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!