Thanks everyone. I have been reading this forum every day. There is a wealth of information here and everyone is so helpful.
A little about us. We are in our early 50s. We have 5 adult
children living happily in the states. We adopted our son, JJ, at his birth 7 years ago. We came to St. Croix 5 years ago to look at a boat. The boat was too expensive and a total mess. Fell in love with St. Croix, bought a house. It is a
project house but we didn't know it was a
project house when we bought it.
There was a beautiful boat here on St. Croix that we always admired. Her name is the Parrot
Head. Last year her owner crashed his plane and died. The boat sat and sat. We gathered as much information that we could about the boat and found out she was in limbo. All kinds of liens attached,
taxes ect. We called the bank and made an offer. It took some
work and a few months to get it all worked out. Removing liens and trying to recover items removed from the boat. But finally we were successful.
The owner had just had her hauled out to maitinence her
hull. He had also pulled her
engine. He had ordered a new engine,
transmission,
generator and other items. At his death those items were sitting on the
dock waiting to be picked up. Needless to say they were all sent back and we didn't get them. Someone had also removed some of the
electronics and
sails. We were able to retrieve some items, the
sails,
anchor windless, rolling
furler and a few other things.
We had her surveyed and know everything we need to fix and that is what we are doing. Hubby is an ex deep sea diver in the
Navy and then worked the next 10 years as a civilian
Navy diver doing ships husbandry. He has cleaned the hulls and repaired nearly every ship in the fleet.
We just dropped in the new engine and everyday we are working on the boat. Hubby says that we must know everything about her before we sail, down to the last wire. We know her
history and have talked a few times to her
builder.
We have lots of
work to do
learning everything but it is a new adventure and I cannot wait.
You guys are great. Thanks for all the encouragement.
Tam