Story: Where do you put a boat? (Part I)

This is more an anectdote than a story. It's about how we acquired a boat, and the subsequent difficulties of boat ownership.

We had only lived in Gig Harbor for about 3 months, and I was very keen on joining the sailing scene. I met several people at church who enjoyed sailing, and one in particular who was very enthusiastic. I was very cautious about spending much family money on sailing and was looking for low-cost approaches. In fact, I was leaning strongly towards building my own little sailing boat. My friend offered to give me a 30ft steel lifeboat he had in his backyard. I couldn't really imagine a 30' lifeboat, but I knew it was too large for me to work with so I declined.

A short time later, he called with another offer; "Would I like to be a partner in owning a boat?" Naturally, I wanted to, but I needed to convince the family. So, we made a trip and viewed the boat. It seemed absolutely huge, but beautiful. The price was right; there was just one question remaining. Where would we keep it?

Simple. Was my future partners reply? You drop a glob of cement in the harbor, hook a chain and float to it and you have a moorage! Take a look in the harbor - most of those boats have done just that.

Really? Awesome! Was my reply, and we joined the partnership.

I had never really noticed the group of boats clustered in the harbor before. They were a motley collection, in various states of mold and disrepair. One in particular was unique. It was a trimaran. A triple hulled sailboat with a small cabin in the middle. It was probably one of the worst and listed badly to one side. None of this mattered to me though. They were boats, and they were beautiful, and we would soon be joining them. Or so I thought.

The week following the formation of our joint partnership, there was an article in the newspaper about the "Illegally Moored Boats In The Harbor". We hadn't moored ours yet; it was still at the public dock (overtextending it's welcome already). This article alarmed me by explaining that our plan for moorage was illegal. Furthermore, the home owners along that part of the harbor were complaining. I don't sympathize with their point of view (about owning the sea and sky outside their windows), but they were pushing strongly to have the illegal boats removed.

I knew I didn't want to moor our boat illegally and told my partner the same. But what to do then. Moorage in the harbor is expensive, and neither of us felt we could afford it. That's when we had the plan to keep it at a state park out in the woods. The park was closed for winter and no one was using it so it would do for the time.

Well, to make a long, boring story short, we played cat and mouse with the ranger there for several months. We would keep it at the dock for the maximum number of days, and then we would anchor it in the small inlet for a bit, and then repeat the process. Eventually, we had to leave though, and that brought us back to the original questions. Where do you put a boat?


Captain Woody