When I decided to retire from teaching, we went on a search for our perfect boat. At first I though we would get a SunCat, but the price made us keep looking. I kept hearing about the Montgomery 17 and started looking for one. The first one I found was Alina who was for sale at the time. We seriously considered making an offer on her, but we had never seen a 17 in person and she was miles away. I found the MSOG Website and there was a boat registered here in our Marina in Santa Barbara, CA. I called the owner who kindly agreed to show us her nameless boat.

She (the boat) was a mess: six inches of growth and mature mussels growing at her waterline, neglected from lack of use and attention - a Seagull island. We liked what we saw, but were put off by her condition. The short end to that chapter was that we bought her. I had a diver scrape her and check that the centerboard was there. The previous owner thought that maybe it had been dropped as the pendant was broken off. We retrieved the trailer from a distant cow pasture where it had been abandoned for years, and set about restoring it. When it was moveable we picked up the boat and brought her home forcing the centerboard firmly into the trunk as we loaded her onto the trailer. She needed to be completely re-rigged. It was almost six months before I could free the wedged and rusted centerboard. She has been a true labor of love and is now "finally" seaworthy. She is "at last" a joy to sail and to continue to restore. Endelig has been our window to this fine group of sailors. We got much more than an old M-17 with this purchase."

"Endelig means finally or at last in Norwegian. That was our feeling when we finally found her".

Photos and Story by Bill and Darcy Sylvester