Mar 4, 2007

Adrift


Here is a family having a good time on their boat. Of course it's easy to do when your boat isn't a leaky tub, captained by an idiot.


Perhaps you said to yourself or a loved one today, "I wonder how the weather is today out a Merle Sneed's place?"

Well, let me tell you, it is windy as heck. In case you have missed it in previous posts, I hate the wind. Ask anyone who knows me and they will confirm that. The only time I have ever rooted for the wind to blow is when I owned a sailboat.

In 1995, for reasons that I can't begin to explain I decided that we needed a sailboat. That is not as stupid as it seems because we have some good-sized lakes in Arizona. In retrospect, it turned out to be exactly as stupid as it sounds.

I knew a guy, who knew a guy, who was trying to sell a Catalina 22 (22 foot) trailerable boat. It was a bit old, but looked to be in good condition. I plunked down $3500 for it and dragged it home, actually to older son Sneed's house, because we had no room for it. That should have been a clue.

I think I can say without fear of correction, that through the combination of my ineptness and the boat's age, every time we used it was a disaster. Each worse than the next.

I bought a new truck just before we got the boat. We discovered that the truck couldn't safely pull it. I spent $500 on the truck to beef it up but that didn't help, so I got a new, new truck.

The first time I took it out was to Lake Pleasant in Phoenix. After a drive of 130 miles, we spent the morning drifting on a calm lake. The two youngest Sneed boys, dragged along as hostages, moaned and complained until I agreed to leave.

Next, we took the boat to Roosevelt Lake, got it in the water and made it as far as the middle when the wind just stopped. Of course the motor wouldn't start. Eventually we managed to catch enough wind, in fits and starts, to get back to the landing area. We loaded it on the trailer and were tying everything down, when the lovely Mrs. Sneed fell off and broke her foot or arm, I forget which. Then we discovered that the trailer lights were not working. It was a slow trip home.

We also took it to San Diego and were having a good time until the rudder broke and we drifted into some rocks and had to be towed in. I fixed the holes in the hull, we got the rudder repaired and we put it in the bay, late the next afternoon. No wind and no motor. Since we were just drifting, I wound up going into the water, swimming to shore and dragging us back in with a line.

In the end I wound up selling it for $1900 + a paint job for the living room. The guy never came back to do the painting, so I really sold it for $1900 and I was thrilled to be rid of the thing.

So when I say I hate the wind, I mean it. Plus I hate boats.



Things in this blog represented to be fact, may or may not actually be true. The writer is frequently wrong, sometimes just full of it, but always judgemental and cranky


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4 comments:

Bobby D. said...

Blasted
Overpriced
Aquatic
Tub

or semi-aquatic

Kurt said...

I'll paint your living room for a boat.

Flawed And Disorderly said...

My dad always named his boats after my mother. Had her name painted on them and everything. Men are weird.

Merle Sneed said...

I was going to call my boat "The Lovely Mrs. Sneed", but since it was a heap, I feared incurring her wrath.