Captain: Lynne Fraker
Home Port: Lake Tashmoo
The Name: Ena.
“She’s named after my grandmother.”
The Boat: Thirty-four-foot Malabar Senior made of mahogany over oak, built by the
Alden Design Office in 1957.
How I Got Her: “I’ve owned her since 1994. I had been looking for a boat, and I talked to Phil Smith [at Martha’s Vineyard Marine Brokerage].
I thought I wasn’t going to be able to afford her....Two weeks later, he called me and said, ‘Make an offer on her and make it really cheap.’
“I got her sight unseen; I’d only seen pictures. It was amazing. It was perfect. She was at the shipyard, and I climbed in and said, ‘Oh my god, I can’t believe this is my boat.’”
Home Waters: “I love being out on Vineyard Sound. I like sailing up toward the north shore – Lambert’s Cove, Tarpaulin Cove, that area. I do charters, and I go out almost every single day [in season]. I never get bored.”
First Mates: “I love sailing with my two dogs. [Tess] is eighteen, and she used to sail with me all the time, but she’s too old now. I have another little dog, Boo, and he sails with me frequently.”
The Best Day: “I would say sailing out on Vineyard Sound when the wind is just right, all the sails are up, she’s perfectly balanced sailing right along. You know, ten to fifteen knots, gusts here and there. It doesn’t get any better than that; it just doesn’t.”
The Worst Day: “Around here, I’ve never really had a worst day. I’ve always had really good sailing. You have to be careful – you have to pick your days....On my trip to Florida, though, we did get caught in a very bad storm off of Cape Fear. That was probably the very worst time I’ve ever had with this boat. But this boat is amazing, she’s just amazing. We were in ten-foot waves, and she was brand new to me, so I had no idea what she was going to act like. But she was wonderful. I felt so safe in her.”
The Longest Voyage: “I left in October and came back for the Fourth of July. I went with a bunch of friends as far as Annapolis, [Maryland]. They left, then I went to Norfolk, [Virginia], and picked up another friend and on we went to Florida. That was a great trip.”
The Wish List: “I’ve had lots of opportunities to upgrade her into more modern rigging, but I work to keep her traditional, the way she was designed.”
Favorite Thing: “I like the way she feels when she sails. That is absolutely my favorite thing. I love working on her. I love doing the varnish. But when I’m sailing her and we’re sailing along – just the way she feels when she’s going through the water....Sometimes you have to work on the boat a lot and you forget why you’re doing it, and then you go sailing and you remember. It’s worth all the work.”
