Help wanted

For most of my sailing life I have depended on the kindness of strangers or paying vast sums of money to sail on or rent other people’s boats. The main advantage of this is never having to fix a thing.

The first thing everyone said to me when I bought Messing About was all the stuff I was going to learn how to do myself. After many hundreds of dollars in basic maintenance and repairs to get her in the water last summer, I understood how true those words were.

I have two problems. Number one is time. I really can’t take time off in the middle of the week to go work on the boat and weekends in the Spring are consumed with my son’s rugby matches.

Number two is my biggest obstacle. I have two left hands. It’s not that I don’t want to work on the boat it’s that I am rightly concerned about buggering it up. I can do the basic manual labor like cleaning and servicing various parts. When it comes to anything mechanical or electric, it’s another story. I am mechanically incompetent.  My greatest accomplishments with the outboard were changing the spark plugs and lubricating something or other.  Beyond that if it doesn’t start I am screwed. God help me if I ever buy a boat with a diesel.

Thankfully, being in a club there is always someone around who will offer advice. Invariably they will suggest something like “Have you drained the flange gromit?” or “When did you last switch out the fledging sprocket?”  As much as I might try to answer confidently, they know instantly that I haven’t a bloody clue what they are talking about. This is followed by “Do you want me to take a look at it?” These offers are gratefully accepted. I owe at least half the club several rounds of beers for mechanical services rendered.

As it got close to the launch day, I ran out of time on two cosmetic issues. First, 6 inches below the rail was a blue stripe decal that runs the length of the boat. This was breaking away in places and the boat looked like crap. I have standards you know. The second was polishing the hull. I had already done this once but not well as it was already looking streaky.

I contacted a local guy, recommended by West Marine. They said call Ted at Key Marine and I did so.  Ted sounded competent, although a little sarcastic. He said he would take a look at the boat and get back to me. It was a small job so not too worry, bla, bla. A week went by and no call-back. I called him to remind him. No problem he would get right on it. Again no call-back. This happened three times. By now there was a week till launch day. “Oh, no worries, I will take care of it. That is unless it rains.” “Wait a minute!” I protested. “Now, you give me a condition.” And as it happened the weather forecast for the following week was mostly rain.

By now I was getting pissed off with the guy. If I had known he was going to be like this I would have found someone else but I was up against the wall. I got him to agree to at minimum do the stripe and I would figure out the polishing BUT get it done early in the week so if I found someone else to do the polishing it would be AFTER they had removed the old stripe with acetone and put the new stripe on.

As luck would have it, I was introduced to a guy at the club called Ernie. The guy has salt in his veins. He was brought up in Maine, ran a commercial fishing boat from the age of nine, joined the coast guard and had owned his own sailboats. Ernie and his young sidekick Dan made some income working on people’s boat. For a reasonable sum he would polish the hull the day before launch by when the new stripe would be on.

On launch day, I inspected the work. The stripe was on but the hull’s polish job was totally buggered up. Here is what happened. Ernie as planned came down on Friday and did a superb job polishing the hull. Witnesses say it was a like a mirror.  Ted from Key Marine then buggered the whole thing up by showing up to do the stripe just as they were finishing. Despite being told three times to get it done earlier in the week. Net result they screwed up all Ernie’s good work using acetone to remove the stripe. Did I get a call apologizing? Did I hell.

Moreover, they did a crap job of it. There were bubbles in the stripe meaning it won’t last and the line is uneven as it kinks on the port side.

On the whole my experience of boat guys has been good. Ernie of course came down on the Sunday after launch and was able to re-do the polish job with the boat tied up to the dock.  I also got to know the guy who runs Morgan Marina an excellent nearby full-service facility, who is always willing to give me pointers on how to do a job. The guy is always patient without being patronizing.

It’s guys like Ted from Key Marine that give boat guys a bad name.  Bloody pirates!