{"id":350,"date":"2012-10-20T08:27:41","date_gmt":"2012-10-20T16:27:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sailingsilverlining.com\/?page_id=350"},"modified":"2012-11-24T07:10:55","modified_gmt":"2012-11-24T15:10:55","slug":"boat-restoration","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sailingsilverlining.com\/?page_id=350","title":{"rendered":"Boat Restoration"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are about as many boat repair\/expense jokes as there are former boat owners:<\/p>\n

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“Two happiest days of a boat owner’s life: the day you buy and the day you sell.”<\/p>\n

“B.O.A.T stands for Bring Out Another Thousand.”<\/p>\n

“Boat ownership is like taking a cold shower while simultaneously ripping up hundred-dollar bills.”<\/p>\n

“A boat is a hole in the water in which you can throw endless amounts of money.”<\/p>\n

“The definition of ‘cruising’ is just fixing your boat in exotic places”<\/p>\n

and so on…<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

A very wise friend once told us that you can’t own a boat if you keep thinking in terms of dollars. His preferred unit of measure was “Boat Units”. For example, instead of saying “Honey, we need to spend another $2,000 on the boat” we can say “Honey, it’s only going to cost us another two Boat Units”.<\/p>\n

Much less painful, right?<\/p>\n

In the beginning, I kept a spreadsheet of boat restoration expenses so we could keep a ball park figure on what the boat was costing us. Somewhere along the way that file was corrupted… or deleted… or shredded to bits in a fit of hysteria. It makes no difference. The boat is our home, and we keep doing what it takes to keep her afloat and keep us comfortable.<\/p>\n

In The Beginning:<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/strong>In 2005, we began casually looking for an island hopper boat to explore the San Juan Islands. We’d only been out of school for a few months so our budget was small but our dreams were big. One night around midnight a friend called and insisted Elan make the 20 minute drive up to Blaine to check out an old boat. Our friend had stumbled upon an older gentleman crying by a beat up boat out on the hard. As it turns out, the man had bought the boat new in 1974, and raised his family sailing the East coast of the US and the Bahamas. A divorce and financial hard times led him to haul the boat in Blaine around 1992… and there she weathered the years. Although the owner had paid the year’s dry dock fees in advance, the condo association owning the marina was shutting it down. The man didn’t have a phone, so didn’t know until the last-minute that the yard planned to have the boat crushed the next day. He didn’t have the resources or the energy to rescue his beloved boat from it’s doom…<\/p>\n

Enter Elan and Ashley.<\/p>\n

The man offered the boat to us for free, if we could arrange to have it moved the next morning and spare her from certain death. We made the calls, had her moved and gave the man $500 as a sale price. Come daylight we saw what we had gotten ourselves into.<\/p>\n

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Taking delivery!<\/p><\/div>\n

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One of our earliest photos – After a goooood scrub down and pressure wash.<\/p><\/div>\n