Found at sea

More than three decades later, boater reclaims a piece of family history

Christina Brown, her husband, Michael Bell, and friend Mike Donahue aboard the Windwatch, one of four boats built in the 1970s by Brown's father with help from her grandfather (below, with Brown). The boaters pooled their money to buy the vessel after seeing an ad for it in 2007. (Matthew J. Lee/Globe Staff)

Christina Brown never expected she would again step aboard the 39-foot sailboat her father built so many years ago. After all, more than three decades had passed since her family sold the vessel.

Nevertheless, Brown always wondered about the fate of the boat and the others built by her father. She would read through classified ads, and occasionally type the Tidewatch boat specs into Google, with the hope of discovering that someone had put one up for sale. But her searches turned up nothing. Realistically, she knew it was unlikely she would see any of the four vessels again.

But, just like New England's weather, life can take surprising turns. Brown was recently reunited with one of the sailboats. She didn't find the boat; it found her. It's been a maritime homecoming of sorts, one that came about because of a thoughtful friend, an Internet connection, a bit of luck, and a lot of elbow grease.

The story begins in the early 1970s, when Brown's family ran a small boatbuilding operation, Tidewatch Yachts Inc., in Marshfield.

Brown's childhood home on Preston Terrace served as the company's headquarters. Her late father, Ron Brown, made his living as an architect, but "his first love was yacht architecture," she said. "He had a real job, and that's how he financed this side business." The business was truly a family affair: Her father designed and built the boats, her uncle, J. David Lukos, served as president of the company, and her grandfather, the late J.B. Lukos, also worked on the boats.

Brown's father had sketched out blueprints for a ketch sailboat, dubbed the Tidewatch 39, and began building a prototype in 1970. Her father, uncle, and grandfather spent months cutting, fitting, and assembling each piece of the sailboat inside a nearby barn, not far from Preston Terrace. And in January 1971, the first Tidewatch sailboat rolled out of the barn. The prototype was named Windwatch. In February 1971 the family sailed the vessel around Biscayne Bay off the coast of Florida, and then sailed all the way home, following the Intracoastal Waterway.

After the successful maiden voyage of Windwatch, Brown built three more Tidewatch sailboats in the same mold. And one by one, the four sailboats were sold.

As the years went by, Brown and her family often wondered what happened to them.

"I had been looking for these boats for a long time," said Christina Brown. "I did Google searches . . . but I had never been able to find them."

Then one evening in October 2007, she got a phone call from her friend Mike Donahue, a fellow mariner who resides in Humarock.

"You have to go to your computer right away," he said.

Brown opened Donahue's e-mail message, which contained a link to an advertisement that Donahue had stumbled across on a boating website. It was a Tidewatch sailboat. And it was for sale.

"I was completely floored," said Brown, 50. "I couldn't believe it."

The Tidewatch sailboat in the ad was owned by a radiologist in Maine, who had purchased it 15 years ago and named it Fuzzy Image. The following weekend, Brown, her husband, Michael Bell, her uncle, Dave Lukos, her brother, Matthew Brown, her 11-year-old niece, Mara Brown, and Donahue climbed into a van and drove 150 miles to Yarmouth, Maine, to check out the vessel, mainly for nostalgia's sake.

"We really thought she'd be a wreck," she said.

But as it turned out, the boat was in good shape. "We recognized it immediately," she said. Upon closer inspection, Brown and her relatives confirmed that it was the fourth and final Tidewatch sailboat, which had been launched in 1974.

As their entourage toured the boat, the memories came rushing back. The ceiling of the main cabin provided 6 feet, 5 inches of head room. (Ron Brown was more than 6 feet tall, and he designed the boat to accommodate his height.)

"It was exhilarating and very much felt like deja vu," said Brown. "It was kind of like I stepped back in time. I hadn't been aboard one of these boats in 35 years. It was a trip down memory lane. It was a weird feeling for all of us. My brother, uncle, and I had all been on the original boats. That was a thrill for all of us. My husband, he had heard stories and seen pictures. He was blown away, too."

The Tidewatch sailboat had been out of the water for two years.

It needed some work, but overall, it was in good condition.

Inspired, the two couples - Donahue and his wife, along with Brown and her husband - pooled their money to buy it and bring it back to the South Shore. The vessel was rechristened Windwatch, in honor of its sister sailboat, and spent the winter in Humarock, parked behind Brown's store, Humming Rock Gifts.

They spent the next several months working on the boat and "bringing it back to its former glory," according to Donahue. "It was a project . . . but it had good bones, as they say."

Everyone pitched in. John Dietenhofer, a boatbuilder from Duxbury, carefully restored and renovated the vessel. Donahue's wife, Mi Sun, stitched new seat cushions for the main cabin.

When they finally launched it in late August of this year, Donahue said, "It sailed like a dream."

On Sept. 6, Windwatch made its competitive debut in the 18th annual Great Chase Race, hosted by the Hull Yacht Club. Windwatch and its five-person crew - Brown, Bell, Donahue, Lukos, and Dietenhofer - finished in 68th place out of 94 boats.

"We were thrilled. It was our first race," said Brown, who earned her captain's license last April.

"At the end of the race there was no wind, we were blowing into the sail," she said with a laugh. "We crossed the finish line slowly."

Windwatch is docked at a slip in Sunset Bay Marina in Hull, where it gently bobs up and down.

Brown, Bell, and the Donahues would like to sail Windwatch down the Intracoastal Waterway to Florida and keep it there during winter. "I haven't made the trip in 30 years," she said.

If they do that, they will definitely bring her back to Massachusetts next season. After all, Brown said, "her home port is Humarock."

Emily Sweeney can be reached at esweeney@globe.com.