Howdy, Internet. Yes, it’s my birthday. Let’s not make a big thing out of this, okay? We all grow old; we all die. (Oooooh, deep.) Besides, I’ve already had my greatest birthday. I don’t mean to offend anybody (including The Redhead) that wasn’t present for it, it’s just that one birthday in particular may never be topped. It’s all because of what I got.

This is a 1973 Century Coronado. It’s got a Chrysler 330 HP V8 that purrs like a kitten. I got it on my 16th Birthday. Since then more joys, horrors, first experiences and “last time I swear” promises have taken place on this boat than any other location I know. It is my youth, metaphorically encapsulated in yellow.

My cousin bought it in 1981. It’s the boat I learned to water ski on. It became the standard for measuring “cool” in watercraft for me, and on June 16th, 1995, it became mine.

It all started at our cottage in Lake Geneva. I woke up the morning of my birthday to light wrapping on my bedroom window. I shared a half-sunk basement bedroom with my brother and sister, so when I opened the blinds to investigate, two things immediately happened. My brother was angry that I was letting light in, and I realized that the light seemed extremely yellow. The boat was parked in the driveway, reflecting it’s golden awesomeness into my life. Away to the driveway I flew like a flash, asking my cousin what exactly was taking place. A conversation at his house last night had revealed that he was planning to sell the boat, and my heart had sank. He had 2 people interested, and planned to drop it in the water to take them for a ride followed by a bidding war. I assumed he was here to take me along with.

“What are you doing here? Are we taking those guys out?” I asked.

“Actually, no. I thought about it, and I decided that you guys are going to buy the boat.” He smiled.

“Wait, what? What happened? Does my dad know about this?”

“Well, no. But I figured if you guys had it, I can still come and use it. Besides, how can your dad say no when it’s tied to your pier on your birthday?”

He made a very strong point.

That very day, 2 of my friends were coming up to celebrate my birthday. That night would be the first time I got drunk. Now I had a new boat. (My previous motored-vessel was a 14’ tri-hull with a tiller control and an unworking steering wheel. More on that one another time.) It was shaping up to be a very good day.

My cousin and I brought the boat over to the launch to drop it in the water. He told me to sit at the wheel and guide it out. As soon as the boat was in, he pushed away from the pier.

“Whoa! Hold on. Aren’t you coming?” I was realizing that this was all very, very real.

“Nope. It’s your boat now. I’ll meet you back at your pier.”

I had driven The Coronado many times, but never alone. I was the standard driver for when my cousin would ski, so at those times it would be me and my 5 years younger brother, but that’s out in the middle, open areas. Now I had to park this big heavy inboard by myself. Inboard boat engines have no steering control in reverse, so they tend to pull naturally to either the left of the right. While I actually made it back to the pier, the true test was coming.

(Sadly, the horn does not play, “I’m In The Money” like in Caddyshack. In fact, it doesn’t even work.)

My friends arrived, and I delighted them with the news that our weekend had taken a delicious turn. We would be water bound now. We hopped in and headed out into the lake, cautiously at first, then a little more aggressively as confidence climbed. One of the unwritten rules of boating, and there are many, is to offer assistance to any vessel in need. As a newly commissioned Captain I was excited to be on the case when I saw a boat stalled in the middle of the lake. Pulling closer, I saw that it was a friend of mine from Gordy’s, the local ski shop and gas pump. He needed a tow, and my new boat was going to provide it.

A lot of people buy boats without having any experience or concept of how to operate them. This guy was one of those. Approximately 3 hours after The Coronado came into my possession, I watched as the stalled boat slammed into my stern railing, ripping off the gate and bending the rail to 45 degrees from it’s original position. I also watched as my “friend” sat on the bow of his boat doing nothing to prevent the collision. It was a little rough on the water, but not that rough. The day had just turned. 

In all honesty though, it was only a matter of time. As anybody who knows my family is aware, most things break, get scratched, or bent within hours of us receiving it. Who knows why; it’s just the way it is. (We’re idiots.)  It’s kind of like that line in Lethal Weapon 2 after Riggs trashes Murtaugh’s new station wagon. “This was a new car!” he complains. “Hey, it still is a new car.” Riggs offers. Man, Murtaugh was too old for that shit.

(Doing my best Steve Zissou.)

Over time more things broke. A chair was ripped out of the floor, my dad broke off two propellers, a floorboard caved in, it developed a slow but consistent oil leak, and the antenna stopped working. The speakers burned out, I replaced them, the new ones burned out, and now the tape deck is glitchy. The railing was fixed, the other side was snapped off, and eventually we just had the gates removed and the holes rounded. A window inexpicably fell out and sunk while cruising. A spark plug exploded once when I was trying to impress a local girl. For three whole summers, the gas gauge was non-functional, and more than one evening at the bars was finished by swimming and towing the boat to the pier. The entire interior has been redone from awesome 1970’s brown to more modern but just-not-the-same cream. It’s the most beautiful man-made creation I have ever seen, and nothing will ever match it.

My buddy Dave and I would do what repairs we could. The exhaust ports have rubber flaps, so we flip them. The 30 year old fiberglass has lost a bit of grip on some of the screws, so we futilely screw them in. We wax, we buff. We spend 3 hours cleaning it, and 30 minutes trashing it after a night at Chuck’s.

I’ll be in Lake Geneva over the 4th of July, my 15th Summer with the Coronado. I’ve had many wonderful birthdays, and yes, Paul Reubens is still calling me on my special day, but nothing will compare to seeing that thing parked in my driveway and realizing that it was now mine. I now sail the Pacific and live in Los Angeles, but I’ll always be a Lake Geneva boy. As the theme of the Coronado says, “Love: exciting and new.”

Exciting? Absolutely. New? Not in your life. I will never own a boat younger than me, and I will never be far from the Coronado. 

Happy birthday to me.