“Why don’t you come to the pool? It’s quite comfortable.”
“I’m not a pool person. How’s your boat?”
“I think you should hire me as your project manager when I retire.”
“You need to leave. You don’t like the work we do and now you tell me that you we don’t manage well. I think it’s time you need to leave.”
There was, of course, more. But that day, my grandkids and I were thrown out of the pool and I was told to leave the marina before 30 August, one month away.
Problem is, my boat is dismasted. As part of the plan to have all the major work done before I retire, I was having the rigging replace. So I not only had to move my boat, but I had to find a way to move the mast.
Phone calls started. Text messages started.
First I had to find a place for the mast. I wasn’t leaving the marina without it. I had work planned for the middle of August at another marina. So I called them first. They were able to move things around to be able to take my mast and store it until I showed up for the other work I had scheduled. They could also handle stepping my mast.
It was suggested that, like when one goes down the Great Loop, I put the mast on the boat with a framework.
This was the least expensive option. But it involved getting a frame constructed. And I didn’t want to, didn’t have the time to, do that.
See, part of the problem is that my daughter is getting married next weekend. I wanted to have this all taken care of before family started arriving. And I do have a real job that helps pay for my expensive habit. I didn’t want to take a lot of days off of work to take care of this.
A friend I texted suggested a moving company that handles unusual moves. I called them. They reconnaissanced at both the marina the mast was currently and the marina where the mast would be moving to. They said they could move it for $600, which I thought was quite reasonable. << shout out to Seaford Transfer!
I also had a text message going with friends I thought might be able to help me move the mast onto the trailer. See, the marina owner also told me that, not only could we not use the pool, they would not help me move the mast. Sigh!
I checked online to figure out what my mast would weigh. 600 lbs! But the friend who’d suggested the moving company also said that seemed a bit high. His estimate was 2-300 lbs.
I had 5 friends who said they could help with the move.
Two of them, Jodi and Steve, arrived early to help get some moving blankets wrapped around the mast and wrap the entire mast with rope to hold up the rigging.
We got it onto the truck and headed out.
I drove towards the new marina. On the way, I got a phone call from them. Because it was so hot (heat index > 100 degrees), they were going to try to let their crew off an hour early. No problem. We were on our way. Next issue: they took lunch between noon and 1 pm. I was arriving at the new marina at noon. The truck was behind me. So I called Seaford Transfer and told them to wait before heading over.
I went to Cobb’s Marina and filled out paperwork. I then went down the street for lunch, figuring to come back at 1 pm to watch the unloading and to grab my friend’s blankets.
When I got back to Cobb’s, the truck and trailer were there. The driver said he’d gone back to the yard and added more straps to the mast. With the traffic starting to back up, he ended up getting to Cobb’s just after 1 pm.
I watched them unload the mast. Much easier with a crane than when we did it by hand.
The mast was taken care of. Now to take care of the boat. I had 2 weeks between now and my appointment to bring it to Cobb’s. I could go the Dockwa route. But that was expensive for just 2 weeks. I check with the marinas near me. Seaford Yacht Club had a couple of transient slips. I could get into one of those for $5/night plus $5/day for power. Deal! So Sunday, barring the storms that look to be brewing, I will be taking the boat to Seaford Yacht Club.
I bought a new boat a year ago. We’re still trying to figure each other out. In the meantime, I still have my old boat. I’ve tried selling her, but had no luck so far. Problem is, so I’m told, there are a lot of old boats out there, so it’s a buyer’s market. But I don’t want to donate her and risk having her scrapped for parts. She’s in too good a shape for that!
So this past year, I’ve been renting her out. It’s worked out fairly well. Most of the folks who have taken her out have absolutely loved her. They come back with stories of what a wonderful time they had aboard.
There’s the two doctors who decided they’d take their Wednesday off to go sailing. They came back and told me what a great boat she was. There’s the man, now taking part in the Clipper Round the World Race Who wanted to take his nephew out and introduce him to the sport. It was pretty breezy that day, but they went anyway. The nephew came back hooked on the sport. There’s the two young men who are trying to get their captain’s licenses and have been out a couple of times, trying to build their hours.
