Oct 2017. And now I must tell the story of this sailboat. This all takes place back in late 2010, early 2011.
Oct 2017. And now I must tell the story of this sailboat. This all takes place back in late 2010, early 2011.
At the time I had in my possession three motorcycles. One was Harley Davidson Sportster, another was a Suzuki Intruder, very much like a Sportster in appearance, and the third was a Big Harley. I came to the decision that I had too many motorcycles, and since I had earlier divested myself of my old 1972 inboard-outboard boat, I thought I would like to get a simple little aluminum fishing boat with an outboard motor. The inboard-outboard was just too complicated and expensive when things broke, and it was a heavy fiberglass boat.
First I tried to sell the Sportster for around $2000, but no one was interested in buying it. So I put an ad in Craigslist to trade one of my motorcycles for an aluminum fishing boat. Well, the responses to the ad were anything but. I got offers for guns, pickups, and junk, but no fishing boat. Finally a fellow offered me this sailboat, and I was very interested in seeing it. It was permanently berthed about an hour and a half away at a marina on an island in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta. The monthly rental was $300 and the boat needed some work to be seaworthy, but it was beautiful and I as eager to learn to sail so I made the deal.
Soon I was traveling an hour each way every weekend to the Delta to my boat and working on all the items that needed to be fixed. There was electrical wiring, I had to arrange to get an outboard motor for it, but the biggest challenge was that the main mast and all of its rigging and cables had been lowered to the deck for some repairs. As the weeks rolled on I realized that the buckets of hardware and clevises and clamps and cables were a tangled mystery that was not unraveling on its own.
I needed to hoist the mast, which weighed several hundred pounds in my estimation, and I approached a large marina that had giant cranes that they used to hoist 50 foot cabin cruisers out of the water.
"We don't work on sailboats. Insurance. Too risky". And the marina owner where
I was berthed was also unhelpful and rude. "Find a bridge and anchor under it
and winch the mast up". I was at a loss and not finding anyone interested in
helping me.
Winter approached and with it the rain, and I thought is wise to create a tent of plastic tarpaulins draped over the lowered mast to shed water from entering the cabin . There was an automatic electric bilge pump in the keel compartment to pump out any water that accumulated, but the tent would reduce the load on the pump. That winter we had unusually heavy rains, but I stopped visiting every weekend because there was little I could do.
On New Years Day in 2011, after we had had a week of very heavy rains, I got a phone call from the marina. "Your boat is sunk. When are you going to get it out of here"? It was that rotten harbormaster. It was almost as if he was gloating. I visited the marina and saw my boat sunk at the pier and I noticed someone has unplugged the automatic bilge pump. For several weeks I frantically contacted salvage companies, while I got harassing calls from the harbormaster every few days. Finally I put an ad in Craigslist describing the boat and offering to give it away to anyone who could raise it up and take it away. Meanwhile I was still being charged the monthly berth rental. I contacted my insurance company but they would not give me a straight answer as to whether the salvage would be covered by my insurance
Finally I got an offer from a pair of brothers who were experienced divers and who had recently raised a big 60-foot double-engined cabin cruiser sunk in the Sacramento River. We negotiated the terms and settled on a $2000 valuation for the boat, to which they would receive title after they raised and transported it away.
On a rainy miserable February day the brothers began the raising by diving under the boat and ringing it with large "inner tubes" which were then inflated to lift the boat. I watched the operation from afar until they got the cabin above water, and I left. I hated that harbormaster so much I wouldn't go near him.
Weeks later I got an invoice from the brothers which charged me $2000 for the salvage, and a separate bill of sale crediting me $2000 for the title transferring possession to them. The whole thing was a wash. I turned the salvage invoice over to my insurance company and to my surprise they reimbursed me $2000.
I used the money to buy
an aluminum fishing boat with an outboard motor.
And I learned that I'm no Popeye the Sailor Man, with or without spinach.