I sat with a friend the other day, and listened to his story of how he recently sank his 1/2 million dollar boat (another story, another time). I realized that it was 30 years ago that my wife, two daughters and 4 month old son, loaded up my fathers boat, and headed to the San Juans Islands and almost sank it... The Chelsie Robin was a 1968 wooden 28ft Fairliner that had been moored in Tacoma. My father, a retired 31 year Air Force sergeant, had grown up in the San Juan Islands and literally on the water for his first 6 months. He had wanted to retire and have a boat to go back into those very islands of his youth. The problem was his retirement income, could only pay for the boat, moorage and insurance, but couldn’t pay for the fuel to take it out. And NO, he didn’t have the affection for sail like his son. So he would go down to the Tacoma Tide flats where the boat was moored, and sit, drink coffee and smoke cigarettes and sand the wood and repaint it. My Mom would get seasick sitting at the dock so never went on it and of course my family and I were “too busy” to go out on it and spend time with him. Unexpectedly he passed away the day, my son Kevin was to be born, and as the only child I inherited the boat. I moved it up to Silverdale and was determined to take it on a voyage to those San Juans that he never made it to. So this week before Labor Day weekend 1984, I loaded the family onto the “Chelsie Robin” (named after my two daughters) and headed north. A week and $500 in fuel later, we made it back to Port Hadlock and spent the night. It was able to hit 8 mph at it’s fasted. It had been a lonnnnng trip. It was Saturday, Labor day weekend 6:00 am and everyone was asleep. It was one of those cool crisp September sunny mornings and everyone was asleep. Not wanting to wake everyone, I quietly started the engine, pulled the anchor and headed through the slot between Hadlock and Indian Island… a narrow channel of about 1/2 mile with a max depth of 18 feet. The tide was going the other direction and so I decided to use my “whitewater” training and experience and run the eddies up the side, carefully watching my depth. BAM, the boat shook and the engine over revved. I had nocked the prop off the boat. Now going backwards with zero control over this 28 ft barge, moving at about 3 knots back through this narrow channel. My wife had woken and was in her jammys. We fended off the beach and even enlisted the people walking the beach to help us from running aground. We drifted out the other side and a few minutes later a passing boat threw us a line and towed us back to Port Townsend. We spent the Labor Day weekend hanging in the sling in Port Hudson. What became clear was that dad not only couldn’t afford gas money, but he also couldn’t afford a haul out or pay a diver to clean the bottom. There was enough growth on the bottom, to feed a dozen Canadian families. We scraped the growth off the bottom and waited for the propeller place to open on Tuesday. I put the family in the neighbors car, back to the Silverdale house Monday morning and brought the boat back on tuesday with a new clean bottom and new used propeller. Low and behold the boat got up on plane and hit 25 knots and scooted back to Silverdale. As i sat on Friday, listening to my friends description of sinking his $500,000 boat, I realized how close I was to doing the same thing 30 years ago. A different time, a different place… a different out come….
Posted on: Mon, 25 Aug 2014 01:27:24 +0000
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