A Sail of Two Idiots Read Online Free PDF Page B

huge bridges open up for us). We arrived at the boatyard right in the middle of lunch hour so had to wait a half hour.
    We finally got the boat into the harness and had it hauled out (by means of a Travelift) and moved into the yard and were actually quite pleasantly surprised at how the bottom looked considering it had been sitting in the water for over two years. The engine parts we could see, however, looked quite sad. There were quite a few oysters up in the saildrive nooks and crannies, as well as in the crevices of the rudders. So we all took whatever sharp objects we had (credit cards, keys, etc.) and started picking them off.
    Mr. Surveyor went around with a hammer knocking all over the boat (they use highly technical tools and methods in this trade), and surprisingly, had little to complain about as far as the structure. (The knocking is one method to determine if the core of the boat is soft—meaning rotten—or has maintained its structural integrity—dry.) The seller’s broker got all giddy that the most important part of the boat was sound and immediately forgot about all the other problems. We, of course, did not, and continued to find issues on the boat like standing water behind cabinets (due to leaking windows), missing plywood pieces, and more equipment that we couldn’t get working.
    So, the boat got put back in the water, we motored back up the canal and tried to head for the ocean so we could take it for a real spin—putting up the sails and everything!! We got about a quarter mile away from the open waters when Mr. Surveyor smelled smoke and went booking toward the engines. Sure enoughone was steaming. Turned out the water pump blew. So now we were down one engine. Drawbridge operators were yelling at us to hurry up under the bridge, we were yelling back that we were disabled. We kept sputtering onward, determined to get out into an open-enough area (we had long given up on trying to get to the ocean) so we could see how the boat sailed.
    Eventually the sails went up only to have the wind abruptly die. While the guys were messing with the sails trying to catch any breeze at all, I noticed that one of the cleats was broken (the metal things you tie various lines to) and that a metal pin that should hold the front sail (a jib or genoa—a bigger jib) was missing as well.
    We turned the boat around to make one last attempt to get moving (because without the boat moving, we couldn’t test the autopilot and other gadgets) and realized that a huuuuuuuuuuuge barge with two tugs was coming at us.
    We had to yank down the sails and steer as best we could on one engine to get out of the way. As we pathetically puttered back the way we came, I heard a rattling sound under the boat and asked the surveyor if he thought that was the rudder. Yep, now that we had removed the oysters and were putting more pressure on the rudders, due to the one engine situation, we were hearing loose bearings. Enough. We limped back and tied off to the dock 10 hours after we had left it.
    What did the seller’s broker say? Well, I know you guys thought that was bad. She, on the other hand, was really happy with the way it went. We just stared at her numbly, nodded, and got in our car. Even the surveyor was so glad to get off the “sinking boat,” as he put it, that he forgot to ask us for payment. Of course, he remedied this later via e-mail.
    During this whole nightmare, I had put a call out to our own broker and told him what had been going on and ordered him to get someone in his office to locate some other boats for us to look at (or else). I was really angry because he had told me he had looked at this piece of junk prior to our visit and if he had, we wouldn’t have wasted this trip, not to mention the thousand-plus dollars for its survey. He was able to scrounge up three more boats in our size range (not necessarily price range) in the area and we agreed to meet with someone at 9 a.m.