My mom has always said, “Boating is never a vacation; it’s always an adventure.”

That proved true for our family of four while cruising the San Juan Islands during the summer of 1978. Mom and Dad had anchored our 26-foot wooden Trojan powerboat, Wesley Ann, in a calm Jones Island cove for the night. We had the place all to ourselves and enjoyed a quiet evening playing card games by lantern light.

The next morning after breakfast, Mom and Dad let my younger brother and me row to shore alone in our Columbia dinghy for the first time, something we’d been begging to do for days. Wearing classic old orange life preservers, Charlie and I set off. I took charge and rowed the short distance while three-year-old Charlie sat as a lookout in the bow.

When we got to shore, he jumped first with the rope and pulled the rowboat up onto the barnacle-covered beach like a pro, then we secured our craft to a driftwood log. We had just taken off our life jackets and were walking along the beach when … KABOOM! Deafening thunder clapped behind and above us. We just about jumped out of our skin.

Eyes wide, Charlie called to me over the fading rumbling, “Lisa! What was that?”

Our eyes darted up into the thick island forest.

Before I could speak, my brother’s wild imagination answered his own question. “Giants are coming through the woods to get us!”

Panicking, we turned and looked the other way out at our boat. The Wesley Ann floated calmly in the anchorage. We could see our parents standing on the stern, motioning for us to come back.

Without a word, my brother and I ran back down the beach to the dingy. Charlie untied the bow line and I pushed our rowboat into the water. Our little craft rocked as we jumped in, while more thunder boomed overhead.

“Put your life jackets on!” Dad called to us over the rumbling thunder.

I flung my life vest over my head, not taking the time to fasten it. All I could think of was getting away from monsters as fast as I could. Charlie threw his life jacket over his head backward. I took the strongest pulls on the oars as my 10-and-a-half-year-old arms could muster.

We got back to the Wesley Ann in record time, and Mom and Dad assisted us aboard while lightning crackled and thunder continued. Lit up by the morning sun shining from underneath, the clouds gave off a golden, green-gray glow tinted in purple. The salty air smelled like static electricity.

Just as Mom and Dad hauled the dingy up onto the swim step and secured it, the rain started. Large drops splattered down onto our little floating home, drenching everything almost immediately.

Our plan was to dock at a marina in Fisherman Bay on Lopez Island later that day. Dad warmed up the engine, Mom hauled up the anchor, and we set off for the safety of the marina a few hours earlier than planned. As we exited the calm shelter of Jones Island, rough water overtook us. A north wind whipped up whitecaps in Spring Passage, blowing spray over our bow. Dad, wearing his trusty bucket hat low over his eyes, navigated from up on the flying bridge with Mom as copilot.

Charlie and I, our life jackets now fastened correctly, sat at the galley table with our worry-rocks we had collected the previous day. I had selected four dark gray, oval beach rocks polished smooth to be my pet rock family. Charlie had found some, too.

“Do you think we’ll be OK?” Charlie asked, his hands anxiously rubbing his rocks.

“Yeah, Dad knows what he’s doing.”

I had complete faith in my father. I never doubted we would be in danger with him at the helm.

With both hands on the wheel, Dad navigated us through the winding channel into the bay. Our little vessel dipped and rose as we crashed through waves. We soon entered the protection of Fisherman Bay, and the whitecaps lessened while the rain poured.

When we approached the marina, Dad radioed the dock master. “Wesley Ann to harbormaster. We have arrived and are ready for our reserved slip.”

I sat stunned by the muffled reply from the bridge radio. “Harbormaster to Wesley Ann. Because of the sudden storm, the boat in your reserved spot has not left yet. Be advised to anchor and wait out the storm.”

I looked toward the docks and could see that all the slips were filled. Presumably, none of the boats had left due to the storm. We would have to anchor and wait.

The lightning continued around us while thunder boomed and rain poured down. Once we were safely anchored, Dad turned the engine and batteries off. He lowered the radio antennas and turned off every switch on the boat. The wind continued to increase, making the water choppier in the sheltered harbor. We sat rocking in our little Trojan’s cabin, waiting and listening to the storm.

And then it hit!

A huge bolt of lightning crackled straight down, slamming into our boat. For an instant, the cabin was lit by bright white light. Every speaker on the boat crackled, though they and the batteries were shut off. We looked at each other in panic.

A crew aboard an anchored sailboat off our stern had watched in horror. The skipper shouted over the wind, “You guys OK?”

“We’re OK,” Dad yelled back, giving a thumbs-up through our cabin door toward the sailboat.

Miraculously, although shaken, none of us sustained any injuries. And amazingly, the Wesley Ann seemed to come out of the incident without damage. Our trusty wooden boat had protected us and saved us from being hurt. The skipper of the nearby sailboat later said that when the lightning struck, the water had boiled all around us, radiating and bubbling out in every direction.

Eventually, our nerves subsided along with the storm. Our reserved moorage slip opened, and we were never so thankful to have our dad navigate the Wesley Ann to the safety of a marina as we were that day.

Our wood vessel had been our shield. We were all fine and lived to admit that Mom was right—boating is never just a vacation; it is always an adventure.

The Little Trojan, Wesley Ann

In 1949, two experienced boat builders, Jim McQueen and Harper Hull, left Owens Boat Company with the dream to start their own custom boat building business in York, Pennsylvania. McQueen and Hull purchased the Cottrell-Spoore Boatworks of Troy, New York and renamed their venture Trojan Boat Company. They employed highly skilled Amish craftsmen to build wood boats in a converted dairy barn.

As Trojan Boats expanded, they purchased and then moved to a factory in Lancaster, Pennsylvania in 1953. The company opened a second boat building operation in Elkton, Maryland in 1965 with a focus on larger vessels. By 1968 Trojans from 14 to 47 feet were being produced in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; Elkton, Maryland; and in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario, Canada. This made Trojan Boat Company the second-largest producer of inboard boats in the world. The Trojan Boat Company produced wood and then fiberglass pleasure craft until it was purchased by Miramar Marine in 1992.

Tacoma, Washington resident, Don Leonard, purchased his 1968 Trojan in 1974. He named this lapstrake hull design by combining his two children’s middle names. The Wesley Ann was built in Lancaster. She was 26 feet long, 10 feet wide, and drew 30 inches of water. The vessel was powered by an inboard 185hp Chrysler 273 V-8 engine. Leonard remembers his engine cranking up to 5000 RPMs at the blink of an eye. “We had no speedometer back then, but it was fast,” he recalls.

Every Trojan was unique. The company prided itself in customizing each boat to individual specifications. Wesley Ann sported teak decks with teak cabin interior woodwork. Wesley Ann was outfitted with an old-style “flasher” depth sounder, a compass, and paper charts with charting tools. “That’s all we needed to get around Puget Sound in those days,” Leonard remembers.

The Leonard family of four slept snuggly in the V-berth. Other luxuries onboard Wesley Ann included a sink in the galley with cold running water, an ice box, a two-burner alcohol stove, and a small head, all with cabin warmth from the heat off the engine. The Leonard family felt as if they were cruising in luxury.

 

Lisa Nickel grew up boating out of Tacoma on the tugboat Teal and believes there was no better way to grow up. Today, she is happiest when spending time with her husband, daughter, and family. She is working on a middle-grade novel about a girl on a tugboat, and is co-authoring an Arcadia Publishing “Images of America” book on the historic Olympia tug, Sand Man, with Chuck Fowler.