Yard Time is Hard Time

We keep hearing the mantra, “yard time is hard time”…it couldn’t be more true! We’ve had an interesting and crazy month, I’m not sure where to begin exactly, so let’s start with the yard closing…

March 26th, 2020 Cracker Boy Boat Works closed due to COVID19. The original closure notice indicated that they would be planning on opening in two weeks. We already had two splash dates scheduled for April 8th and the 10th (we’d choose the best date based on weather and tide closer to time). Based on the closure notice, the 8th would not be a possibility as the yard would still be closed, but the 10th would be the day that the yard was due to open. Sadly, the management at the yard decided to remain closed until the end of April, planning on returning on May 1, 2020, making neither of our splash dates feasible. So what do we do, continue working on boat projects.

Time to start sanding the bottom paint! This is when we discover the damage to our keels. If you’re wondering how we knew about this type of damage since we haven’t any sailing experience, we’d seen this happen to a Leopard 46 across the yard just a few weeks prior. Noticing the damage, we went to the Lagoon 450 owner’s manual, pulled up the blocking specs and sure enough, we were blocked completely opposite of the manufacturers specifications. We erroneously assumed that the yard knew how each boat they hauled out is to be blocked. Lesson learned for us in the future, and for all those reading this, you should look up the manufacturers specifications and insist your boat be blocked per the manufacture’s specs! We immediately emailed the boatyard office manager to notify them of the discovery and request communication for repair procedures. In the coming days, the boatyard’s yard manager came by the boat, inspected the damage, put some additional jacks under the boat for support, and conscripted the repair services of a company that does a great deal of work here in the yard. The yard manager said that as soon as the yard reopens, they will get us re-blocked and they’ll get the repairs taken care of. All this is well and good, expect for the fact that this repair will extend our time in the yard by at least a week…once they finally open… in all fairness the boat yard has been great about taking care of the keel repairs.

We continue moving forward with our projects! Since Dauntless was a charter boat, there were places along both hulls that had dock rash…no big deal, since we’re here and have the time, we decided to fill and repair all the damage and get her ready for a brand new paint job. This is when the storm came through…and boy was it a storm!! Coming from Colorado, we are no stranger to high winds and tornados. The storm that tore through the boatyard on April 26th was nothing short of the scariest weather event I’ve ever experienced!

Ty & I were under the boat trying to cover and secure tools and materials from the rain and winds expected. Syd came down to help but Madi was in bed with a pretty bad headache. All of a sudden, the temperatures dropped and the dark gray sky that seemed so far away was upon us. As the wind began to increase, we sent Syd back inside where she and Madi began making sure that all the hatches were closed and that things were secure inside. The storm intensified so quickly and as Ty was yelling at me to go upstairs, a gust of wind literally picked up a 2’x4’ piece of OSB and threw it toward me narrowly missing me. As I raced up the ladder to the cockpit, I hear the girls in the saloon screaming a blood curdling scream that a parent hears when their child is in danger and scared to death. All I can think is “Dear God! Please keep my family be safe!”

Rewind for a moment to the day that the race boat was hauled out and placed next to us in the yard. As the yard crew put the boat on jack stands and linked them together from one side of the hull to the other by a chain, Syd looks out the saloon window at the boat’s deck that now sits above ours by about 4 feet and says, “wow, that sure looks spindly on those jack stands. My biggest fear in the yard is to have a boat like that fall on our boat!”

Our boat supporting a Cooksen 50 race boat

Now, back to the day of the storm. I hear the girls screaming, but with winds at 70+ mph, with gusts that have since been reported upwards of 100 mph, and the rain, I have no idea why. I open the door and walk into the saloon to see the girls holding each other, shaking, crying and screaming “THAT BOAT JUST FELL ON OUR BOAT!!!” Syd’s worst fear literally happened right before her eyes. They said they saw the race boat moving in the wind and then all of a sudden it fell over on us.

