Englands rediscover ketch they sailed from Urbanna to Cape Cod 50 years ago
For John and Vera England of Urbanna, 50 years of marriage came full circle this summer when the couple booked a trip in the Bahamas on the sailing vessel Surprise.
On the surface the name of the vessel Surprise means little to Middlesex County boat enthusiasts but when its former name MARWAL is mentioned knowledgable mariners recall the mid-1960s when a young boatbuilder named Joe Conboy came to Urbanna.
Taylor’s Ford Motor Company had recently closed its doors in a building on Virginia Street in Urbanna. Conboy rented the building and started lofting a 50-foot Spaulding Dunbar cruising ketch named “MARWAL of CHATHAM.”
It was the boat that brought John and wife Vera to Urbanna and Middlesex County. MARWAL is named for Marge and Wally Marden of Hingham, Mass. Marge was a close friend of John’s mother, Marta, and the two families grew up together in Hingham.
When Conboy finished MARWAL in 1967 John crewed on the maiden voyage home to Chatham, again down the waterway south in 1968, and in 1969 he accompanied the Mardens on a weeklong winter cruise in the Exumas, Bahamas. In 1971 John decided to make a career change and he came to Urbanna to work building wooden boats for Joe Conboy.
Vera and John met in 1971 through a mutual friend and were married in August 1973. Over the years John related to Vera stories of sailing on the MARWAL. According to Vera, he promised her a sailing cruise to the Bahamas one day.
That promise came home 50 years later when Vera was looking through Instagram and found MARWAL, still alive, with a new name, available for charter, and cruising in the Bahamas. Surprise! “It was that same boat I had heard about for years. ‘Do you want to go?’ ” asked Vera. John knew he couldn’t refuse.
For their upcoming golden wedding anniversary, the couple went on a cruise on the MARWAL in April. They explored the Exumas island chain, the same islands that John had traveled on the boat 55 years before.
“I had not been on the boat in 55 years,” said John. “She was designed and built to summer in Stage Harbor (Mass.) and to winter in the Bahamas. That is what the Mardens built her for and she is still out there cruising in the islands. She was built right, right here in Urbanna.”
