I will now talk about my compromise boat that is named after my beloved mother-in-law. I didn't get the pontoon party boat, but my husband, Charles, kindly converted a forty-year old racing Stiletto sailboat into a party boat for me.
I was going to Tanzania for a consultancy with UNICEF. Our daughter, Bronwyn, was living and working in Tanzania with USAID. Charles had a public health consultancy in Rwanda. We were all in relative proximity and thus made plans to meet up for a family weekend together in Dar es Salam on March 10, 2017.
Just before my flight to Tanzania, I received an email from Bronwyn. "Don't worry, mom, I have the perfect "compromise" and I've set everything up for you to see it when Dad flies in from Rwanda." She was talking about my boat, of course.
The "solution" was a 30 foot, racing catamaran with an open deck that had been converted to a party boat by a mutual friend, Brian. Brian purchased the boat in South Africa and had two near death experiences trailering it back to Tanzania from South Africa.
Brian made modifications to his boat including cutting off two feet of mainsail and raising the boom, the one big item that imperils passengers when the wind shifts. Having a reduced sail lessens the speed, but party goers keep their heads. Brian also added a wheel, instead of steering with a tiller, and all the comforts I was looking for –cushioned seats, canopy, swim ladders, grill, and bar. The trampoline transformed into a spot for sun bathing, reading or cooling off when the boat was under sail. He named it the "One and Only."
Charles arrived in Tanzania and the next day we motored out to the "One and Only", which was moored in the Dar es Salaam yacht basin. It was love at first sight. My delight grew over a beautiful day on the water. I wanted the "Two and Only".
We sailed out to the islands over aquamarine waters. Brian grilled steaks and veggies. He shared his colorful story about bringing the boat overland from South Africa, and, yes, we drank wine and read books. Brian anchored and we snorkeled over a reef.
While some of us were swimming Charles stayed on board to chat with Brian. Bronwyn had strategized with Brian about how he could market the idea of buying a similar boat for our coastal home in North Carolina. Charles told Brian that he liked the boat, an "Elf" made in South Africa. However, the Elf was too big to pull out and trailer on the streets of Beaufort which would be necessary during mandatory boat removals from the water with impending hurricanes. The mast was too tall to pass under the power lines and the width surpassed a road lane.
That's when Brian presented his linchpin selling point. By removing the hard deck and lowering the mast, you can pull the pontoons together using a telescoping device. The narrow boat then fits on a trailer that can be transported by road and under electrical wires. Charles immediately donned snorkel gear and swam under the boat to investigate. Brian told him that he thought there were some Elfs in the U.S. and there was also a similar boat, the Stiletto, made in the U.S. that Charles could consider.
The swimmers surfaced and climbed back on the boat when we spotted a curtain of jelly fish coming our way. Perhaps this was an omen: Remember that beautiful things do not come without a price.
Back in Rwanda, Charles spent his leisure time, on-line, looking for an African-made Elf, but was unable to find any for sale in the U.S. Then he searched for a Stilleto, which is similar to the Elf, with an open deck and no cabin. He found a used boat in Kansas, but it was sold before he could buy it.
When returning to the US just before Memorial Day, he had a layover in the Atlanta Airport. There he saw a new posting for a 1981, 27ft Stiletto for sale in Punta Gorda, Fla, complete with trailer, 8' dingy and outboard motor for $3,000 less than the one in Kansas! So he called Warren, the owner, from the airport, and bought it unseen.
He had to wait for a month to retrieve the boat while he got our house ready for the Old Homes Tour and to take care of me, post hand surgery. On June 27 he drove down to Punta Gorda, with his sailing buddy Claud Davidson from Wilmington. They arrived in Punta Gorda
on June 28 and met Warren and went for a sail. Beautiful.
On the 29th, Claud and Charles arrived at 7 am to take the boat out of the water and collapse it for the trip north. As mentioned, the Stiletto consists of two hulls, connected by two big tubes, which, when you take off the deck, can telescope together to reduce the width from 14 feet to eight feet, so you can take it on a trailer. The Stiletto company says that with practice, you can do this in one hour. Warren suggested that they allow three hours and could then be on the road before it got too hot in south Florida.
