I Helped Someone!

That's right. Unlike most of my other posts, this one is not about how something broke on the boat, or some bone-headed thing I did, and how some complete stranger helped me fix the problem I created. This post is about how I helped Leon and Kim get their boat free from being hard aground. Leon fashioned a harness which he connected to his mast halyard and with the harness attached to my boat, I heeled them over and they pulled themselves off with their anchor winch.

Although as Amy pointed out in an email:

Me:

I think it's my fault (they're aground). I was ahead of them. We had talked about where to anchor. I pulled in and saw that the depths were not good. I should have called them, and would have, but they arrived more quickly than expected. I tried to tow them off, but they are hard aground. I've already forgotten what a pain in the ass that is in a monohull.

Amy:

oh that stinks. Now that you're not in a boat that goes aground, you're making other people do it!


Their boat is beautiful. They bought it three years ago, and immediately hauled it out of the water to work on it. Supposedly, most everything on the boat had been in fairly decent condition, but they ended up replacing most of it anyway. It's incredible inside. At dinner last night, I felt like I was at a tiny bed and breakfast. Leon did the woodwork in the boat himself, and it's really nice. Kim did the upholstery. They have a little stove that puts off a lot of heat, and looks like a miniature wood stove with flames dancing inside, but I forget what it actually runs on. There's nothing more you might wish for on their boat, except maybe a shoal draft.

Their boat puts my boat to shame. But there is an old saw that a captain goes asea in the boat he has, not the boat he wishes for. I'm on this trip almost on a lark. Yah, I had been dreaming about it for years. And I was a hair away from doing it a couple years ago, but if you asked me in June what my plans for the Winter were, I would not have responded that I was going to the Bahamas in a sailboat.

I've been looking at Gemini catamarans for a few years now. I forget when or how they first caught my eye. I saw this boat online about a year ago. It caught my eye because of the price. It was priced at the low end for Geminis, but reasonably for a classic Gem. As the months passed, the boat remained for sale, and the price dropped. Finally this Summer, the price dropped to an unheard of level for a Gemini. I knew that it had to sell now, regardless of the boat condition. I had a heart to heart talk with myself. Was I serious about this dream of the Bahamas, or was I just a poser? I called the number listed for the boat and set up an appointment to see it.

When I inspected the boat, I knew immediately why it hadn't sold. It hadn't even left the dock in at least five years. The steering was frozen, and who knew whether the engine would run. The owner wouldn't let me try to start it. The headliner inside was falling down, and the interior was decorated like your grandma's house. Nonetheless, it was a Gemini, and had good bones. I knew there wasn't anything on the boat that I am not capable of dealing with, or learning how to deal with. I made the owner an offer with a further reduction to the unheard of price. I told her that I would pay cash for the boat, "as is, where is", without a professional inspection or demand that anything be fixed. I think she had just reached a level of frustration with trying to sell the boat, and she immediately accepted the offer.

There's another old saw, that it's easy to buy a boat, but difficult to sell a boat. I think that's because of sellers' unreasonable expectations of price. The owner has usually loved the boat and put a lot of time and money into it. The owner expects to recoup a lot of that money at sale. Well, that's unlikely to happen. The number of people looking to buy a boat at any one time is small, and the number of boats for sale is much larger.

I have dreams of fixing up this boat, like I fixed up my house. I bought both of them very cheaply, from frustrated owners, and they both had good bones when I bought them. Unfortunately, I'm getting the feeling that the experience with the boat is going to be more like my experience with my old pickup. I've basically driven my pickup into the ground. It still runs, and is sitting in grampa's backyard during the trip. I'd get rid of it, if anything significant broke on it, like the clutch or engine. But everything that breaks seems to cost me about fifteen dollars for the part, and is something I can fix myself.

I think there may be a lesson in this post for people trying to sell their house in this crummy market. You might want to price your house reasonably. Otherwise, it probably won't sell for months, and it will be for a price a lot lower than you would have gotten had you priced reasonably to begin with. And it will sell to a douche bag like me. But I thank you for it.

OK, off to fix the swim ladder which tore away from the hull yesterday.