So here’s a bit of history…
A few wondered about the boat mentioned here:
http://www.c-brats.com/viewtopic.php?t= ... t=bow+rail
I didn’t see this link until last summer and by then the boat had been sold. So, when the boat showed up again this fall, this time on eBay, I scrambled to learn all I could about it. The link above said the boat had been “tied up wrong at the dock and sank in 6' of saltwater”. I wanted to know more about this event and with a half dozen phone calls and the help of Google I was able to trace the history through the first five owners and up to this incident. During this time the boat was listed for sale on eBay three times. It failed to sell on the first two auctions, due to “reserve not met”, but after the seller removed the reserve, I bought the boat.
I wasn’t able to learn much at all about the boat’s history from the owner until I learned the name of the boat, and that alone would have gotten me nowhere except for the fact that the boat had been instrumental in the rescue of another vessel 13 years ago. That event resulted in a story on the web, and Googling the name of the boat yielded just one hit. Here it is…
http://coastalscience.com/news/cse-assi ... ue-at-sea/
From there on it was a matter of picking up the phone and calling people. Here’s a summary of what I learned about the boat’s history. It’s interesting to me, and likely only me, but I’ll post it here to archive it for any future owners of this boat. It’s condensed and I’ve left out specific names.
1999 C-Dory Cruiser 22, HID #DOR22866J999 has spent almost all of its life as a work boat, and it shows. It really shows. Boats that are used as pleasure craft don't know how good they have it!
It was purchased new by someone (never learned who this was) and sold shortly thereafter to engineering company #1 (see rescue story above) in South Carolina around 2001, I spoke with a long-time employee who told me they used it as a survey boat all over the east coast, including in Moriches Inlet on Long Island, Oregon Inlet in South Carolina, off the Outer Banks and areas off Georgia. It was fitted with scuba tank racks and a water pump was mounted on the cockpit deck. He said it was very seaworthy, but they found it to be too light for rough water (they were often in surf), making for an uncomfortable ride. They replaced it with a heavier boat that had a more comfortable ride. It incurred no damage during their ownership, except that one of the fuel tanks unexpectedly developed a leak, making for a slippery cockpit floor on the way back to the dock. They replaced it with a new one from the C-Dory factory.
They sold the boat in 2008 to engineering company #2 in South Carolina. I called them and spoke with a current employee. I learned from him that during the time they had the boat, the only damage it incurred was that the swim ladder was ripped of the step while pulling the boat onto the trailer. It was eventually sold to engineering company #3 in South Carolina.
I called engineering company #3 and was directed to a past employee who was familiar with the boat, but no longer working for the company. I contacted this gentleman, who told me that while he was working there, someone left the boat tied up to a dock in late summer of 2014. The next morning the boat was flipped upside down in the water. It was tied up in an industrial area (across the river from Blount Island) with large boats going in and out and speculation is that at some point, as the tide went out and back in during the night, the wake from a large boat banged it around and flipped it. The front of the bow rail and the bow roller were broken off. The motor was never running during this time so the info from the link referenced earlier was not accurate.
The boat was removed the same day and damage to the bottom of the hull was discovered. The individual I talked to thinks this occurred at a prior time and was never noticed because the scrape was hidden by a trailer bunk. At any rate, at this point engineering company #3 filed an insurance claim on the boat, and it was sold to a marine repair company on James Island. I tried to contact this company, but they are apparently out of business as their phone is no longer in service.
I wish I could talk to them because I assume that it was they who repaired the hull damage, and I’d like to know the extent of the damage and how the repair was done. There is a rectangular painted-over area on the hull, but it’s centered over a trailer bunk so I can’t tell much about it at this point. This will be a principal area to investigate when I get the boat into my shop late next summer.
After 2014 things get fuzzy. No one has registered the boat since the South Carolina tags expired in 2015. When the boat was offered for sale in February of 2018 it apparently (according to link above) had a Honda 90 mounted on the transom. The title I obtained (which is a clear standard title), shows it was registered in July of 2018 from the seller I bought it from. Also, when it showed up on eBay, it no longer had the non-working Honda 90 that it apparently had in February of 2018. It was advertised on eBay as having a “wrong motor”, which was a “non-working” 150hp Mercury. It was also an extra-long-shaft motor and obviously a misfit. Someone had removed the carbs and they were in a box in the cabin.
As the seller was not available for more questions the day I picked up the boat, I dealt with the seller’s agent to finalize the sale. I learned from the agent that the seller “was furious” when they discovered that it had an incorrectly sized motor on it and that it needed carburetor work. The seller was not prepared to do any boat work themselves, needed cash, and just wanted out. I suspect I am the third owner since February of 2018.
