To Begin With

The original craigslist add photo

There she was, a 26ft keel sailboat on craigslist listed for free! Even I could afford that! The list said it was a Grampian 26 in need of 'restoration' that needed to be gone asap from behind the Townsend lobster shop in Provincetown, MA. The next day and 6 hours of driving later I was standing in front of her and her owner Darryl. Darryl had originally purchased The Ann Marie from a friend of his up in Maine, god knows how he got the boat from Maine to Ptown given the lack of motor, sails, rusty keel, stuck centerboard, and three small drill holes in the bottom to let water trickle out when it rained. Near as I could tell she was mostly being used as a spot to drink, smoke and camp out in. The port side dinette berth was so thoroughly soaked in beer it had molded and rotten away.

On the plus side, after poking about for over an hour, I found the deck and hull to be absolutely perfect, not one soft spot anywhere to be found! The rudder had an issue where someone had replaced the fiberglass on one side with bondo, but that looked to be simply repairable with the right materials. Darryl also mentioned that the rigging was kept at a friends house and was included as well. Despite a nagging feeling that the boat looked a little like it belonged in a landfill I wrote Darryl a 50$ check in exchange for a hand written bill of sale and spent the remailder of the week figuring out how to get the boat all the way back to Halifax.

Driving over the Sagamore Bridge behind my 'new' boat

After contacting half a dozen transport companies I finally settled on the guys from Earls Marina. Total cost for the big move was 650$. Thankfully, that was exactly what I had to spare at the time. I called up Darryl to give him the good news and asked if I could come down the day before to grab the rigging and get the boat ready. Thats when the penny dropped. It turned out 'the rigging' was a bare mast that somehow didnt actually belong to Darryl. No boom, no shrouds or stays or turnbuckles, and according to Darryl no mast either unless I paid his friend for it. He also had decided that he wanted 'a couple hundred  extra' for the boat stands... At this point I told him never mind and that the boat would just have to stay where it was.

I had originally hoped to call his bluff but as the week wore on without any word from Darryl I figured it just wasnt meant to be. Until he called. Now apparently the mast DID belong to him and he was willing to give it to me, and was willing to take 100$ for the boat stands. That was good enough for me. I contacted Earls marine transporters again and set a date of 9/22 for the move!

That day... was very rough. In the end I couldt get the mast before hand and we had to make an extra trip. I also learned that moving a heavy keel boat was nothing like movin my little 15ft bay sailor. After all the sailing books and forum posts I read not ONE mentioned how to prepair a boat to be moved or how to prepair the spot it was going to be moved to. Most of my day involved running around crazy trying first to get the mast figured out, then loosing the blocks meant to go under the boat, then hitting the lumber store to buy a 12' long 6x6, then running around trying to find the battery for my cordless skill saw, then looking everywhere for my hand saw when the battery for the skillsaw drained after three cuts. Also the movers didnt like the spot I set aside in my moms back yard because they would have to drive over buried septic lines, something the 20,000lb trailer and 7000lb sailboat would definetly crush.

Still driving...

After solving all the little problems that kept popping up, and tipping the transporters extra for all the extra stops and agrivation (thank god I got another paycheck in!) The boat was finally at its new home!

Finally there!