My friends and I bought a sailboat together a few years ago (as displayed in the main picture on this blog). This was done to give us something to do as a group during the summer, and hopefully summers to come in the future. The first summer was great, we went out almost every weekend and couldn't have had more fun. But the past couple years we unfortunately were unable to take the boat out at all. We basically neglected the boat to the point that it was almost unusable. The cabin of the boat was flooded from rain, and due to this, there was mold, rotted wood, rust and bugs who decided to make it their home. The trailer was in even worse condition, it is rusting/breaking apart, the tires are dead/shredded and the jack is broken. Finally, the rudder is disintegrated and the metal is rusted and coming apart; this is particularly bad because you need it to steer the boat. It was not because we didn't want to take care of it and use it in the summers, my friends and I just had other things going on in our lives and we never got around to it.
But this is the summer of resurrection. Though two of the original buyers have given up their ownership rights, the three remaining owners have vowed to restore the boat and take her out for a ride. As part of our plans for the boat's future, we have decided to take off all the lines, ropes and mast to turn it into a semi-motor boat. The lines were tangled/broken, the ropes were torn apart and we decided it would be too much work/money to turn it back into a sailboat. Though now our only option is to use the motor to ride around, we used to just take it out to a random location, anchor, and drink/eat/swim. Sailing is fun, I really enjoyed it, but we will have just as much fun simply using the motor to get around. This will be much less work and hopefully less problems to worry about in the future.
Right now we are in the process of having a rudder made for us, and we are searching for a trailer that will fit the boat. We really did not know how much work, time and money we would have to invest in order to maintain the boat. As my grandfather likes to say, “The two happiest days of a boat owner's life are the day he buys his boat and the day he sells it.” It is possible that phrase may soon become a reality for us, so if it doesn't work out for one reason or another, and we have already taken our final trip on the "Dutchess", the experience was one hell of a ride.
