<\/a>Rabbi Yehoshua Mizrachi and his partner Sheila McNamee talk about their newly bought custom built 52-foot trawler, the M\/V Sephina, in the Don D. Statter Memorial Boat Harbor in Auke Bay on Wednesday, Nov. 13, 2019. Rabbi Mizrachi said he found the boat of his dreams and traveled across the country to pick it up in Hoonah this summer. (Michael Penn | Juneau Empire)<\/p><\/div>\n\t\t\t\t
“I was absolutely smitten by this idea,” Mizrachi said, of sailing the boat anywhere. “I got the bug. So that 42-foot Krogen was the first production boat that was built — purposely built — to go around the world.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The East Coast family left Allentown, Pennsylvania, in mid-July in an RV, arriving in Skagway just over two weeks later. Mizrachi said he was pouring over boat classifieds earlier this year when he stumbled upon the M\/V Sephina. His contract with a Jewish congregation was at its end, and the rabbi saw the opportunity to “retire” and live out his dream.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“I just finished up a contract as the rabbi in Allentown and I said, ‘You know what? Let’s do it,’” Mizrachi said. “… We negotiated over the phone and with the internet with the Department of Economic Development on the boat, and I bought it and wired them the money. They said, ‘Congratulations, you’re the owner of a new boat. Go get it in Hoonah, Alaska.’”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Sheila McNamee used to live in Florida and said the thought traveling to warmer climes aboard the new vessel interested her.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“We want to go down to California, the West Coast, through the Panama Canal and down to Florida because a friend of ours is down there right now,” she said. “Like him, I had nothing holding me back in Allentown, and I’m just grateful for my daughter that she agreed to come along, because I think it’s a life lesson for her as well. It’s going to be an adventure for her.”<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
Helena McNamee had taken a year off from college to work and explore her interests. She hopes the coming voyage will shed light on possible life paths.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
“I just kind of went with it, and just hoped that maybe along the way I would figure out what I wanted to do,” she said.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The realization of Mizrachi’s dream hasn’t been without its hitches.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t
The family was laid up in Skagway for over a week waiting out the Inlandboatmen’s Union of the Pacific strike<\/a>. When they reached the M\/V Sephina in Hoonah, the Pennsylvania clan found the trawler in worse shape than originally anticipated.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t