searching for a motor and found .........something amazing!

[Lady Orca]

The "Watkins 27" really needed a replacement inboard so as all good Sailors do, we search, talked to all our friends, all the Marina suppliers in the State of Florida it seemed and then a strange thing happened.

I was minding my own business coming home from a doctor appointment and some "smuck" rammed me in the back of my SUV sending me off the road and lucky I did not roll. I climbed out of the vehicle, checked the damage and realized the guy that hit me was in big big trouble with no license, no Insurance and he smelled of 3 days of alcohol. So, being the kind person I am I get his address and phone number (off the cell he had in his hand) and he was going to settle with me on the repairs to keep him out of jail. Never paid me by the way; but I tell you all this to get to here.

We were visiting him to try to collect and since he turned out to be some kind of mechanic, we mentioned the need for a motor. He gave us the name and adress of someone who he thought might have just the motor we needed. We contacted her and away we go to see if it was any good at all and if it would fit the Watkins.

We arrived to find a 1977 28' Westsail sitting at her backyard dock. It had been her Father's and had been neglected for over 10 years.

She had been flooded in 2004 to keep the boat safer at the dock during the 5 hurricanes that year we all endured here and it had not been drained since then. Mind you, this is 2006 now! Two years of the inside with water high enough to be even with the oil filter on the motor we had such high hopes for before we saw this mess.

Let's not even speak of the damage to the floors, cabinets,and well.....you can imagine....maybe......it was REALLY worse than you can imagine!

So Capatin John did not see any signs of oil in the water and with concern, asked how much she wanted for it. She replied with, "Would you like to just buy the Sailboat? I would like to get it out of here."~ OMG! That would make 3 boats for us and all of them needed motors!
We were living on a 1969, 37', Egg Harbor- it needed a work on the twin diesels, the Watkins, named "BOATWEISER" (btw) was our" playing around and learn how too sail" boat and we were looking forward to adding a dingy with the name of "BOATLITE" reserved for her......well....NOW WHAT DO WE DO?

"How much do you want for her?" the Captain asked. She replied, "$100.00?".....I am not sure if either of us remember how we reacted to that, but the boat was ours within moments and now we had to get her to our home marina. Costs us $200.00 to get her registered, so here we start at $300.00 for the Westsail..

Boat US towed her for us and she was home, tied up along side the Egg Harbor like a new baby.

And, so the journey of making her our new home has begun. Sold the Watkins to a great young couple and now all our time and efforts are dedicated to finding out exactly what will need to be done to get this vessel sailing again.

We drained all the water before she came home, but now she needed to dry out so we could really see what we had. OMG! and the story will continue.....there are a few pics on my page, but I do have some newer ones I must post soon. Captain John has them all on his page by now I am sure. You can go there until I can catch up with him on that end.

I will write again as soon as I can.......to be continued........and continued......and continued........