what do you do...

When no one seems to be in a big hurry but you?

As you may have guessed, the lack of posts around here has much to do with the fact that Interlude is not yet in the water. She went into the shop around the first of the year and up until mid-March, we were told she was being serviced. The purchase agreement had a laundry list of things to be fixed and we were told the service department would address them all and let us know when repairs were completed. Around the end of March, Josh received an email update complete with photos of the king plank and bowspirit being replaced, as well as the compression post being replaced. We assumed that all meant the boat was in tip top shape. Josh took a trip up one Saturday following that email to look over the work. Lo and behold, during his inspection he saw that the chain plates had not been cleaned, replaced, or in any way serviced. He also noted that the sea cocks hadn't been replaced (both issues are troublesome and need attention before being launched). He followed up in person by showing the head of the service department the lack of action on the issues. He subsequently sent an email with photos of said problems. No response. 

Fast forward to last Saturday. Our surveyor wanted to take a look at the work that had been done in order to get insurance all squared away and felt a boat in better condition would merit a lower insurance rate. Great. We like that idea. We still haven't heard any more from the service department but I think we both assume they'd seen the email and had taken action. Guess again. As of last Saturday, the boat's still not completely fixed. We are back to the drawing board and the next steps are to involve the salesman who sold us the boat and probably the owner of Larsen. It's a super big bummer because we were really hoping to have Interlude back in last week. Will keep you posted. 

a series of unfortunate events. well, really just the one.

I will start off with this: I am not a superstitious person. There, I said it. Now that I have, I am certain that ALL manner of bad juju will rain down over us. I do feel that at times we/I have suffered/benefitted from our fair share of bad/good luck. Oftentimes, it's good luck. Maybe we're just the type of people who make our own destiny and that's how it all falls into place, or maybe we are just exceptionally blessed.

This is how it all applies to this boat purchase: we had yet to have incident. It seemed that nothing was going to stand in our way. While I feel there has been a certain amount of foot dragging on the part of the brokerage, I never equated it to bad luck. We made an offer, it was accepted, no major snafus on the survey, etc. Imagine my surprise when we took her out for the sea trial on Tuesday and a major hiccup popped up. I may or may not have mentioned that this boat has a brand spanking new engine in it. To my knowledge, it has never been used for any length of time in the water. When they launched her on Monday they may have used it, but beyond that, it hasn't seen any major play.

Fast forward to returning to the marina from the lake: Josh and I were exceptionally pleased with the way she handled. She's cutter rigged and because of our time constraint we only put up the main and the staysail, not the jib. It was crazy windy so we reefed the main. Again, all was well. I was giddy with the gorgeous weather, indicative of the early fall here in our fair city, which is perfection when it comes to sailing.

We returned to the dock and all was well. The mechanic who was tasked with showing us how all the systems aboard her worked took the helm to dock her. To do this, you go forward slowly then throw it into reverse so your line handlers can jump over to the dock and use spring lines to pull her backward. It's all about iertia. What happened next was certainly inertia. When he tried to throw the engine into reverse, it wouldn't catch. Every time he tried, it went forward instead of reverse which increased our speed as we careened toward the dock. He was yelling, "It won't reverse!" over and over while this is all happening. By now I'm sure you've guessed it. Yup, we crashed. Right into a pylon. The bowsprit crunched and groaned as it twisted against the concrete column. Several boards splintered while doing so. I guess the bow hit too but it has nary a mark, thankfully. Beyond that, everyone was okay. All in all, it could have been worse. We both laughed and consoled the unfortunate pilot on this adventure. Sometimes you crash. It's life. And in this case it was certainly not his fault. I felt especially bad for him, as it was his birthday. Poor guy. After that he needed a cigarette.

We'll be closing on Friday once the issue with the engine has been resolved and the bowsprit has been looked over.