Chapter 40

While Bitsie was lettering King's Knight - Pentwater, Michigan across the boats butt ... oh heck ... I had something else ... but that can come later.

KING'S KNIGHT was done in black with red outline far enough away from the black so the white base paint showed. It's a big boat and has a big ass so Bitsie painted big letters ... with a fancy double line and a swirl between the name and the homeport... PENTWATER, MICHIGAN, that was done in 7 and a half inch letters that were half the size of the name of the boat.

The 'canvas' she had to work with had a slight arch that raised the middle of the thirty foot beam about six inches. So KING'S KNIGHT followed the curve while PENTWATER, MICHIGAN was level. It was easy to read from half a mile and looked very professional. Bitsie did a good job.

When that was finished and drying, she painted the registration numbers on both sides of the bow. They were standard size as required by the USCG ... you had to be practically on top of them to read.

Watching Bitsie paint got old pretty quick ... and waiting for the letters to dry is pretty stupid, so Junior started 'exploring'. Greg's is old ... expanded many times ... during the war they built lifeboats and ships launches, Captains gigs and Admirals Barges, tug boats, small minesweepers and a few torpedo casings. There were piles of mahogany in racks and lots of teak trim, old bronze portholes, anchors, wornout machines and general junk to warm the cockles of any teenager.

She kept getting lost ... and loster ... and lostest until she was right up against the doors of an old building...

"The padlock just fell off, honest, Greg."

The building was so old that there wasn't any light except for the little that filtered through the dirty clerestory windows in the peak of the roof.

Greg's built airplanes during the first War in that building ... modernization mostly forgot about the huge shed and they never did build a plane of their own design that flew ... properly. Mostly they built wings for other manufacturers. France and England both ran out of good spruce for aircraft pretty early in 1916 and Michigan had lots.

So ... there was old, dry and warped wood, hardened glue pots and old stiff brushes along with layout patterns and lots of little nails all over the floor and benches. There were wings in the ceiling and piles of junk here and there ... stuff.

But over in a corner ... almost unseen ... was a Chris-Craft yacht on a wheeled cradle ... fairly rare ... Chris Craft built lots of status symbols ... little and not so little speedboats ... but not a lot of big boats that a family could spend a week or two living on and cruising ... exploring gunk holes and out of the way places.

There was a distant creak. She spooked a little but she climbed the rickety ladder leaned against the stern and boarded the boat.

This Chris Craft was pretty big and Junior felt a tug of her heartstrings as she explored.

Falling in love at first sight is dangerous for girls ... the boys aren't likely to reciprocate ... neither is a 1940 family yacht ... but Junior could almost see it glow with returned love.

The glow was Greg's flashlight shining on the hull.

"Junior? Are you here?"

A head popped up over the cockpit gunnel.

"Greg Masters ... You scared me half to death."

"I didn't know this was here ... what have you found?"

"The book," she held it up. "Says it's a 1940 Chris Craft forty nine foot stateroom cruiser and sold for nine thousand dollars to one Gregory Masters, of Greg's Boat Company, Detroit, Michigan in 1941. The log," she held up another dusty book, "says it was never in the water. I want it."