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he glitter makeup on her face matches the glitter epoxy resin finish on her countertops.

Her cushion covers are sewn from fabric depicting a magical fairy land. The compression post is adorned as a disco ball. The head, as a unicorn. The bulkheads are custom painted from a projected photo: the unique pattern of an Outer Banks sand dune.

Claire in her colorful cabin.

This is just some of the distinct style of Claire Forehand. From the outside, Mysto might just be any other 1987 Newport 27 sailboat. Inside, is a very different story.

With no prior experience, Claire spent two years refitting the boat.

If there’s such a thing as a ‘typical cruiser look’, Claire does not have it.

Her hair is pale pink, her wardrobe a mix of cheetah print and rainbow. Claire has tattoos, some she did herself, and wears DIY temporary jewelry on her teeth called tooth gems.

“I was homeschooled,” Claire says, “that’s why I’m so weird.”

Boo Radley, ready to play.

Claire has “You Are Art,” painted on the cabin headliner. Claire she says she maximizes layers, colors, and patterns as an aesthetic. From her personal appearance to the inside of her vessel.

Bins from Ikea store accessories: fishnet stockings, studded belts, mesh butterfly wings, pointy prosthetic ears.

“I get along really well with people that are outside the 9-5, white picket fence,” she said.

Claire, age 27, has no trouble making friends. She tied Mysto up at the town dock on Hodges Street in late March. With the help of a new friend she met mere minutes before, when she mistook the fuel dock at Oriental Marina & Inn for the free dock – while bouncing off a piling.

Handwritten quotes decorate the inside of Mysto.

“I was like ‘I need to get to land.’” Partly for her sanity after a boisterous journey on the Neuse River. Partly for her first mate, Boo Radley, a two-year-old Boykin Spaniel she named after the character in the classic novel To Kill a Mockingbird.

She pays homage to other authors aboard. The boat name, Mysto, is from The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test by Tom Wolfe, along with a quote she has painted on the cabin headliner. A sticker on the bulkhead reads “Got Kerouac?”

Living like a version of one of her literary heroes, Claire says her last decade has been that of self-discovery.

She went from earning her college degree in music marketing in Nashville to working as a graphic designer. Selling her art on the streets of Lisbon, Portugal, while living on 20 euros a day, to hitchhiking sailboats. The loss of her beloved grandmother. Mutiny, identity theft, going “missing at sea,” and van life on the streets of the Key West.

Today, things look a bit different. Claire lives aboard Mysto full time. She survives off of her seasonal job at West Marine in the Outer Banks.

With her homeport in Manteo on Roanoke Island, the voyage from Bellhaven to Oriental was Claire’s first time handling her boat alone.

Boo Radley reclines in the berth. A favorite quote adorns the headliner.

“I realized a lot on this trip,” she said. “I realized I need an auto pilot, and I still need to learn how to sail.”

Claire was raised in Norfolk, Virginia along with her brothers. When she was college bound, her parents moved full time to a beach house in Nags Head, North Carolina.

“My mom is a home renovation queen,” Claire says. “It didn’t click to me until I had this boat – that this is a high. Redoing these areas to make them look a certain way, I get it now. We really bonded over that.”

Claire got the idea to go sailing when her mom bought a rotten, 24-foot, weekender sailboat from the neighbor for $70, in hopes of turning it into a playground.

Claire had other ideas. She was intent on fixing it up and “sailing to the Caribbean.”

Peace on the companionway hatch.

After initial demolition on the boat, Claire needed a second opinion. She set out to find a sailor in town. It would be the first one she’d ever meet. Not too far from her age, with a modest boat and experience, he told Claire what she had been suspecting.

“He told me this boat was not worth it, but that he was sailing to the Caribbean on his boat if I wanted to go.”

Thinking this would be the best way to learn how to sail, she swiftly agreed. It was not the experience she’d hoped for.

Claire said the captain taught her nothing about sailing. Though he had an odd daily ritual of standing on deck with binoculars to make negative comments about a nearby vessel.

While on his boat Claire got news that the grandmother she adored, and once cared for, died from Parkinson’s Disease.

The sailor “never asked me how I was doing after she died. Not once.” Claire said. “I had literally met him one day before agreeing to this.”

This went on until they reached West Palm Beach, anchoring out near another cruiser.

Claire in her galley. A motivational quote decorates the drawer.

“I was crumbling,” Claire says. Despite her grandmother’s passing, “I really liked sailing and wanted to keep going. I didn’t want to go back to Tennessee or to my parent’s house.”

That’s when her travel companion started watching, and commenting on, their neighboring vessel. The boat had a wood turning shop astern, where the owner made wooden bowls. Claire joined the neighboring vessel for drinks, partying with them for an evening. Her sailor declined the invite, she said, then served Claire notice to disembark the next morning.

What followed was chaos.