The outflow of the storm had passed. The boat yard owner and yard manager were on site and between us, them and our boat yard neighbors, John & Amanda from Black Pearl, we were able to put blocks and jack stands under the race boat to try and keep any further damage from happening.

The following day, the yard crew had returned to work, just for the day, only to clean up the areas around the two downed boats (both by the way were race boats). There was another race boat on the other side of the boat that now rests on ours which was steadfast on its cradle throughout the storm. It was moved across the yard to make room for the crane to come in and put the resting race boat upright and in the cradle system as it should have been in to begin with. Now, word in the yard is that there was an incident a few years ago where another weather event came through the area and several race boats blocked the way the one that fell on us was blocked, fell which led to a yard policy that no race boats are to be hauled out without a proper cradle system to secure the vessel. Hmmmmm, noodle on that a minute!

“Skipper” wanted to cut these lifelines to free the Cooksen’s rig

It took almost all day for the crane company to arrive and get set up, but finally things were happening. The race boat was wrapped in the straps and the crane was beginning to bring it upright. Unfortunately, the way the race boat’s rigging was nestled into our lifelines and jib, there was an unbelievable amount of tension put on our rigging. They actually had to almost push the boat further into ours in order to release the tangled mess. There seemed to be a lot of “skippers” trying to run the show, and no “captain” taking responsibility and taking charge on how to best separate these vessels. One “skipper” actually thought it would be a good idea to bust out a grinder and cut our lifelines, which by the way, were stretched so tightly that if he’d cut them, it would’ve spring uncontrollably like fiddle strings being shredded by Charlie Daniels playing The Devil Went Down To Georgia!

Alas, the crew of the crane had the man in charge, the rigging foreman, Kyle - thanks Kyle - finally taking control and separated these intertwined vessels. Once the race boat was freed , there was a brief few moments where it began swinging toward our boat. Madi was filming at the time and you can hear her whimpering in fear watching this boat swing toward our home!

Our home is now free! You’d think that we’d have a sigh of relief….but, no…now is the insurance battle! We really hoped that the insurance company of the fallen vessel would at least return a phone call to us and want to work with us for a resolution. No returned phone call. We’d asked the boat yard what their plan was on how they are handling this situation and their response was that we needed to contact our insurance company and file a claim, so no real help form them either. The one group that we’d feared would be the least likely to be helpful has turned out to be the most helpful and supportive - our insurance company - Geico/Boat US! They’ve been great…the first thing they did was ask if we were okay…the crew of the race boat, the surveyor for the race boat’s insurance, the yard and their crew, other boat owners in the yard, our insurance adjustor, our insurance appointed boat surveyor, the rigging company that came out to inspect our rigging…everyone expressed a genuine concern for the well being of those caught here in the storm!

So now what? Well, this is where the mantra continues. We’re a little stuck. We have to stop working on prepping the boat for paint, as we now have more damage that will require fiberglass repair and prep for paint. Our rigging is in fact damaged to the point that Dauntless is going to get an unexpected rigging job, possibly even to include a new beam. We are getting estimates for all the necessary repairs and Geico/Boat US is going to take care of us as their insured, which is a relief.

Here’s my take away - being on the hard in and of itself is hard. Living aboard while on the hard is even more challenging. Add to those challenges the yard closing, the damage to the keels, the storm, the boat falling on our boat, having more damage to fix and now rigging too - yard time is definitely hard time! Yes, all of these challenges are daunting and a bit of a crushing blow to our spirits. However, the four of us (okay, 5 if you include Stella) have decided that God has a plan and everything happens for a reason! We may not understand the plan, but in the end, our boat will be fixed good as new, we will have learned so much more about our boat in the process, we are all still together, and we are all safe! Yard time is hard time, but there’s not a group of people I’d rather serve with than my fam! Although we would never have dreamed of this happening, it is definitely a memory forever, and we still live Dauntless!