He gave up 4 guitars for a sailboat. Now this Fredericton man has plans for adventure
Chris Mercer says that as soon as he saw the boat online, he just 'had to have' it
Most guitar collectors sell their guitars for cash or trade for other guitars, but not Chris Mercer.
In 2020, he sold four collector guitars to pay for a 27-foot C&C 27 sailboat, named the Blue Lotus, which he is restoring and plans to sail around North America.
"This is going to sail down to the Gulf of Mexico and then all the way back up to the Great Lakes and back home," said Mercer, standing in the cockpit of the Blue Lotus. This route is known as the Great Loop, and anyone who sails it is called a Looper.
Mercer is a full-time musician and has been giving private guitar lessons to people of all ages in his spare time for close to 25 years. He said he was invited to sail with one of his students and fell in love from the moment he got on the boat.
"I remember thinking, 'you are going to be thinking about this every moment of your life for the rest of your life,'" he said.
When offered the opportunity to take the rudder, Mercer said he could feel the "connection of the wind coming down from that sail, hitting my hand with the line and then the rudder," describing it as a visceral experience.
After that, Mercer knew he had to do whatever it took to get his own boat.
He spent hours on Kijiji the week following that sail, eventually stumbling upon one for $7,000. He thought it was a great deal, but a little out of his price range.
A week later, it was reduced to $5,000, but again Mercer decided against buying the boat.
Only in the third week, when the price was down to $3,000, did he realize that he couldn't pass it up.
"Man, I have to have this thing," Mercer remembers thinking, after first seeing the boat online.
With no savings and no money that he could get easy access to, he came up up with the idea to trade some of his guitar collection.
Mercer had a few guitars that were paid off and knew they were worth some money. He called a friend, a seasoned guitar reseller, and asked him how many he would have to give up to get $3,000.
The answer? Four.
Unlike other collectors, Mercer thinks of his guitars as tools, like "hammers to a carpenter," so parting with them wasn't too difficult.
He sold two Gibson acoustics, a Sigma by Martin and a hollow-body jazz guitar.
The money he made then paid for the Blue Lotus, which was crafted in Canada in 1976, the same year Mercer was born.
He doesn't regret selling the guitars for a boat. Mercer calls it a lesson in humility.
His first night out on his boat, the engine stopped working, leaving him stranded on the water.
As he curled up in his sail, he thought to himself, "tomorrow this thing's going back on Kijiji."
But the next morning was one of the most beautiful he had ever seen, with the sun glinting on the water and bald eagles fishing close by. He decided to keep it.
"You just leave your stress behind," he said, explaining that his favourite sound is when the motor shuts off and he can hear the waves lapping on the side of the boat as the sound of the engine echoes off into the distance.
When Mercer turns 50 in two years, he said he will embark on his Great Loop adventure, with a guitar in the cockpit and a blue plastic bird named Polly as his copilot.
"The Blue Lotus will sail again."
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