The last of my father’s many boats has been sold again, and this time his vision for it may finally be coming true.
More than three years after his death, the cruiser my dad spent a decade tinkering with — but put in the water only once — has been purchased by newlyweds with big ideas to give it the adventurous life he always imagined.
The boat’s history is largely a story of ambitious plans that were repeatedly deferred.
My dad spent years preparing it for trips he never took. The man who bought it after my father’s death hoped to pilot it 1,600 miles to Florida, but turned back early in the journey.
Now Connor and Amelia appear ready to break that pattern and carry my father’s dream forward.
My dad, Bud Stych, always loved boats. He grew up in Chicago, and his family had a summer home about 70 miles away in New Buffalo, Michigan. As a teenager, he built a small powerboat and piloted it between the two cities — about 45 miles across the southern tip of Lake Michigan.
I think he only did that once before his parents put a stop to it.
Here’s a photo of him driving his homemade boat.
My parents married in 1958 and moved to Traverse City, Michigan, a boater’s paradise on Grand Traverse Bay, an arm of Lake Michigan.
While I was growing up, they owned a powerboat that we used for motoring around the bay and occasional fishing or water skiing. Later, my parents bought a trimaran sailboat, which they eventually sold after sailing it for many years.
But my dad wasn’t done. In 2012 — when he was 79 — he bought a Down East Cruiser 23 (DE23).
The DE23 is a lightweight boat that can travel at 20-25 mph, but it’s intended to be an explorer that cruises lakes and rivers at around 7 mph.
In 2012, my dad bought the plans for the DE23 and hired Mike Kiefer of Great Lakes Boat Building Co. in South Haven, Michigan, to build it.
Kiefer is an expert builder of small wooden boats. Since opening his business around 1985, Kiefer has built or restored more than 300 boats.
His craftsmanship even found its way to Hollywood, where he built small wooden boats used in films including “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events.”
My dad paid $70,000 for the DE23. Kiefer built most of the boat, but left the final 10% or so for my father to finish himself, which suited him perfectly. He was 110% engineer and loved to tinker.
My dad had big dreams for his DE23. He talked about using it on the bay and on Lake Michigan. For many years, my wife and I raised our family in the Minneapolis area, and my dad talked about trailering the boat to northern Minnesota and piloting it on the Mississippi River into the Twin Cities. He wanted to wow his grandchildren.
But none of those plans were ever realized.
My dad’s boat was always just a few weeks away from the water — but almost never in the water.
Every time we talked on the phone, he would tell me about the latest tweak he was making to the boat. In the winter, he talked about his plans for putting the boat in the water in the spring. In the spring, he would say he was just a couple of weeks away from taking it for a ride. In late summer he would always say he was sure he could squeeze in a few weeks of boating before the weather turned.
But in the decade that he owned the boat, it was in the water exactly once — for a short ride near his home. You can see him taking that ride in the photo at the top of this post.
I don’t know exactly why he never used the boat more. His age and physical issues probably had something to do with it. He was in his 80s and he had lost one of his eyes in a woodworking accident a couple of decades earlier.
My mom, who was three years older, supported my dad’s boating ambitions, but she had no interest at that stage of her life in spending much time on the boat.
Many of us figured the real reason was that he enjoyed working on the boat in his garage year-round more than actually using the boat. He adjusted things, improved things — and then found new things that needed improving. Such is the mind of an engineer.
Selling my dad’s boat
My mom died in 2020 and my dad died in early 2023. Later that year, we sold the DE23 to Ted Koikas, a retired maintenance supervisor in the chemical industry who has homes in Ludington, Michigan, and Fort Myers Beach, Florida.
Ted’s dream was to pilot the boat along the Great Loop, a classic North American boating trip that circumnavigates the eastern U.S. and part of Canada. Depending on the route, it can be 5,250 to 6,000 miles long. Here’s a general look at it:
First, Ted did what my dad did, which was work on the boat for months, painting it and getting it ready for the long trip. He named it “Vamoose.”
Last year, he decided to take the boat from Ludington to Fort Myers Beach, a 1,600-mile trip that would include Lake Michigan; the Chicago, Illinois, Mississippi, Ohio and Tennessee rivers; and the Gulf Coast of Florida.
Ted was going to take the 45-day trip by himself with only one of his dogs, Tucker, for company. But he didn’t quite make it to Chicago before turning around, partly because Tucker was seasick.
He said he planned to try again this year, but his wife wasn’t all that interested in riding with him and he never got the boat in the water.
So he put my dad’s boat up for sale.
The new owners
Less than an hour after Ted posted the boat for sale, a couple named Connor and Amelia contacted him.
They have a home base in northern Michigan but have spent most of their time over the last four years traveling the country in their pickup truck and fifth-wheel RV trailer.
Under the name “Living Large Camping,” they share their journey on social media, including YouTube, where they have nearly 45,000 subscribers.
Here is a video of them trying out the boat and buying it:
Connor and Amelia seem like the perfect couple for the DE23 — young, adventurous and already accustomed to making the road, or in this case the water, their home.
For 14 years, my dad’s boat has always been just a few weeks away from going somewhere.
This time, I think it finally will.