Well, it finally happened ... yesterday my boat had enough and left me high and dry.

I got the boat off yesterday, after having to deal with more rain in the morning. The last two days it never rained hard, just a steady light rain. During lunch, it stopped, so the truck driver came to the boat and helped me take the arch off, or at least remove all the bolts securing it. After we did that and broke the arch free from the caulk, it started raining again, which meant now the boat was leaking down below through the holes. I quickly caulked the holes that were leaking the worst.

The large manatee that the kids were petting in front of my boat the other day, brought his family over to see me off. They followed the boat to the haul out well. At one point, one of the adults had his head out of the water trying to catch fresh water dripping off the boat - one of those totally awesome pictures that got away.

They power washed the boat bottom before putting it on the truck. When the bottom paint is VC17, you don’t see much paint washing off. With this red Micron CSC, you can see the paint washing off - a waterfall of vivid red. At $200/gallon, it hurts to see those dollars being washed right down the drain. I guess I won’t have to worry about paint build up. The bottom is still red, so at least they didn’t blast off both coats of paint.

There is a height restriction to make it under the bridges: 13’ 6”. My bow pulpit was right at that height, so they put extra wood at the back of the keel to tip the bow of the boat down just a bit to get more breathing room. Removing the bow pulpit would have been difficult and would have resulted in a critical delay.

I do not have a modern rig, meaning I have a big, heavy mast. They moved it onto the truck without a crane. First, they got the truck right next to the mast, which was on two jack stands. Then with one guy on one end to keep it from falling off the jack stand, four guys on the other end lifted their end over to the truck. Then repeat for the other end. The mast is 53’ long.

The trucker spent several hours securing the boat to the truck. The boat yard manager was impressed by his meticulousness, which is a good thing. I considered turning on the tracker so I could follow the boat on its journey, but in the end did not.

So now I am in Jacksonville, waiting for my flight home tomorrow morning. This trip has ended, and another summer on Lake Michigan will begin shortly, and soon as my spring boat prep work is completed. Barnacles have made a mess of my shaft and prop. I made a small mess of my keel. The rudder post needs to be secured at the top and the leak fixed where it enters the hull. It might be time to replace the cutlass bearing and grease the Max Prop. My anode protecting the propeller needs to be replaced. The blog gallery has pictures of the keel and barnacles covering the prop and shaft.