the old wood-trimmed windows leaking, and the gelcoat looking like crap, Pete faced a decision. “It was ugly. I mean it, my wife was embarrassed to be seen with me,” he says. “Eventually, I realized I either had to restore it or get a new boat.”
Around that time, a local sailor was selling a near-identical Cal 24 with new rigging, good paint, and upgrades galore. Pete saw the opportunity but didn’t bite.
“Thing is, my slip was grandfathered in with my boat so it had to be kept.” Translation: he’d have to restore Halobates. And, boy, would it be a job.
First, he entered into a long-term relationship with his Dremel, routing cracks, boring holes, shooting epoxy, and re-drilling. “Awful. I spent eight months with that tool,” he laments. “People thought I was nuts.” Chief among them his wife, Julie. “You can’t possibly be serious,” he recalls her saying. “This thing is a wreck. Get another boat!”
Instead, Pete rolled up his sleeves. With the boat in its slip, common tools, and a can-do spirit, he refit his Cal. He patterned windows and stainless steel frames and made CAD drawings with his son. At a buddy’s shop, he polished the stainless steel like a mirror.
“Then we accidentally installed some windows backward,” Pete says, laughing. “So, try again!”
Perhaps the nuttiest job was replacing Halobate’s nearly 60-year-old toerail. In the end, Pete constructed a new rail using fine-grain pine sandwiched by African mahogany, each layer set in epoxy and secured with 75 clamps.
And what about paint? The boat still had original gelcoat, so Pete carefully applied primer and one-part Brightside using a 2-inch watercolor brush from an art supply store. But, it was sunny; the plan called for a little shade, so Pete’s buddy pulled out an old umbrella. “He opened that thing and crap fell out and got stuck on what was supposed to be my final coat,” he says. “Yeah, it was awful. But my dockmate encouraged me to sand it smooth and not to worry.” Pete listened, learned, and finally it was looking beautiful. “Everyone at the dock was surprised that it was a hand-painted job. It almost looked sprayed-on,” he says.
Life lessons: A used, well-cleaned watercolor brush is better than a new one. Your wife’s new umbrella will always be better than your buddy’s old beater. You’ll make mistakes, but keep going. “Building new skills was intimidating, but I stepped into the water, got my feet wet, experimented, and learned.”
Over the years, Pete’s given a lot of love to his Cal 24, and the little boat’s given right back in the form of new experiences, adventures, added challenges, and unexpected skills. “Shoot! Thirty-six years? I’ve spent more than half of my life with this boat,” Pete says when reflecting on the journey. “I look back now and realize I didn’t just add something to the boat, I added something to myself. I’m not the same anymore. Before, people advised me; now I’m the guy giving advice. The boat’s added value to me as a person.”
You can’t ask for much more than that, right?
August/September 2024
