This is a picture of my 4th sailboat. I have purchased each boat with dreams of sailing off for an extended time, possibly never coming back to reality.
My first boat was a storm-damaged boat with a 4 foot gash in the side, an old 25' Hunter. It was almost free, but there was a lot of work to get her ready for sailing. I didn't even try to work on the gash, I hired a fiberglass guy for that - he made it bulletproof at that spot. This was my boat to learn on and decide if I really wanted to go cruising. It didn't take much to convince me and I was trying to convince my partner we needed to take a few months and sail to the Keys to see how great it was. He told me it wasn't big enough to travel in.
OK, so I started looking at bigger boats. I had convinced him that we needed to sell everything and visit the Caribbean in our own boat. He went along with the plan, probably assuming I'd never get it all together. The next boat I found was a 35' Morgan, an oldie, but solid. It was in my price range and so I made a low offer and it was accepted.
In the meantime, I had sold the Hunter - on time payments. Great idea, I ended up repossessing it one cold winter evening - but that's another story. It wasn't easy to resell, this time for cash, I made pretty good money on that little boat.
So, after a couple years of getting the Morgan ready for cruising and having multiple garage sales to get rid of everything, I was ready to leave. I left my rental property in the hands of a supposedly good rental management company. We sailed down to the Keys and landed in Marathon after visiting the Dry Tortugas and Key West (of course). When I got my mail, I found that the management company was not doing what I needed, so we got jobs, I put the properties up for sale and we made more improvements to the boat.
Almost a year later, we crossed over to Bimini and moved down the islands to the Dominican Republic and beyond. By the time we got to Grenada, I had not seen a bigger boat that I liked, but I sure found one there. She was a CT47, cutter rigged and just beautiful. And I bought it. So,
now 2 boats - one has to go. It took me a few months to sell the Morgan and even though I loved my new boat, I'm glad I didn't see it leave the harbor, I felt very sad about selling her, after all we'd been through.
About 7 years later, 3 years after my partner abandoned ship, I felt I needed to sell my CT47. It was way to big for singlehanding, all the repairs and maintenance cost a fortune. It was a tough decision and the day after the sale, I was at the airport walking out to the plane and trying very hard not to cry about leaving my boat and leaving the life I loved.
I landed in Daytona Beach, unfortunately an area populated by NASCAR and Harley fans and not sailboats and sailing people. Sure, there were a few, but certainly not like I was used to. After a couple years, I found myself looking at ads for sailboats - and bought a really sweet little 32' Morgan. And I know when I sell her, I will again try not to cry at the closing.
I know it's not just the sale of a boat, but the realization of the end of the dreams I had when I purchased each boat.
Betty Karl
http://amzn.com/B009RCO02G
I've sailed in your wake. I didn't hold back my tears.
ReplyDeleteSo sorry but new adventures await, remember?
And she is oh, so pretty. I'll repost 'cause she needs a good Mommy, oh, yeah, and maybe a Daddy for oil changes. ;)