Now that the cruise of the Mascot is ended, you may have some curiosity about what is described in children’s story books as “... and they all lived happily ever after.”
FIRST, THE MASCOT ...
The Mascot finally left the Plummer family, and slowly moved north. They kept track of her until she got north of Rockport, and there they lost her. As matters turn out, she hadn’t gone much farther, just barely by New Hampshire’s 15 mile coastline to Kittery, Maine where she became a well known resident of the Piscataqua River.
The author of the following account, David C. McIntosh, settled down to the business of building boats at Dover Point, New Hampshire, on the upper reaches of the Piscataqua in 1932. He trained for his profession by studying literature, first at Dartmouth, and then at Harvard. Despite these advantages he has been building very good boats ever since. He still cherishes his last remaining relic of the Mascot, a feather duster.
Wyn Mayo and his old boat were a living legend in Kittery before we knew either of them. Tales came up the river with the fishermen: of cruises to the east’ard ending in shipwreck; of the two of them riding out the ’38 hurricane up in the Creek, with two anchors out ahead, the engine wide open, and the bridge so close astern that Wyn’s friends, gathered there to drag him up out of the wreckage, were passing him cups of hot coffee, hand to hand, ’long about the end of it. Opinion was that when Wyn and the Mascot did something, it was done with spirit. When they had a fire going under the cockpit, it was no piddling little smudge. When they came in through the rip off Whaleback with the wind strong southeast they came (to hear Wyn tell it) with the power of a tiger bounding through tall grass. And when the Mascot sprang a leak, another leak, a new leak, it was a real leak. That’s why Wyn came to the boat shop in the autumn of ’45.
Those who knew and loved him (as we all did) will agree with me that Wyn had a feeling for the dramatic. When he asked the simple question, “Can you save her for me?” there were tears in his eyes, his step faltered, and he knew very well that we had fallen under his spell. “She’s old,” said Wyn, and his face sagged thirty years: “But she’ll sail again!” said Wyn, resuming the expression appropriate to his emotional age, which would be about eighteen. As a matter of fact, she’d been sailing that morning.—So it was arranged that Monty would tow her up on next day’s flood, and we’d haul her out right away and try to figure out where all that water was coming in. And the centerboard was jammed—must be warped. And the steering gear was a little loose. And while we were at it, wouldn’t this be a good chance to install a new engine? (The old one had given up some time before—after the mighty effort in the ’38 hurricane—and been put ashore).... And, said Wyn, he’d always wondered how she’d do with a sloop rig.... “Yes!” we said, full of enthusiasm. Somehow, in October, in a boatyard, with winter coming, spring seems very far behind; but it’s never far enough.
By this time, we’d learned that Mascot was 66 years old, or thereabouts; had figured in high adventures when a mere thirty; that Wyn had bought her from a man named Plummer twenty-odd years back; and that she’d been a way of life for him, a sanctuary with wings, ever since.
Next day they came up river behind Monty’s power boat. Wyn was steering, Georgie was pumping for dear life. We held her off long enough to unhook the centerboard (she had one of those Buzzards Bay Patent Hangers) and drive it out, to be recovered at low water; then we put her on the carriage and hauled her slow and easy, trying to spot the leaks. There wasn’t much use trying to particularize. She dripped at every butt, and at the foot of the stem; she poured water the length of both garboards; and the rudder port was a melancholy sight indeed. And the pattern of her bottom planking chronicled half a century of strandings and repairs. Hardly a plank was left that had not a patch of some kind, and some of the patches had been patched in their turn.... Lester thought she’d usually got bilged to starb’d, for some reason, but the rest of us couldn’t detect any real evidence of consistency. She’d been caulked, and nailed, and re-nailed, and caulked some more, lovingly and earnestly, but not tenderly. They hadn’t managed to move the garboards, but they’d pushed the keel inward, in the way of the slot, so that no clearance was left for the board. But she was still some chunk of boat, without a distorted curve in her anywhere.