Well, it took them 1 1/2 days to get it on the trailer and ready for the road. During the process, they dropped a hull off the trailer and had to search for an engine hoist to rent in order to get it back up. They discovered that it does get hot in southern Florida toward the end of June, and when it rains, it rains hard!
Charles and Claud had to rewire the trailer lights to make it legal, which they did in the Walmart Superstore parking lot, the only place big enough to park the 30-foot trailer and Charles's pick-up all together taking up to six parking spaces. Finally, they got on the road around noon on Friday June 30, just in time for 4th of July traffic.
They found that they couldn't go any faster than 35 miles an hour because the boat is so light that the trailer started to shimmy at 45 mph. Fortunately, Highway 17 goes all the way from Punta Gorda to Jacksonville, NC, so they were able to stay off the interstate the whole way. They mainly stopped at Walmart superstores for the parking, or truck stops.
They spent the first night in Jacksonville Fla, at Claud's mother's house, and made it to Claud's house in Wilmington the second night. Finally, Charles got the boat home to Beaufort on the 2nd of July and put it in a boat lot where Charles keeps his 16ft Hobie on a trailer. The boat previously mentioned that turns over in shark infested waters.
Next he had to put it together again, and get it into the water. He worked on it at the boat yard. Friday July 7, he took it to the public boat ramp down the street from our house, aided by Claud, who drove up from Wilmington, determined to see it from purchase to launching in our Beaufort harbor.
My brother-in-law, Randy Moore, Tipper Davis, Scott Taylor and some other friends, met up at the boat ramp and started assembling it for the water. Tipper, a skilled boat builder and sailor, noticed that a key stainless steel bar, which holds up the mast, was cracked. If that were to fail, the mast would fall and maybe the whole boat would be destroyed.
Fortunately, we have an expert marine metal machinist in our town, Fred Lindow, and he was able to machine two new parts in two hours. Amazing work! Unfortunately, Charles had one of the sails in the back of his pickup, and in his rush to pick up the part at Fred's, the sail blew out of the truck, and hasn't been seen since. It was the Genoa with roller furling, which is perfect for the Stiletto. Another cost to the boat restoration.
Charles was forced to leave the boat on the trailer at the public boat ramp Friday night, which is illegal. Saturday morning, he and his stalwart friends were able to get the mast up, the trampoline laced and finally launched the boat. Backing up a 30 ft. trailer down a boat ramp required a lot of trial and error on day one. It's a skill well-honed at this point but that day was a circus. My job was feeding the guys and keeping them in cold drinks.
In those days it was still legal to moor a boat in Taylor's Creek, which had been another of Bronwyn's brilliant ideas about how once obtained, the boat wouldn't cost us a penny to float it. She suggested we just moor it on Taylor's Creek at the end of our street, and therefore save a monthly docking fee, which can run $500 per month. She reasoned that Charles could kayak out to the boat or take the dingy, climb on board and sail it over to shore to pick up passengers and picnic supplies.
While Charles was making initial repairs on the boat, he hired a guy to install a mooring ball for us. The guy had many failed attempts claiming that the water was too cloudy from a recent storm and other excuses. Finally, he said, "Look, you see that mooring, just next to where we will put yours. I installed that and know the guy, He's not using it. Just hook up your boat there."
After launching the boat Charles motored the boat down to the mooring just off shore from the end of our street. It didn't take long before the belligerent (wild man) owner came and cursed Charles until he untied our boat.
We were forced to find an official dock. At first we worked out a good solution where we docked during summer months, meanwhile renting a low cost trailer space up the inter-coastal waterway where we could pull out the boat in winter and during hurricanes. Well, the first hurricane came and the owner of the boatyard wouldn't let us pull out the boat because of his insurance policy. We were literally and figuratively up the creek.
