She had power. A two-cylinder engine of unknown vintage lay
under her mahogany bridge deck. She had one of those old-fashioned,
bathtub-shaped cockpits, an icebox, and a stove which bore the name
“MARINE HOUSEHOLD.” She slept two. There was a small bookshelf,
and even a pipe rack.

I wish I could tell you what I thought of her at the time, I can't. Ask
any man after all those years to tell you how he felt the first time he set eyes
on his wife. Now don't get me wrong. We have been through a lot together,
and we are still in love. She has thrown a lot of pots and dishes at me, and I
have stayed up with her through all kind of bad times both ashore and afloat.

Remember, I was twenty-nine when we met and Princess was over sixty,
but she had the spirit of a kid.

I looked the other way when I first saw her.

Something told me, “This girl is not for you.”

I was looking over a little weekender with bilges like a coffin,
a dead-rise dog with an ugly wooden
outboard rack bolted to her flat stern that had recently come off the forms
of a local yard. She too was for sale. I had climbed up and was inspecting
her when I caught another glimpse of Princess . It was perhaps the sheer
of her deck, the clipper bow, the gentle reverse curve of her forefoot, or
the well-fed look of her fat bellied chime that did it. I was a goner.

The negotiations for the transfer of title to Princess were straight forward
and simple. I found the owner through the yard manager.

Over a cup of coffee I asked for the truth. Then I handed over pieces of
green paper, backed by the Government of the United States , for a sloop
which I was told was “as sound as a dollar.” I went home and fell into a
beautiful sleep with the title to Princess under my pillow.

And so starts the first chapter of “ Princess .” The book originally published in 1952, as “ Princess, New York ” is artist, Joe Richards' witty and warm first-person narrative of his purchase, repair, and voyage down the Intra-coastal waterway in an antique Friendship Sloop.

The day after he purchased her he discovered that virtually all her frames were so rotten they had to be replaced. He undertook her extensive rebuilding with the advice of an old man who had actually worked for Morse. As he learned shipwrighting, Richards' work gave Princess the new life she would need to sustain his life in some frightening future circumstances. A bond formed between the man and his boat, which would remain un-broken for a remarkable 53 years. It was this bond that infused his writing with a delightful anthropomorphism, which is utterly beguiling to anyone who loves and understands boats.

After re-launching and shakedown cruising on Long Island Sound, Joe Richards and Princess set sail to the south in search of the tropical island so many of us dream about. In towns along the way the artist would paint and sell his work in order to keep his dream alive. His charming prose are much like his drawings in which a very few simple; but elegant lines convey a great deal of meaning.

As the clouds of World War II gathered, the artist and his “girl” navigated the New Jersey coastline, Delaware and Chesapeake Bays, and the Intra-costal waterway. He writes memorably of stops in Annapolis , Oxford , Solomons, and Norfolk . At Coinjock he had to stop and register for the draft. At Morehead City he painted pictures of many of the local fishing boats for their owners. In Charleston he had a one man show at what is now the Gibbes Museum of Art . Behind St. Simon's Island he inadvertently dropped in for dinner on some senior members of FDR's Administration on hunting vacation. All these adventures are related in a perfectly understated, self-effacing, and wry style making the reader feel like a fortunate fly on Princess' main bulkhead.

Upon arrival in Ft. Lauderdale , Uncle Sam's call was in the mail. Richards left Princess in storage “for the duration” and joined the Merchant Marine.

His assignment involved delivering tugs for the U.S. Army, about which he later colorfully wrote in his second book, “ Tug Of War” (1979.)

Following the war Richards reclaims Princess and marries a human female. In “ Princess, Key Biscayne” , a continuation of the original book, he writes sagely of the infernal triangle: man/woman/boat. As a bachelor it had not been necessary to justify his lavish expenditure of time and money on his boat. Now as husband and father, Richards (and Princess) take the family roundtrip across the Gulf Stream in search of that tropical island.

In the new edition, titled simply “Princess”, a compilation of books one and two, the reader is treated for the first time to full-color reproductions of many of Joe Richards' paintings. These works add a fascinating dimension to his crystal clear prose and minimalist contour drawings.

Excerpt from “An Appreciation” by Johnson Fortenbaugh, Jr.