the good parts and then some

I want to skip over a few things and just move on to the good parts.  I am not going to write in-depth about the delivery captain because he turned out to be a colossal jerk.  If you would like to see a list of my complaints just go to the bottom of this post where I make an attempt, fairly unsuccessfully, to be humorously vitriolic.

If, however, you would like to read about the good and positive bits, just keep reading…

Finally we got the call that our boat would be delivered the following day.  My Better Half and HerSpouse were at Commune 2.0.  I was at work.  We coordinated that they would go to Ellis Island and take pictures of our boat as it arrived; I had a Summer Friday so I left on-the-dot and took the ferry over, ready to take pictures and document the momentous event!

We asked the delivery captain to come in with the sails up so we could take some good pictures.  Unfortunately my Better Half had only a film camera while I had our good digital camera and he dropped the sails before he got to me.  Oh well, c’est la vie.  HerSpouse did an admirable job with his phone camera and, between the three of us, we got some good ones!

Here are the favorites!

FINALLY HERE!!!!

And… stop now if you’d like to keep it light.

And now, my thoughts about this guy who brought our boat up:

1. He took 16 days to bring it up.  He didn’t charge us for the 3 where he just sat (in Annapolis and in Atlantic City) but still… It was awfully convenient that the bad weather days coincided with the Most Interesting Places To Visit.  We were down to the wire in leaving Commune 2.0 because we never expected it would take that long.  He blamed the weather but My Better Half is a pilot and can see the winds at any location through the magic of technology.  After long phone calls the captain was finally convinced to sail North and actually make the delivery.  13 days is expensive.  So are slip fees in all the places they stopped.  So is food when they eat out every night.  We paid for all of that.
2. He was a drunk.  When we were aboard in Atlantic City there were 3 liter bottles of vodka in the cockpit.  When they finally left the boat there was only one left that was mostly full, which they took with them.  Over 2 liters in 3 days?  I’d call that being a drunk.
3. He didn’t listen.  I don’t mind people who talk about themselves incessantly; I can just tune them out.  However, when someone talks about himself and then asks me a question I have to pay attention.  The problem with this guy was that he would ask me the same questions over and over.  When I finally stopped answering them to his satisfaction then he started making up things about me/us.  Like that we have dogs.  And that the boat is our toy (no matter how many times I told him that we are homeless and this boat is our home and that their delay has cost us a lot of money and caused a lot of stress…).  
4. He was dirty.  Our settee cushions had been very clean when my Better Half left the boat.  Now they are covered in engine oil, dirt and god-knows-what spills.  Thanks.  There was a white scuff in the new paint job.  Also, they seemed to just throw any sort of garbage into the cockpit and off the back.  The entire back of the boat was sticky with something (plus there was a raw egg broken on it; we have no idea…), there was a plastic coffee stirrer on one of the transom steps that was obviously intended for the water, and there was garbage stuffed behind cockpit cushions, in the floor grate and in the cubby holes.  How hard is it to get a plastic bag and throw your garbage in it?  We know you have them because of all the booze you bought.  There was also hair everywhere.  Everywhere…
5. He was disrespectful of things what we entrusted him with.  He wrote on our boat (in pencil, but, really??), he broke our wheel, Narnia was completely disassembled and most things put into the trunk berth (Narnia = dirty work area, trunk berth = bedroom).  He pulled up floorboards and didn’t put them back correctly so they splintered/sank/were wrecked.  He sat on my sunglasses and broke them (I made the mistake of thinking that this was my boat instead of remembering that it wasn’t).
6. He was incredibly rude when my Better Half asked him to see if he could fix the scuff in the paint.  This was over the phone after I had insisted that we leave since I wanted them OFF MY BOAT; they were staying for an extra night and would leave in the morning.  My Better Half sent him a text message and asked if he could see what he could do about the scuff.  He called back and went on a rant that we were horrible people and weren’t going to pay him and he should never have taken this job and his girlfriend had to pee in a bucket since our head didn’t work and that he had to buy a GPS unit since our GPS & compass didn’t work and that he wasn’t making any money on this delivery.  I kid you not.  He poked the wrong bear because my Better Half schooled him on what was acceptable and unacceptable behavior.  He said that if he had let us know that the head didn’t work we would have made arrangements.  He said the same thing about the GPS. He reminded him that he had taken this delivery after being on the boat four times and doing an inspection.  He asked what sort of indication we gave that we wouldn’t pay him (to no response)…among other things.  After they hung up he called back 10 minutes later and told us 4 times that he had managed to rub out the scuff and it was just from a fender.  Repeated himself our times.  See #2.

We rented a car for them to drive back to NC (this was part of the deal) and dropped it off to them in the morning.  We paid for a full-sized car, a full tank of gas, and the full collision insurance.  We wanted nothing more to do with them.  Ever.  Unfortunately, he left his blood-pressure medication on our boat.  He also put an extension cord and a knife of ours with his stuff.  There are a lot more things missing that we just can’t care about.  We are trying to put the experience behind us.

Things to think about when hiring a boat captain:

• pay a provisioning per-diem rate per person.
• agree on a timeline and agree what will happen if it isn’t met.
• don’t pay for booze.
• see references; don’t take the recommendation of someone who’s trying to be helpful.
• insist that the boat be in the same condition (or better) than when they take delivery.
• If they have crew on board insist that they are not beginning-learners.  We paid a lot of money so the new girlfriend could learn how to sail on our boat.

And I think I’m done.  It was horrible, yet it accomplished the goal.  We have our home…