Fortunately, Charles found another private marina which allowed him to leave the boat on the trailer in a field with the mast up during the hurricane.
Claud came up from Wilmington and his friend Robbie flew his plane down from Oxford, NC, to help us get the boat out of the water before the hurricane.
In docking and pulling the boat and trailer out, one of the marina’s dock lines was left on our boat. After Claud and Robbie left, Charles returned the line to the marina, apologizing that it was hard to get good help. One of Charles's helpers being a Senior DEA Officer and the other an astronaut! “That’s all we need to know” was the marina worker's response.
In a twist of events, that hurricane missed Beaufort and aimed for Oxford, so while Robbie was down helping us, his wife was left to deal with her own hurricane preparations, four hours inland from Beaufort.
Having now been through several hurricanes, we now dock the boat full time at the Beaufort Yacht Basin. Our free mooring, to our modestly cost summer docking solution evolved into a requirement to rent full-time in order to guarantee the space. Recently, the monthly fee increased from $300 to $500. In addition, we have to pay boat yard rental for the trailer and a place to take the boat during hurricanes. But it's a great place, biking distance from home, and the manager, Jerry Gilligan is sweet and a colorful storyteller.
At every turn where the little used boat has now accrued the expenses of a yacht, Charles reminds me of the old adage, "A boat is a hole in the water into which you throw money."
Once he had mooring and storage resolved, he had to begin work on renovations. He had to raise the boom and re-rig the boat from a tiller steerage to a helm using a unique set of pulley's that our son, Chas, devised for him. The solution works great although most sailor's scratch their head when Charles tells them how he rigged it, having never seen such a method.
There were also a few mishaps. One being the time Charles was trying to tighten the stays holding up the mast (because it rattled). He was sitting in a bosun's chair attached to the top of the 40-foot mast adjusting the turnbuckle at the top of the fore stay, while his "helper" was at the bottom tasked to tighten the pins on the side stays. The plan was for Charles to be pulled up, loosen the turnbuckle, go back down, adjust the pins and then go back up and retighten the turnbuckle. But his helper said he could handle it if Charles leaned in a helpful direction to provide some slack.
The starboard shroud was tightened, but something went awry with the port shroud. Charles was horrified to see the stay pop out of the helper's hand and the whole mast fell, with Charles dangling from the top, like a lure on a fishing pole. He went over the sail boat docked next to ours and bounced off a trawler before landing on the narrow finger pier between the two boats. 911 was called, he was strapped to a back board and rushed to the hospital by ambulance. After two cat scans and three X rays the doctors were amazed that nothing was broken, so sent him home. I was out of town but he called me from the emergency room once he was released from the back board. Charles has a habit of doing really dangerous things while I am away.
The boat was finally repainted, beautiful (expensive) seat cushions custom designed, and trimmed burgundy to match the sail edgings and cover and a small collapsible table constructed for the bottle and glasses. Charles bought a sewing machine for sail-making and made the hatch covers and a stack pack to keep the main sail out of the sun, when lowered. He added his personal logo, a Pre-Columbian pelican to the sail. With a new sail and new motor and new hatch covers, we sailed off on our beautiful sailing-party boat. Finally, we had the boat just like we wanted it; and we were both happy with the results.
Charles ordered the graphics and lovingly installed his mother's name on his finished product, now referred to as Deborah's party boat. He also made a wind vane to commemorate the boat.
The Sara Grace was doing wonderfully. That is until we took a voyage out to the Cape Lookout lighthouse last summer, the day before Hurricane Isiais, with Dan and Chinatsu, colleagues from USAID Nepal, who were staying with us as COVID refugees.
We were sailing on a broad reach along the coast in the Atlantic Ocean when, without warning, the mast fell down! Miraculously, no one was hurt. Part of the top deck of the starboard pontoon was ripped off, but the boat still floated. Charles tried to get the mast back on the boat and the sails off, but the waves and wind were pushing us toward the beach and breakers.
