Ok, this won't become only an old boat blog, but as you can imagine, I've had boats on my mind nearly non-stop since last weekend when we discovered Edith's terrible secret. To that end, Gary and I went boat shopping today. Let me back up a bit.
We got Edith from Hedley the Wharfinger at Fisherman's Wharf in SF. After last weekend we started negotiotiations with Cap'n Ed down the way on some rancid boats he knew about. That whole scene down river turns out to be the wrong tree to be barking up. Like last time, I started up my zen-like patience and knew that the right boat would fall into our hands, and all the weirdness, and struggle at Ed's were indicative of a bad plan.
So what to do? Call Hedley up of course. He provided for us once (to all our happiness) , why not a second time? And Hedley has a boat for us! Except this time it's a 'vessel'
The H/V General Pershing. It's a 60' wooden offshore trawler (Sardines I think), and it needs a new home. The owner sold off the licence and got the Bay Area Air Quality District to buy him a new $30k motor. And now it's an albatross for him because he can't fish it, and fishermen as a rule don't bother with boats unless they are catching fish. So Hedley said: Come on down, you've got to see it. And today we did.
It's a beast. Beguiling, and dangerously tempting, but a beast. We've decided that two things have to be met before we even begin to think about it seriously: That we have a berth down there at the historic rate ($1 a foot) and that we get a full inspection. Those criteria being met, we move to phase two. Which just might be giant boat ownership. But probably not. Because it's a handful. But it is very soundly built, was fishing commercially as recently as 2002, and starred in the film "Captain Couregeous" which netted Spencer Tracy his second Oscar.
Since we were out and about, we decided to go looking for unloved, unused, free boats. We visited several marinas in Marin, and Sonoma County almost without luck, until we stopped by one of my favorites: San Rafael harbor. This place has the requisite 'beat-up pickup to uv-damaged-blue-tarp' ratio that we need for our kind of boat. We poked around and talked to the harbor master who showed us a very nice (theoretically) 27' sailboat for far under it's open market asking price. Gary might bite the bullet on that one and become his nemisis: a sailor. I'm tempted, but I prefer to maintain the ethic of getting these things for free. After talking to the harbor master again and explaining that really what we wanted was something to clean water ways up with, he was impressed and took up to see what I dearly hope will become boat #2. It's a 26' ex-coast guard surf boat. 26' is key for insurance reasons, and ex-surf boat means (and I have done the research to back this up) nearly impossible to sink. Also, good load carrying and stoutly built. Above is a picture of a nearly identical surf boat that was tied up in sausalito. "Ours" is not in such good shape (needs paint and an engine), but the harbor master was more than happy to let up work on it at the yard there because of our altruistic goal. Sweet. Now we just have to convince the owner that he needs to give it to us (which is very possible according to the harbor master). I'll keep you all posted.
PS. If I become the hapless owner of the General Pershing, you'll understand why I'm always filthy and smell like diesel right?
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