Suddenly homeless, Claire joined the crew of the wood turning boat. She decided not to inform her family of the change. Claire continued to travel in Florida … her purse was stolen in Miami. And with it, her phone and all her – and her parents’ – personal information.

The thieves used the information to rack up debts, drain accounts, and text her parents saying Claire had been kidnapped. A Coast Guard investigation and a word-of-mouth sighting of Claire with her new crew had the family back in contact and things soon sorted out.

“I was fine,” Claire says. “I wasn’t lost at sea or kidnapped.”

Mysto looking a little plain on the outside.

A mermaid fender.

She returned to Tennessee and began looking for cheap boats online back in Nags Head.

That’s when she found the vessel that would become Mysto. She sent her little brother to buy the boat for her immediately.

“I moved back to the Outer Banks to learn how to do this for real,” Claire said. “I thought I would go to the Caribbean right away, but that was two years ago.”

The new boat’s engine, a Universal M18 diesel, wouldn’t start. Her water system and electrical needed to be replaced. It was intimidating, so she began with interior renovations to build confidence. Then started small with fluid and filter changes on the engine, removing the injectors to have them serviced.

It wasn’t the end of Claire’s engineering woes. A hurricane ripped the cleats out of her bow and unraveled her shrouds. When the storm cleared, Claire and her mom motored three days up the Pamlico River to drop the mast at a boatyard in Little Washington.

She started living on her boat in the boatyard, and got a job at West Marine – for the discount and experienced rigging department.

After months making repairs, rewiring, re-rigging entirely on her own, Claire launched in summer 2024. Headed back to Manteo with a friend aboard, she raised the sails for the first time. Everything was perfect, she said, until the engine cut out.

Rainbows and Blackbeard.

“I think I’m really going to the Caribbean this time,” Claire said. “I’m gaining all this confidence, I’m like, ‘I’ll just sail into my slip.’”

Claire crashed into the dock – hard. Leaving Mysto with a seven-inch hole in the bow. For the repair, she’d have to detach her brand new forestay and roller furling system from the deck, and tie it off. The Outer Banks, known for being pummeled by weather, was no safe haven.

Everything loosened in a storm. The jib was torn to shreds. The foil snapped. The halyard, broken.

With no safe way to climb the mast, and unwilling to return to the boatyard, Claire tracked down a bucket truck to replace her halyard. The foil she did from deck, “backwards and up the mast.” She replaced an impeller, hoping that would solve it for the engine.

Finally ready to depart the tropics, Claire posted to her social media and got an offer for crew. Reina, another woman fixing up her sailboat on her own in Southport, SC joined Mysto, Claire, and dog Boo Radley in the Outer Banks at the end of January.

Claire details her sailing adventures.

As they left, the steering wheel broke. They drifted onto a sand bar. They tried to leave again – and the engine started filling the cabin with thick black smoke.

Claire found a local mechanic who removed the riser, an “S” shaped pipe in the coolant system. Part of it crumbled in his hand.

“My coolant had bubbled so bad it turned black and filled my entire boat with black smoke,” Claire says. “The coolant is supposed to be pink!”

The mechanic welded her a new riser, but it took three weeks. Claire quickly installed it. She and Reina tried to leave again, but there was still black smoke. They turned back.

That night Claire stayed up all night attempting repairs. To the point where she could no longer move her hands. She and Reina decided to take it slow and give it one more shot. The engine purred without smoking, and the crew on Mysto pushed on with the Caribbean still in mind.

Boo Radley watches Claire make coffee.

What they thought would be one day winter trip to Bellhaven turned into three. Anchored every night on the Alligator River with no functional dinghy, no heater, and still no idea how to sail – a different reality set it. The crew arrived in Bellhaven and Reina departed after six weeks aboard Mysto.

“Reina helped make everything really colorful again,” Claire said. “She stuck by me through all that. I don’t think I would have made it off the dock this winter without her.”

Still taking it easy on the engine and fighting head winds, Claire made it to Oriental in two days. Having done perpetual coolant changes since Manteo, she was happy to report that the coolant was a light pinkish brown by the time she reached the town dock.

“Having something that you’re so passionate about, that you’re willing to learn plumbing, electricity, mechanics, rigging – it gives you STEM [science tech engineering math] skills,” Claire said.

Claire and Boo Radley in the berth.

“As a woman, we don’t have enough that encourages us to get STEM skills. Boats facilitate those skills because giving up is just not an option.”

From Oriental, she said she hopes to get to Southport. To meet back up with Reina, and help work on her friend’s boat.

Claire will return to her slip and job at West Marine in the Outer Banks for the summer. After hurricane season she said, she will try again.

“I’ve been thinking I’m one fix away from leaving for the Caribbean for two years,” Claire said. “I just want to put my sails up and keep going a little bit at a time. See how far it takes me.”

Claire Forehand and Boo Radley.

Posted Wednesday June 4, 2025 by Allison DeWeese

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