Re: Speaking of Insurance

It was not an easy feeling when I walked away from my beloved Mariner 31 Ketch the day before Sandy hit. It looked back and though that maybe I should drop the anchor - drag it and the chain about 100ft and wrap it around the crane foundation... But then I thought of the other boats - what if I was one of the first to float? what if my chain would start toppling other stands on boats that would have otherwise been spared? There she sat, in the yard, on her stands, plywood under each post; all fenders out on her sides; any and everything that could add to windage removed from her topsides, I had no choice but to leave her to whatever Sandy would dish out. It was the last time I saw her intact before her fight to the death. she put up a tremendous fight and stayed afloat longer than any other of the 30 boats surrounding her - but in the end she was mauled and thrashed almost beyond recognition, before she too ended up on the pile, about 300 yards from where she stood, along with all other boats. Sinn Fein - a beautiful Cal 40 - was also on the pile - her owner has decided he will bring her back to her former glory - fix the 6ft x 4ft hole in her side - replace everything inside. My Ketch was never holed and her insides were relatively dry. I donated my rebuilt Perkins 4-107, which remained intact, to his efforts. Boat US paid me the limit on the policy - with it, I bought my Cal-2-34. The reason for this diatribe is to show that comments about "those other owners" driving up the cost of insurance, regardless of how true, are hurtful. I did not walk away from my classic ketch thinking i was alright because I had insurance. I walked away with a huge knot in my stomach. Rant over.

On 3/27/2013 9:16 AM, du… [at] aim.com wrote: > The reason for this diatribe is to show that comments about "those > other owners" driving up the cost of insurance, regardless of how > true, are hurtful. I did not walk away from my classic ketch thinking > i was alright because I had insurance. I walked away with a huge knot > in my stomach. I made the first comment along those lines and it was certainly not aimed at any responsible owner whose boat was wrecked by unanticipated forces. It was aimed at irresponsible people. My Cal 20 lies in a semi-protected mooring field. Periodically there is a very large storm and inevitably some boats go ashore. Whenever that happens, it creates an opportunity for publicity-seekingpolitical types, the marginal ones, to make noises about regulation and banning mooring. Never mind that there's almost never any public harm whatsoever, excepting only the responsible owners whose boats were in the path of the breakaway boats. But soon that storm, too, blows over. The biggest storm I've seen here in 20 years was a big blow that lasted about 4 days. Just before, one of our schooner captains told me to get my boat to shelter after catching an early warning. He directed me to a sheltered place where mooring was forbidden: "they can yell at you afterward but your boat will be safe." I did and he was exactly right about safety. 22 boats went ashore. Since then, I've been very cautious about big-blow warnings and about checking my mooring system when bad stuff is in the forecast. A couple years ago toward the end of the season one of my two mooring lines was starting to look a bit sad. Then we got a blow and I was scheduled to leave town for the weekend. I was nervous about leaving so I rowed the dinghy out to the boat, getting really wet and cold in the long rough row out. But when I got there, the suspect line was indeed failing. I managed to shackle a new one onto the mooring buoy so I had two good lines. Other boats in the mooring field develop problems that nobody attends to, suggesting that the owners just aren't checking for extended periods. Mainsheets let loose and booms flop around; one little Catalina had her standing rigging come so loose from motion over a couple of weeks that the mast was about to come down; I rowed out and snugged them up. One boat got her mooring line (just one) wrapped around her fin keel somehow so she was lying beam-to. After a couple days I tried to untangle it from my dinghy but couldn't do it. A week later somebody fixed it. When I've left town for a week or more, I've always tried to notify others in the mooring field, asking them to keep an eye on my boat while I'm gone. The point is that there are ways we can be responsible owners and minimize risks. We cannot eliminate them. Shackles or chain links can break. But we do have an obligation to control those things that are within our control. And I'll add that I like my boat. I've put a lot of effort into buffing her up and improving things. She has given me hours of fun. Look for the big grin on my face as I row away in the dinghy. I'd feel really bad if my carelessness led to the destruction of my fine little boat. Chris Campbell >

Move to California or the Pacific NW. If the earthquakes don't tsunami your boat underwater, the liquid sunshine of Puget Sound will fill it! Brian