Here’s an unusual sighting… a fellow Pilgrim making a stop through Louisville. We had contacted David, the owner of GRAND OLE GAL, because we heard that he was bringing his boat from Florida and up the inland rivers to his home in Warsaw, Kentucky. He had to be passing through Louisville, right? Well, it turned out that he had the boat shipped to Cincinnati to streamline the process. Bummer. After our initial contact though, he told us he was taking the boat to Chattanooga and would be stopping at the Louisville waterfront in a couple of days so we got the opportunity to get a tour of another Pilgrim, our second since we first started looking.

Our first encounter with the Pilgrim was before going to look at SEA BEAR II. Our plan was to have only one of us travel to New Hampshire for inspection so it was important that we both got an in-person look at what we were getting into before making the trip solo. Since we missed David on GRAND OLD GAL we hooked up with Jack, the owner of MATCHLESS GIRL in Nashville, Tennessee, who invited us down and graciously spent most of the day showing us around. It didn’t take much time after stepping on board that we knew we had found the boat we wanted. There were some definite flashbacks to previous pilothouse trawler spottings, although I can’t really say we knew at the time where they were leading.

Update: In 2016 I was fortunate to be in St. Petersburg, Florida at the same time LIBERTY was there for their annual winter migration from Lake Erie. Yet another Pilgrim spotted, and one of the best kept one in the fleet.

Grand Old Gal, hull #9, passes through Louisville.

Matchless Girl, hull #29, gave us our first Pilgrim tour.

Dave, Bobbie and Hull #43 Liberty

Not really a Pilgrim… but comes pretty darn close!

Pokahontas, the Pilgrim look-alike at a smaller scale, puttering around the Ohio River in 2010 was the first hook that got us thinking about cruising.