Last pictures of Primadonna

[europaflyer]

Originally Posted by thelifenomadik

Primadonna is beyond salvaging.

What, an intact watertight steel boat with sails still bent on to the masts and, before you turned up, a full set of deck gear is beyond salvaging? Your pictures even show the boat starting to float at high tide. Please, don't lie to us.

Originally Posted by thelifenomadik

She will slowly get stripped off everything useful by local fishermen or passer-bys without much fuss...

The same local fishermen who have left her basically intact for the several months before you arrived (she grounded in January at the latest)? No, you were the first people to properly loot the boat as far as I can see. You seem very quick to assume that these fishermen will have the same morals as you do. The evidence says otherwise.

Originally Posted by thelifenomadik

...we consider this 'helping the environment', saving things from the dumpster.

Please, don't lecture us on helping the environment. That boat represents twelve tons of steel, lead, aluminium, Dacron, teak, bronze... and all the energy and effort that has gone in to turning those materials in to a boat. Your looting is the first step in turning it in to an unsalvageable wreck and seeing most of those materials go to waste. Plenty of steel boats have been dragged off reefs and sailed home. There are probably people on this forum who have done just that. This boat is no different. Yes, it's a bit rusty but so are a lot of steel boats. It's watertight. Really, that is what annoys me more than the theft - that you're starting the process of seeing a good Meta ketch go to waste.

On your blog you paint a picture of a boat in generally good condition that seems very recently abandoned. You don't say anything about the environment.

"It is a mess inside and it’s obvious we are not the first ones to check the stuff out, but maybe we are the second ones. Most probably the fishermen have already been here taking only what they need (not much): the dinghy and the outboard motor are missing."

Maybe the second ones - you said it. Not the impression you gave here. How did you know a dinghy and outboard are missing if... they're missing? More false justification of what you're about to do.

"We get what we need too plus some junk that we surely don’t need but it is too good to leave behind and we might sell it or keep it as spares. Like the winches (two oversize ones and two smaller ones), swivels (we love swivels), and ropes (five good long ropes, one is heavy duty, can use it for hurricanes), in excellent condition. We leave the sails except one that looks like a blue spinnaker in a bag, this one we take (we didn’t have a spinnaker and we so much wanted to have one)."

Yep, spare winches (everyone keeps a few spare...) and a spinnaker. Essential stuff.

"But we do need the life raft... the surfboard, and the shiny new windlass (heavy but precious, we take it for a spare), three sets of snorkeling gear (strange yellow ones, very good quality, made in Italy, very dirty, as if people have been snorkeling in mud, but we clean them with Clorox), a marine radio, some flags and clothes (a strange dress made of window curtains and mosquito nets, became my official wrecking dress), a nice domino set, a portable compass, and many more treasure. Wrecking is so much fun!"

Oh, a spare windlass as well. Of course, I keep the odd spare windlass on board. And a spare life raft. And other people's clothes.

No, you're not going to convince me you did the right thing. It's telling that the fishermen took 'only what they needed' but that pretty much everything you describe you clearly don't need, apart from to sell.

I'm totally with you when it comes to reusing things and being a good environmental steward. I'm not saying either that you're bad people, so don't feel the need to prove us wrong on that point - although you have definitely done the wrong thing in this case. However, I don't think this has anything to do with the environment. It was just a looting session. The best thing for the environment would have been getting the boat off the reef (and I don't believe that isn't possible). I suppose now it slowly fills with water - helped by the holes you're left in the deck - and over the course of a few years rusts out beyond hope of salvage, with any debris spilling over the reef and the hull lying there for decades. So, please, no more talk of helping the environment because you really haven't. The environment loses out here.

[nigel1]

I think we have gone as far as we can with this thread, and now going in circles.
Anyone who has had an opinion on this affair has made their point, and in most cases, repeatedly.
So, enough said, thread closed.