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.............................--- Putting the Boat on the Hard ---
..........................--- Charlotte Harbor Boat Storage---
......................................................................--- May 2011 ---
When we bought the Endeavour it was in a slip at Ft. Myers Beach. After spending a couple days on it there moving items we needed from our MacGregor we took off for Charlotte Harbor Boat Storage 70 miles to the north. We left Ft. Myers on a Friday and and arrived at the boat storage on Monday. The next morning....
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....they lifted the boat out of the water. Before we could lift it they had to position the straps and to make sure the back one wasn't on the prop shaft they snugged it up and I went into the rear engine compartment and turned the shaft by hand. Once they were sure the straps where.....
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...in the right location they lifted the boat, all 20,000+ lbs. of it free of the water. Smitty, shown above, and Brady, one of the owners took care of all of this.
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Ruth shot these pictures as the boat came out of the water.
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To get the boat tied to their dock we came down the narrow canal from right to left and then turned hard to port, stopped and reversed some to get the bow to finish swinging around in the narrow channel and then pulled ahead to the dock. I was nervous as I had almost zero maneuvering experience to this point in the boat, but it handled real well and everything went like we had done it a hundred times before. Hope it always goes that well.
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Here Brady on the left and Smitty started to clean the bottom...
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... with long scrappers, with me watching, left of Smitty.
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Here you can see they got the rear strap just right. When the boat goes back in the water we will mark where the straps go and the next time that will go faster.
One thing I liked about the Endeavour is that the rudder, bottom right arrow, is higher that the bottom of the keel so that if you run aground the rudder should still be free to turn and that did help us when we did run aground going across the Miserable Mile by Ft. Myers. We managed to work free by backing with the rudder on first one side then the other.
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After scrapping the boat Smitty power washed it. I also measured the draft and as far as I could tell it was right at 4 feet 6 inches like the specs said it should be.
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They moved the boat from the lift to this motorized cradle and moved it down the yard. Here Tony Pocklington, Brady's brother and the other owner of the yard is running the cradle. These guys are very hands on with the business and along with Smitty and Shirley in the office really took good care of us. We already like this yard a lot.
One nice feature is you can live on the boat for up to 3 months of the year while you work on it. That will save us a ton in motel bills. The have a nice modest screened in club house with very clean bathrooms and showers and you can fix meals there and get all the free ice you want. All of that along with great rates make this a good place for us to keep the boat between trips.
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The boat is in and at this point they are looking for stands for it to block it up.
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Just down from our Endeavour was another Endeavour 37 that looks to be a nice boat. Just past it you can see the yard gate that is locked at night, but you have a key so you can come and go as needed. The yard is about 4-5 miles from a Publix grocery store, fast food, Home Depot and Walmart and more is another couple mile. No traffic to deal with to get to any of the above.
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Here I am trying not to look as tired as I was. At this point we had been gone from home for about 3 action filled months.
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Another picture. Notice the step ladder that we had to use from this point on. I had yet to remove the main. The sails have to be off since hurricane season was coming. The boat to the left is owned by the guy who ended up media blasting our boats bottom a few days later so that some blisters could be repaired and a barrier coat and bottom paint could be added. His boat, which I think is a Hughes 38, is the same boat, one build number different than Cap'n Fatty Goodlander who writes for Cruising World and others.
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We stayed on the boat for about 4 days as I remember in the yard trying to figure out what changes we wanted to do to it and what we could make for her while we were home. We also lined up some people who could do some work on her while we were gone. We wanted to get the paint blasted and sanded off and the blisters opened so that they could dry over the summer before our return. We also arranged to have all of the thru-hulls pulled out. The new ones will go in when the bottom is barrier coated and painted. We also arranged to have all of the discharge lines from the head and the holding tank removed to get the smell from them out of the boat. Other than that the boat will sit there waiting for....
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....our return in good company with dozens of other pretty sailboats.