Death of a dream.

As you have probably figured out if you are a long time reader of my drivel, I am a sailboat guy.

Over the past couple of weeks I believe I have been watching the death of a dream. It's truly been sad to watch and there's nothing I can do about it.

I have been baby sitting a tank vessel for some time now and across the channel someone tied up a pretty 30is footer up against an unused semi abandoned dock and got off of it.

Now there are a couple of good sized marinas within sight of where I sit and at least one of them had a yard where someone could put a boat like that up in the yard, or 'up on the hard' as sailormen say.

Instead the owner tied it up and bailed out if I am not mistaken. My guess is that he ran out of money somewhere along the line or he'd have put that pretty little boat either in one of the marinas or up on the hard somewhere.

I bought my cruiser, Karen Lee, in Everett, Washington and sailed her to Port Townsend and put her on the hard there and flew back to Kodiak to earn enough money to take her home with me.

It was depressing watching her sink over the period of several days.

The boat is for all practical purposes destroyed.

Of couse some wide-eyed idiot will ask, "Why doesn't he just pump it out? It's exposed at low tide."

Fact is, if he does he's in for a damned expensive overhaul that will take forever. Everything electric or electronic is destroyed and all the wiring will have to be replaced. This includes the starter for the engine which also will need an overhaul.

It will take forever to dry the insides out and every single piece of wood will be watersoaked. Cabinets and veneers will warp as will interior hatches and bulkheads. Even if you park it in Arizona to dry out nothing will ever be the same.

All of the joinery, the hatches, drawers and bulkheads will probably warp and heve to be either reworked ot replaced.

Actually to do it right you'd probably want to gut the entire thing and start with a fiberglass shell and replace everything. 

It would arguably be cheaper simply to buy a different boat on the used market.

It looks to me like the end of someone's dream and that IS sad.

Here's what she looks like at low tide. At high tide you only see her mast. So sad.

 

To find out why the blog is pink just cut and paste this: http://piccoloshash.blogspot.com/2009/12/my-feminine-side-blog-stays-pink.html NO ANIMALS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF TODAY'S ESSAY