But keeping two boats means keeping up maintenance on two boats. And that can get expensive. Renting has covered 1/2 the slip fees, but not any of the other expenses. And, like an old house, an old boat has to be kept up to avoid bigger problems.
So, again, I’ll try to sell her. And again, I’ll hope to find her a good home. But if I can’t, I’ll keep her around another year and see how it goes.
This blog is about to take a slightly different turn. I’ve finally gone and done it. I bought a new boat. The new girl is a 1996 Jeanneau 36.2. And that’s why, at this writing, there’s a link to a page to try to sell the old one. Much as I love her, I’m realistic enough to realize I can’t afford 2 boats.
So, time to put a few repairs into the old one and to get to know the new one.
But what do I write about the old one? Well, not much to hide; anyone who reads this blog can find all the good and bad about the CAL in these ‘pages’. So let’s see what I’ll be doing, and have done.
Well, first the upper lifelines had to be replaced. I’d already replaced the lower ones last year. But the upper ones were worn, too. I also replaced the harness line that went near the toe rail. Unfortunately, I misjudged the size. So now I need to find someone to shorten it. Ah well!
And this winter was *wet*! That led to mildew inside, which I hadn’t seen in quite awhile! So I scrubbed and scraped the inside and painted it. This time, too, I removed all the wood trim. It’s in the backyard, has been stripped, and is now getting a new coat of varnish.
But what else will help it to sell? I’ve got the price set at about $4K below what I’ve seen comparable boats selling for. Hopefully, that will incentivize someone to take her home. But we’ll see. I’m waiting until I get the wood back in before I put it on the market.
And that’s the other thing. Where to sell it? I figure Good Old Boat is a good place, since folks reading that magazine are lovers of older sailboats. Others have suggested putting it on Craig’s List. Since it’s free, I might as well. But my guess it those are going to be folks looking for a bargain, that don’t necessarily know sailboats. But who knows. I could be wrong. Another place I’ve found is Sailboat Data. I didn’t realize it, but when I was looking for information on my current boat for listing and boats I was looking at to purchase, I saw that they have listings for boats as well. Worth a try!
But it’s selling a prize possession. You want to make sure it gets a good home. Hmmmm…. wonder if the prospective buyer will allow me to do a background check. What experience do they have? What courses have they taken? Where will they keep the boat? Will they keep her maintained as she should be?
I needed to clean the bottom of my boat. I could see the green slime on it as it sat there in the water. And the prop was getting sluggish, so I knew it was getting covered in barnacles. But there’s several problems with trying to get the bottom clean: the marina is out of the way and I have yet to find a licensed, bonded diver willing to come there to do the work. I had an unlicensed friend who did it once for me, as a favor, and the owner threw a hissy fit. He said that, even though I wasn’t paying the person, he had to use a tank (he was using one of those shore air pumps) and there had to be a dive flag. Mind you, I’d seen folks do their boats before a race and no one seemed to be following those rules. But my friend was unwilling to take a chance after that.
There was the option of having the boat ‘quick pulled’, pulled out of the water long enough for me to clean it, then dropping it back in. But that was going to cost $145. If it’s not cold enough to warrant that (too cold to get in the water), I didn’t want the expense.
A friend at work suggested that what he’d done before was to beach his boat – purposely run it aground – west of the channel where it was sandy, then you could walk around the boat and clean it. That sounded like a splendid idea!
My daughter and son-in-law have just moved back to the area. And my son-in-law, anxious to get in the water around here, offered to give me a hand.
The smart way to do this, I figured, was to beach the boat during a rising tide. That way, there was more water when you were done, making it easier to leave.
There was a small problem with all of this: the kids had church in the morning, and high tide was at 2 p.m. No problem, I figured. We wouldn’t be in the water long enough to lose too much depth, so it should be ok.
So this afternoon, we headed out in the boat. I took a left turn out of the channel, as suggested, then went forward until I felt the keel stop us. Then we put out the anchor, just to be safe, put the swimming ladder on the back, and climbed out.
We used some lufas for the slime and scrapers for the barnacles. The paint is still working well and there wasn’t too much slime. But the prop was just as bad as I suspected it would be. We scraped and cleaned and I headed back on the boat. Junior, my son-in-law, wanted to swim a bit longer, so he did which I went aboard and changed out of my swimsuit. He followed shortly afterwards, we pulled up anchor and tried to move off the sand.
