Pensacola FL Sailing Blog - sailingnightwatch

The insurance company will not make the boat better then it was.  Your policy is not a replacement policy.  I do not know whether this is Boat US philosophy or the marine insurance industry.  At this time, most every boat owner was also being educated by the insurance industry on home owners insurance, and were incurring larger losses than my paint job.  They did pay for repairs of the 3 big areas and about 10’ of rub rail that disappeared, the 6’ loss of the gunnels that was ground down about 6“ and the many scraches and gouges around the hull.  They also replaced a topping lift and anchor rode.   I asked about putting gel coat on the repairs and matching the rest of the hull.  Nope, repairs only.  I paid for the paint job.  Prep is almost everything.  Having a good hand and eye on the spray operator is the rest of the equation.  The job turned out fantastic.

To add insult to injury, the insurance company dropped the value of the boat by 20 grand because it met a magic age number.   And yes the rates went up.  It is now 4 years later and we are paying almost twice what we were paying.  With the rate increase, we will cover their cost to fix the boat in another 3 years.  This is the first of 2 times I will drone on about the insurance industry.  Wait till I get on the expense of safety equipment.

We were truly blessed.  The storm hit Thursday night and we got home from evacuation Sunday morning.  We had bought a portable generator knowing we would not have any power for a while.  We brought enough gas to last the generator a week.  When we got on board, the boat had leaked some water in one spot where it’s gunnels had been rubbed away.  It does not appear that much water had leaked in and the forward bilge pump had handled the water.  We had 250 gallons of water, full fuel tanks and electricity.  The generator I bought could not handle the AC units, but the weather for the first week was mild for that time of year.  We had a home.  It may have been beat up, but so many of our friends suffered the total or at least major loss to their homes.  It was a little over 20 months before all was back to normal for us.  It is now going on 4 years and there are still some in the community rebuilding. This brings you to “Insurance 101”.

In the first picture taken about 6 A.M. and the water is still about 8’ above normal.  The pilings are 14’ above mean tide.  The vessel at my stern was a Westsail 32.  Some how its bowsprit and my davits and the starboard corner of my boat got tangled enough to tear the bowsprit out of the Westsail.  The spot by the end of my boat name was rubbed through to the heavy matting of the transom by the bow sprit.  There were two other major rub marks that were caused by the Westsail and the boat at my bow.

 In the second picture, the cruiser setting perfectly in the center is in fact sitting on another cruiser and as the surge left, she was setting fairly high if not totally dry.  The cruiser on the right riding on its midship cleat, had its stern cleats torn out of its transom.   The sail boat between the two was part of the mess in front of my boat and the owner and some of his friends are in the process of tying it off to some of the pilings that were left from “A” pier.  The wind is still gusting about 40 MPH at this time.

 In the third picture, the board hanging from my davit is the cross support for the davits and is hanging by the wirers to the stern light.  Yes the light worked.  Three years later it is still working.  It is a keeper, they do no make them that good any more.