THE DREAM TURNS INTO A NIGHTMARE

Bob was busily getting ready to go up to Norfolk to sail his Stone Horse home with friend, Dick Ogus, during the week after Labor Day.  He had lists of supplies and tools he needed to bring and decided to go up to Norfolk for a day on Thursday, August 28th, to clean up the boat some and do a little maintenance for the trip.  He left very early and got to Norfolk mid-morning but it was already REALLY hot and working down below on the boat was exhausting.

He was trying to fix a problem on the diesel engine -- the water pump was not aligned properly so the belt was at an angle, but the engine hoses were all stretched tight and very old and brittle so he was unable to correct the alignment.  He did what he could and, dehydrated and whipped, decided to leave in the middle of the afternoon.  He would have liked to have closed the through-hull fitting for the engine intake but the valve was frozen and he was afraid to try to move it.

When he got home that evening he said he was having second thoughts about trying to sail the boat down because he didn't feel like he could trust the engine.  We discussed it and decided to look into options for shipping the boat down instead.  On Friday morning, we called a shipping company who said they could ship the boat down for $700 and we decided to do that.

Then on Friday evening (Labor Day weekend), Bob got a call from the former owner of the boat who told him the boat had sunk in the slip.  Bob was pretty distraught, not only because his dream boat was sunk but also because he worried that we wouldn't be able to find anyone to help raise it on Labor Day weekend and he thought he might have done something when he was up there (exhausted and dehydrated) that caused the sinking.  He kept going over his last moments on the boat before leaving and was sure he would have noticed if there were any leaks.

So Saturday morning we dropped Poppy (our dog) at the kennel and headed to Norfolk.  On the way, we talked to our friend Chris Siegel who had friends with a boat on the same dock as ours.  He gave us their contact info and we called them.  They knew of someone who worked with Towboat US in the area and called him for us.  By the time we got to the boat Saturday morning, Towboat US was on the scene.  This is what we saw:

After signing a contract to pay them about the same amount of money that we paid for the boat (gulp!), the guys started running straps under the hull and connecting them to come-alongs.  We stood in the hot sun watching them for most of the afternoon -- it was a slow process but little by little, the deck came up to water level.

Once the deck was above the level of the water, they started pumping water out and the boat came up much more quickly.

Once the boat was fully pumped out, the Towboat US captain checked down below and found that a nipple on the through-hull fitting had corroded and broken off, causing the leak.  It wasn't anything that Bob had done when he was there.  They sealed off the leak and towed the boat to Portsmouth Boating Center, just across the harbor.  We drove over there (it was now 5 PM on Saturday of Labor Day weekend) and the owner, assisted by a young college student who worked there, quickly got the boat into the travel lift and hauled it out.

We stayed and took a lot of the wet stuff off the boat -- we had to throw out all the cushions from down below (which were in pretty good condition before the sinking), though we were able to save the covers. We also threw out anything electrical, including some of Bob's tools.  We rinsed off everything we thought we could save and loaded it all in the back of the truck.  Then we headed out to find a hotel, a shower, a restaurant, a margarita, and dinner -- in that order!  We hadn't eaten since breakfast.

The next morning we went back to the boat to get the rest of the stuff out of it and left it to be rinsed  with fresh water.  We headed home, picked up our dog and started planning for getting the boat transported to Morehead City.

Because of the holiday, we had to wait until Tuesday to contact shipping companies.  Bob had decided, after much discussion of pros and cons, to have the boat unloaded in our yard instead of in the boatyard of our friends Billy and Roy, because the boatyard is a 25 minute drive away, which would make it harder for Bob to work on it.  In order to get it unloaded at our house, we had to have it delivered by a "hydraulic trailer", so we started calling for quotes.  The best deal was the shipper we had spoken to before the sinking.  For $800 they would deliver it to our yard.  It took a few days for the boatyard to get the mast and rigging off and packaged up for shipping so we weren't able to get it shipped until the following Tuesday (9/9).

The shipper arrived at 6:00 PM and our good friend Billy Burbridge came over to help with the unloading.  He and Roy also loaned us some stands to chock up the boat until Bob could build a cradle.  It took a while but the process went smoothly.

So that's the sad but true story of how Bob's dream boat, which he will need to work on all winter to get it in good condition, ended up costing us as much as a Stone Horse already in mint condition would have cost.  But that's water under the bridge (so to speak) and Bob is excited about working on it and I'm glad he'll have a project to keep him busy this winter.

Future entries in this blog will be shorter (unless there is another catastrophe - let's hope not!) but I will periodically chronicle his progress in restoring Prana to her former glory!

REALIZING A DREAM

After a very exciting Labor Day weekend with our new boat, I've decided that I need to chronicle the purchase, transport and renovation of "Prana" in a blog.
 
Most of you know that Bob Thomas loves sailing and traditional sailboats.  We have owned several -- a Chesapeake skipjack, a 60 year old wooden schooner and a steel Colvin Gazelle that Bob built himself.  But what you may not know is that about 40 years ago he saw a boat called a "Stone Horse" that was being introduced at a boat show in Newport, Rhode Island and he has loved and talked about that boat ever since.  Here are a couple of pictures of the Stone Horse at its best (these are NOT ours).

Since we sold our schooner in 2011, Bob has been perusing Craig's List, EBay and other sites, looking for a small boat that he can use locally, sail over to Beaufort, out to Cape Lookout or just go out for an evening sail.  He's looked at many different designs but always came back to the Stone Horse.  Until now, he never found one that was close enough to transport and within our budget.

A couple of weeks ago, he saw a Stone Horse for sale on eBay in Norfolk, VA for $4,200.  It sounded like a pretty good deal so he got his good friend (and boat expert) Chris Siegel to drive up there with him to take a look.  They agreed that the hull was sound, the tanbark sails were almost new and the diesel engine, though old, ran.  The negatives were that the boat had been neglected and needed a lot of cosmetic work; whoever had painted the interior had just cut all the wiring (and done a terrible job of painting) so everything would need to be rewired; and there was a lot of brightwork, including the wooden mast, that would need to be sanded and varnished.  The boat was on a condo dock in downtown Norfolk.

So, he decided to go for it and we made the "buy it now" bid on eBay and started the ball rolling.  The following weekend on our way up to visit the kids in Maryland, we stopped in Norfolk and met the owner to exchange money and paperwork.   Bob planned to sail it to Morehead City with a friend in a couple of weeks.  If you haven't ever seen my husband when he has a new project and is "on a mission", it's a sight to behold.  He was getting the boat of his dreams!