Sailboats of summer dot our vista once more, rekindling our romance with sailing ships and the sea.

Singer-songwriter David Crosby was known for a lot of things: pure vocals as part of Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young; thoughtful songs as a solo artist; and a downward spiral into drug addiction that landed him in a Texas jail.

But many don’t know that through it all, Crosby remained a topnotch, oceangoing sailor who knew the romance of sailing and the sea.

In fact, Crosby so loved his two-masted schooner, Mayan, that after decades of adventure together, he sadly had to let her go.

He told CBS News that he had been sailing since age 11, and in the late 1960s, headed to Florida with $25,000 borrowed from his friend, Peter Tork of the Monkees, where he found the boat of his dreams for sale among the palms of Fort Lauderdale.

Crosby wrote in his autobiographies (“Long Time Gone” and “Since Then: How I Survived Everything and Lived to Tell About It”) of his love for the 74-foot John Alden 356-B Centerboard schooner, built in 1947.

A classic wooden boat, it featured teak decks and beautiful Honduran mahogany throughout, while the cabin was adorned with leaded glass skylights. Sixteen feet across at its widest point, the cabin was comfortable and roomy.

A boat for serious sailors, Mayan required a crew of three to operate and slept eight.

From Florida, Crosby sailed the Caribbean, getting a feel for the vessel. Then, with Mayan fully provisioned, crew and a bevy of rock and roll ladies on board, they raised sail for California.

Customs and Immigration officials missed the contraband on board in Jamaica, but they were arrested on a Mexican beach for public nudity. Bribing their way out of jail, they sailed on to Sausalito, California, where Crosby began living on the schooner full-time in 1970.

The vessel was his muse, inspiring songs including “The Lee Shore”, “Page 43” and “Carry Me”, all composed on board.

The song “Wooden Ships” was written in Mayan’s cabin with Stephen Stills and Paul Kantner of Jefferson Airplane.

In the 1970s, Mayan embarked on a voyage to Hawaii, a 3,000-mile, 28-day journey. A storm “blew out the spinnaker”, but the intrepid Mayan sailed on. Crosby navigated by the stars, maintaining a dead-on course for the old whaling port of Lahaina, on Maui.

Crosby writes: “It was mystical, sailing under the clearest skies in the world. Heaven, just Heaven. It was probably one of the happiest times of my life, ever”.

From Hawaii, Crosby sailed on to the South Seas and the Tahitian Islands under the Southern Cross, inspiring passenger Stephen Stills to write the song of the same name.

In his second autobiography, Crosby describes leaving Mayan with nomadic friends during his 18-month prison term for drugs and weapons convictions. Released in 1987, he located the schooner languishing in Florida, in terrible shape.

The ailing boat was delivered to a boatyard in Palm Beach, where it was completely rebuilt from the ribs up.

Years passed and Crosby, reaching age 73, faced a perfect storm of age, health issues and bad fiscal management.

A Santa Cruz Sentinel article in 2015 reported how he reluctantly found a buyer and, after 47 years together, cast her off for the last time, to the tune of $750,000.

In a pre-concert interview last year, Crosby sadly lamented that Mayan needed more than he could afford to give.

Though he still loved her, their long-time romance with wind on the water was over.

You can contact John Steward at tossinglines@gmail.com and visit www.johnsteward.online