The (second) haulout

By Sailor Keddy -
It was a bittersweet decision. On the one hand, I wasn't using Soveraine all that much and over $300 per month to keep her in wet storage was getting expensive. Sure, I visit Florida pretty often, about every second or third month, but by the time I got to her slip and started in on some projects I'd want to complete I would realize how far behind I was on basic maintenance. This was getting annoying. Two steps back for every one step forward, and it seemed like every time I would visit she would be in worse shape than before. The piles of bird poop, the dead batteries, surface rust on the bow pulpit, oiling some teak, cleaning a musty, moldy cabin...you get the idea. It left little time for any actual improvements to her let alone any time to actually enjoy a sail in a short 3-4 day period.

On the other hand, I need to replace the standing rigging, build and install a windvane, finish repainting the interior, shore up some play in the rudder, get some new ground tackle, completely redo the galley with a fridge, the possibility of a complete repower (?), among a myriad of other small projects.

That entire decision was brought to the front burner a couple of weeks ago when I got a certified letter (almost never a good thing) saying I had to be out of my slip by November 15th due to the fact Manatee County found the docks unsafe and had to be replaced. Luckily I already had a plane ticket down and scrambled to find a place to haul out and someone with a hydraulic trailer to transport my boat inland where the rent was cheap. I found both and as of tonight my sweet Soveraine sits on the hard in a trailer park in Sarasota awaiting a nearly complete refit.

The purpose of this whole shenanigan? More cruising of course. I won't allude to what my grand plans are (never good luck to do so) but I will say that when she goes back in the water, 18 to 24 months from now, she will be as ready to cross oceans as when she was built 51 yeas ago.

I leave you with pictures courtesy of my mother who was kind enough to drive up and find her still on the trailer from the boatyard:



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