He anchored and finally had to detach the mast and drop it to the bottom, but only after attaching an orange life jacket and white fender (buoy) to the lines at the top and base of the mast. We were able to motor back to the marina with a gaping hole in the boat, followed by the Tow Boat US, an emergency towing service that we purchase annually.
The day after the hurricane, our good friend, Stan Harman, was commandeered to take Charles in his motor boat to see if they could recover the sail. They anchored on the sound side of Shackelford Island and hiked over the island to the ocean side where he thought it was located.
Charles brought along a 140 feet length of (heavy) rope that he hoped to tie to the mast and drag it out. Stan was recovering from hip surgery. After a two-mile jaunt further down the beach, they saw the floats.
Charles swam out to the floats with snorkel and fins, just a little farther than the length of his rope, in ten feet of water. He discovered that the mast seemed unbroken but covered with sand from the hurricane, as was the sail.
The next day he used duct tape to reattach the top of the pontoon and motored the Sara Grace out to the ocean side of the island to get the main sail and assess the situation. Wearing diving gear, he used two tanks of air just to detach the main sail from the mast because the mast sail track was filled with sand. He was pleased to discover that the mast was in one piece, although full of sand. If the mast had broken, the boat would be truly unsalvageable.
Charles discussed the recovery operation with Tipper who recommended Dead Cow Enterprises for recovering the mast. The name, alone, assured Charles that these guys would do anything. He called them up and they agreed to help him reclaim the mast for $2,500.
The mast was located just off shore of the national park. Charles spent several days trying to contact the park service thinking that if they demanded the removal, then perhaps the insurance company would pay for it. But park rangers were busy after the hurricane and he never got any official warning from them but in this case he had high hopes that he would.
He called Progressive Insurance, which had the liability and collision policy on the Sara Grace. He told them he had a liability issue with the boat and gave them the cost of hoisting the mast from the National Park shoreline. The agent was unsure about such a claim and said she would talk to her supervisor. Five minutes later Charles got a call from the agent. "My supervisor said get the mast, now, and we will pay."
Dead Cow Enterprises had a 30-foot skiff with a 150 HP Yamaha outboard motor, that the owner, Craig, steered with a tiller, which most boat captains would describe as insane. But then, again, this is just the kind of guy willing to take on our job.
They motored out to the site. Craig dove down to attach lines to the mast and they tried to pull it up with a floatation bag designed to lift 250 pounds. The mast normally weighs 130 pounds but it was now full of sand. The 250-pound lift bag didn't budge it. They shimmied and pulled for a couple hours and finally got it off the bottom of the sea.
They motored over to nearby Cape Lookout, which was shallow and calm. From there they were able to wade in and drag the mast onto the boat. They motored back to Jarret Bay where Dead Cow docks the skiff and tried to use a small forklift to pick up the mast, but the weight of the mast lifted the fork lift in the air. Eventually they got the mast to shore and onto Charles's trailer and he then spent several days flushing out the mast with water to remove the sand.
The costs kept mounting. To see the boat back to original condition, if not better, involved contracting fiberglass experts to reattach and strengthen both hulls. Charles did most of the other work himself including replacing hardware, sanding and repainting the mast, painting the boat, and installing a new roller furler, and graphics. The total costs for repairs came to $11,600. The boat was insured for $10,000 which is what Charles originally paid for the boat.
Since repairs cost more than the boat's value, the insurance company would typically declare it a total loss, pay the insurance claim, and take the boat. But Charles called the insurance company with this plea: He told them that he was an old man and could not go through the work of remodeling an old boat again. He loved this boat and had put so much sweat equity into it. He did not want them to declare it totaled, but wanted them to give him the amount they thought would be fair, short of calling it a total wreck.
The Progressive Agent listened to his story and told him to send his claim receipts. They would consider his request. To Charles's utter amazement he received a check a few days later covering the total amount of the repairs, which was more than the boat was insured. Charles immediately called the insurance company, thanked them profusely, and upped his insurance coverage.
Like Sara Grace, our boat knows tragedy and joy. It is graceful and beautiful, a princess on the water. It always rises again.
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