Hi, new to the forum. Thought I'd introduce myself with a little story of how I got back on a sailboat.
We weren't really looking to buy a sailboat - well, definitely not anytime soon. I had been casually looking at them over the past few years. Years ago when we lived in
Florida we had two sailboats - a
Balboa 20 and a 16'
Hobie Cat. Both of them were bought very
cheap - the
Balboa hadn't been sailed in YEARS, was on a
trailer, and really needed to be cleaned up. The Hobie was functional, but barely, it was pretty old. We took the Hobie out a handful of times but it was not in the greatest shape. We worked on the Balboa - sanded the
hull down completely and repainted the whole thing. Put months of
work into it - until we took it off the
trailer for the first time and discovered that the swing
keel was stuck and the pivot in the
hull was leaking. Then we ended up moving so we
sold everything. Here's an old pic of the Balboa after a fresh
paint job (this is me discovering that the
keel is STUCK.
Anyway, our house here in Charlotte is pretty close to the lake, and we had been casually looking at
boats. I'd gone to look at one or two sailboats over the past few years, but nothing really jumped out as a good buy - plus as you know
boats are quite an additional drain on the bank account and so
buying one on top of all the
work I'd have to put into it, the time just wasn't right yet.
Fast forward to my birthday at the end of March, and right before I left work for the day I opened craigslist on a whim to see what was out there. Right at the top, just posted, was an ad for a free sailboat. I opened it and it said that it had been accidentally posted in Columbia's craigslist, to check there. So I went over to Columbia's site and sure enough, there was an ad for a sailboat for free. The ad didn't give much info, just that it was a 1984
Hunter 25.5 and it was in a slip on Lake Wylie. I called the number and a lady in
Florida answered. She said it was her brother's
boat. He was kind of hard of hearing and she was trying to help him. He was trying to sell the
boat the month before but he kept going out of town and could never meet anyone to show it to them. Now his
lease at the marina was almost up (at the end of March) and he didn't want to sign another year
lease, so he told his sister to just give it to a charity or something. She called a few charities and they all would have taken it but couldn't come get it for another month - so that wouldn't work... So he told her to just give it away to whoever. Turned out the marina was only 10 minutes from work here on the south side of the lake, so I headed straight over. She gave me his number and said if I was interested after looking at it to call him.
So I went over half expecting this thing to just be a pile of junk - I mean it's a free boat right? Hehe. Well, it's a 25 1/2 foot sailboat with a
full keel - so no trailering, has to be kept in the
water. But after my experience with my last swing keel boat I was ok with that. The
mast was down, the
deck was dirty, and there were a few things missing - like one of the shrouds and most of the running
rigging. Here's how she looked:
I'm down inside the boat and my wife calls asking if I'm on my way home lol... "umm, no, I'm sitting in a sailboat right now." Haha, man I love her. She just said - well, it's your birthday, I trust your judgement - so if you want it and it's not going to bankrupt us - go for it. Well, that's questionable. So I called the old guy, told him I was looking at his boat and I heard he was thinking about giving it away. He said "I ain't thinking about it I need to get rid of that thing!" So I told him it just so happened it was my birthday today - he told me to sit tight and he'd be there in 20 mins. Sure enough, he showed up, showed me a few things about the boat, and signed the title over to me as a gift! Told me happy birthday and drove off! How crazy is that?!
So now, on my birthday, I was the proud owner of a
Hunter 25.5 - with the
mast down, no
motor, and 5 days to move it to somewhere else on the lake. We found a marina closer to home that would rent a slip month to month, instead of the year lease required where the boat was currently. Since there was no
motor, I had a friend help tow us across the lake - which took quite a bit longer than I thought it would!
Sorry to type up a whole novel.. But for the past month we've scrubbed, and scrubbed, and bought
parts, and a used motor off craigslist. There were two trips down to Florida in the past month for Spring Break - at which time I visited the old sailboat shop I used to use when we lived there and bought a bunch of stuff. I've probably put about $1,200 into the boat besides the marina. $300 of that was the used motor, several hundred for the
rigging, and probably a few more hundred in other misc items. I knew it wasn't going to be a totally "free" boat when I got it... They never are.
Anyway, we had our maiden voyage a week ago and LOVED it. Had a GREAT time sailing around Lake Wylie in fairly windy conditions. This weekend we ventured out a little further with it, and I spent some quality time with the
sails getting them clean.
Here are some before and after pictures:
The entire
deck was covered in a nasty
mold:
dirty
cockpit:
The mast was down because one of the upper shrouds had broken. Somehow the mast wasn't damaged, and neither was the deck. But the step plate was bent pretty good:
We scrubbed and scrubbed the deck, and then scrubbed some more! Finally got the
parts in that we needed to step the mast. My neighbor and my wife and I were able to get it up without too much trouble:
The
sails were also pretty dirty from being stuffed in the
cabin for who knows how long.
I spent the day yesterday getting to know every square inch with my scrub brush and some
laundry detergent. This was the result:
Squeaky clean deck! I also re-bedded the chainplates and the pop up
hatch over the v-berth.
Her new home:
So far:
New upper
shroud
New halyards
New
Jib sheet
New blocks for the
jib
Mast step plate straightened - new riggers pins (thank you Island Nautical!)
Used
Mercury 4.5
outboard
Fuel tank/lines
New slides and shackles for the main
New nav light
re-bedded chain plates (they leaked)
re-bedded pop up over v-berth (ditto)
Still need:
deep cycle
battery and
charger (solar?)
repair/replace sr mariner
knot meter
..and a NAME! Somehow this boat is nameless... Now here's the
funny part. When I was riding to work on my birthday, I was daydreaming about getting a sailboat (weird, right?). I was thinking, if I got one, I'd name it Heaven's Dew. My wife's name is Dew, and my daughters name means Heaven's Dew, and... this boat pretty much fell out of heaven into my lap. So I think that's what I'm going to go with, as un-macho as it sounds
I still think that it's very strange that I had that thought that morning, and later that day I was a sailboat owner
Anyway, this has gotten long enough - I'll update this thread with our projects and adventures. Hope to learn a lot on this forum!
Heaven's Dew (A "Free" Hunter 25.5)
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