Charleston
04 July 2009 | Charleston, VA
Mark
We enjoyed our stay on the Megadock (TM) at the Charleston City Marina. It was enjoyable walking past a quarter mile of large yachts constantly being polished by professional crews in uniforms.
Just as we were about to pull away from the dock, we realized another boat (the Office [?]) was about to pull in just behind us on the dock. There wasn't enough time to get away before they docked, so we kept moving forward with our preparations to leave. Suddenly Dana ran to the stern when she saw that the boat was about to clip off our outboard which was mounted on the aft starboard side lifelines. Dana was able to push the other boat away to save the outboard.
Unfortunately, the stern of the Office had a radar platform mounted on it, and it had clipped our SSB antennae. Before we realized it, the antennae had been torn from its two mount points.
The captain of the other boat (James, out of Melbourne) came over and apologized about what he had done. Then he proceeded to make light of the damage. The worst was when he noted that there were some plastic ties on one part of the mounts and he said, "I don't mean to be an asshole, but this has been repaired before." I was left speechless by this.
Ultimately, we were able to get an estimate for the repairs ($125) and James paid this amount. Of course, we fully expected the ultimate cost to be much higher, but it seemed best to get whatever we could from James, as he indicated we would not be able to chase him down later.