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A photo slideshow of the
loading and transport is located at the bottom of the page. Click
here.
With the boat located on the
south shore of Massachusetts, in South Dartmouth, I faced hiring out a
potentially expensive transport. Fortunately, my regular transporter,
Steve Morse of Morse Overland Marine in Gray, ME provided me with a fair quote,
so this initial cost ended up being lower than I had expected. In any
event, the boat had to be moved to my backyard, so it's not as if I had any
choice in the matter.
Over the two-week period between
my decision to purchase the boat and the actual transport, we struggled to find
the perfect day to undertake the trip. Large amounts of snow would have
been a problem, since the boat's location at Jeff's house (her former owner) was
well in the backyard, and had there been more than a couple inches of snow--or,
worse, a severe warm-up that would turn the top several inches of ground into a
soupy mess on top of the still-frozen underground--it would have been impossible
to retrieve the boat. Likewise, I hoped for no snow at the Maine end so
that the boat could end up in a location that, while far from ideal, would at
least be out of the way enough for the time being.
We finally set Monday the 23rd as
the date, and the forecast was perfect. I agreed to meet Steve down at the
house in MA at between 1130 and 1200 or so, so I drove down a bit earlier,
giving me a chance to look over the boat again and take care of the paperwork
with Jeff. Boy, I thought southern Maine was getting crowded (and it is),
but all it takes is a trip south of the border for me to appreciate how much
worst it could be. Traffic wasn't a problem on the way down, but when I
got off the highway near Jeff's house--which exit happened to take me near a
large mall--it suddenly became clogged with desperate and unhappy shoppers
darting around to finish their long-procrastinated shopping. Everyone
seemed to be in a friendly Christmas mood--NOT! What a bunch of rude
people. But I digress.
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Anyway, I reached Jeff's house
without incident at about 1030, and we walked out back for a look at the
boat. Although I had seen the boat on a couple occasions, never had I
really looked her over closely, or without at least some amount of tarpage over
her decks. For the past two weeks, I had been looking at the single photo
of the boat that I had in my possession, a non-descriptive port bow view that
did nothing to show the true condition of the boat. In fact, it made her
look pretty good, and I had a series of second thoughts about my destructive
(though ultimately life-saving) plans for her.
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Once I got close to the boat in
person, however, these fears evaporated. She was rough, beat,
ridden-hard-and-put-away-wet for sure. The hull was one thing--sad and
tired looking, but it took little vision to see past the weary paint. On
deck, however, my initial concerns about trashing something that shouldn't be
disappeared instantly. The deck and interior are, simply put, junk, and
cutting everything away later will be a pleasure.
See more photos of the boat's initial condition here.
After some time on board, we
returned inside for coffee and paperwork, then settled in to wait for
Steve. He finally arrived at about 1230, a bit later than planned, but
still fine. He backed his rig into the yard, and there soon became
apparent a problem, something I had noticed as soon as I arrived earlier, though
there was nothing I could to: there was a pretty large ledge protrusion
right in front of the boat, and it seemed so large that I wondered more than
once how in the world the boat got dropped where it was in the first
place. Obviously, it got in there somehow; logically, it should be able to
get out again.
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The problem was that the trailer
that brought the boat in, according to Jeff, was smaller by 1/3 or so than
Steve's trailer--which isn't even a full-sized hydraulic trailer like the common
Brownell design--so the driver of that rig was apparently able to more easily
get around, or over, the rock. There was clear space off to the side, but
that made backing the long trailer in straight impossible, and at first Steve
was worried about removing all three of the bow stands in order to let his
trailer slip by. (Normally, either the two side bow stands, or the center
stand, may be removed--but not all at the same time.)
After a few various angled
attempts, Steve tried going straight over the top of the rock, but the trailer
kept hanging up the more he backed in. even if he had been able to get the
trailer far enough back under the boat in this manner, I was concerned that with
the boat in the trailer, he'd never be able to pull the rig off the rock where
it was stuck. He obviously had his own concerns about this method too,
since he gave up and came in from the sharp front angle again. This time,
he removed the bow center stand along with both side stands, since there was no
other way the boat was going to get loaded. Of course he did this
carefully and slowly to make sure the boat wouldn't tip forward--it
didn't.
The next issue at hand was a
combination of two factors, both of which conspired to leave the boat very low
to the ground: first, she was blocked pretty low to start; second, the
blocking had sunk into the ground a bit, lowering things even further. In
order to get a metal keel bar across and underneath the keel to support the
weight, Steve had to first raise the boat enough with the hydraulic pads and a
strap run beneath the very aft end of the keel between the trailer sides.
He obviously is used to this sort of problem, and got the boat raised without
fanfare.
Once the keel was properly
blocked--just on the ballast, of course, not the false keel--things were good to
go, and after loading the blocking and jackstands onto my truck and his, he was
off, off and away, wasting no time hitting the road north. It was about
1330 when he left; I departed a short time later and caught up to him within 20
miles. I didn't bother staying with the truck, preferring to get home on
my own accord and prepare for the truck's arrival later.
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It was pitch dark when we arrived
in Maine at my backyard--I arrived about 30 minutes before Steve, who showed up
at about 1715. As a result, I have no pictures of the unloading.
Still, this was much easier than the loading; I had a spot picked out to
starboard and forward of Glissando,
which would leave enough room for us to pull Glissando out for launching
in the spring without the need to move #100. It was so dark it was hard to
tell what attitude the boat was taking, fore and aft and side to side, and as a
result she ended up pitched too far forward and anything but level. That's
OK, other than the (to me) annoyance of looking at a cockeyed boat for the next
6 months, since this location is not her ultimate resting place--just a stopgap
until I find other accommodations, or at least until Glissando goes back
in the water in May. By next fall, #100 will be ensconced wherever she's
going to spend the next period of her life--her rebirth.
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The
next morning, I shot some pictures of the boat in her new
location. I had to laugh at seeing the boat in the light for the
first time at home; down in Massachusetts before the boat was picked up,
I noticed that someone had stuck a Christmas present bow--you know, one
of those cheap ones that come in bags of 50 for $1.99--onto the
starboard bow of the boat. It was still there, after traveling
200+ miles on the trailer! To see more pictures taken of the boat
in her freshly-delivered condition, please click here.
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Please use the
control buttons below to watch a slide show of the loading and transportation.
The Trip Home
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