We seemed to be making progress. I could see us moving closer to the crab pots we’d passed on the way to our grounding. Then we stuck. The ground must have risen a bit, because we got to the point where we stopped moving. I had everyone move to one side of the boat and we tried again. We moved a bit, but not far. So we tried it on the other side. No good. After about 1/2 an hour of this, I gave up and called Tow Boat US.
Luckily, after my last experience of needing to be towed, which cost me about twice as much as the insurance would, I had towing insurance. So this was not going to cost me a thing.
The tow boat arrived about 45 minutes – 1 hour later. We tied on his line and he started pulling. At one point, the boat started to heel over a bit and I got nervous. But it didn’t go over too far, so no problem, I thought. Then there was a jerk! We were so stuck that the clean broke off the boat!
At that point, we gave up. The tow boat operator took us all back over to the marina.
We talked abou the next step. Next high tide is tomorrow at 2:30 a.m., meaning the following one will be tomorrow afternoon.
I’m home right now. I’m writing this, trying to stay awake until 12:30 a.m. At that point, I’ll drive back over to the marina. I’ll meet the tow boat operator, who’ll motor with me back over to my boat and we’ll try again.
I spend alot of time sharing stories of sailing in adverse weather conditions. Thought I’d share one of the storm I missed!
As I’m now working about an hour from home for a supervisor who doesn’t understand why I might want to leave work by about 2 or 3 in afternoon in order to sail in these races, I’ve had to skip the last of the summer races and all of the fall series. So I was looking forward to the Frostbite series, since they’re held on on Sundays.
The Frostbite series is our late fall series. There’s just one class since few boats participate. But, as I said, I was glad to get a chance to go out and race again.
I’ve been using a water cooler this season, to avoid the bagful of plastic water bottles I usually pull off the vessel. I filled one up to bring along. I also filled up a couple of thermoses with hot water. I tried bringing coffee last year. But that wasn’t as popular as the hot chocolate for the crew. I do have some Starbuck’s Via on board, in case there’s a change in tastes.
I left about an hour early so I would have time to pick up gas for the engine (we’re using the outboard now – more on that later) and some more provisions at the store: gingersnaps, ice, and beef jerkey. As I was getting out of the car at the store, Erik called. He said there was a message on the phone from someone. He thought the race was cancelled, but he wasn’t sure. Well, I wasn’t sure if I’d have any crew, since I’d only gotten regrets from two people, and no confirmations, and it was a bit late to call anyone (and who would I call?) to cancel, so I finished getting provisions and headed over to the boat. Besides, I missed her and had to let her know I still loved her.
I got to the boat and started unloading things. When I was finished, the fire department had shown up with a rig and a power boat. I heard their radio chattering and paused to listen. Something about a cat or sailboat that had flipped and crew in the water. Remarks about trying to turn it upright.
Just about then, the crew from 3Stooges showed. They asked if I knew what was happening. I explained that the race might be cancelled due to lack of interest and that it seemed I had no crew anyway. They spoke about thinking they’d already signed up (insert good comedy routine to fit the boat name, without the violence). After some discussion, they decided to go out and try sailing a bit anyway.
Pause now. The weather: small craft advisory, 15 – 25 mph winds, 4′ waves in the lower bay. It was raining at the time. That doesn’t mean that it was that bad in the York River. But there was a craft capsized out there already.
So I went to 4 Degrees. I patched the small (about the size of a nickel) hole topside that was causing water to pour into the cabin. Not sure if I mixed the stuff right. But if it didn’t harden, it would at least keep the water out until I could put something better on. I got out the naval jelly that I’d purchased and scrubbed the rust off the sink in the galley and off the stove. I sprayed some Rustoleum on both to keep them from rusting again. I poured myself a rum and coke, started the Kindle on my ‘Droid, and read and watched the rain fall outside the cabin door.
About an hour an a half after they left, 3Stooges returned. I asked them how it was out there. They said they did get the mainsail up – for about 15 minutes. So I guess it was pretty nasty out there.
For a change then, I got to enjoy the inclement weather, from my dry cabin in the marina.
Oh, they did get the sailboat righted, and the crew was ok. I still don’t know who was out there.
