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B

oat rescues usually happen at sea. This week in Oriental, there’s a may-day for rescuing two boats abandoned on land.

For as long as humans have had boats, their unwanted ones have been left near a shoreline. If no one came to claim them, they would rot or rust. Particle by particle, they would slip back in to the waters they once plied.

Deck of Little Lady, one of two boats destined for destruction if someone doesn’t take ownership.

A less poetic and far more brutal fate awaits abandoned boats today, especially fiberglass ones left behind in boatyards.

There are a number of reasons why a boat becomes orphaned in a boat yard. Sometimes, the owner might lose interest and not think it worth the trouble to sell.

Koantik, the other boat that could soon be literally on the chopping block, right now is on the hard at SailCraft.

Unpaid boatyard bills are another cause of abandoning ship on land. The yard bill becomes greater than the boat’s worth, greater even than the sentimental value of the vessel. The boat owner cuts his or her losses and leaves it. That leaves the boat yard with the challenge of getting rid of the boat in order to make space for another — paying — customer.

An orphaned boat at SailCraft Services.

Which is why, sometimes, the boats are literally sawed to pieces.

Kathy Lichter, the office manager at SailCraft Service in Oriental, says that they hire a boat hauler to trailer such vessels to another lot. There, crews chainsaw the boat. There is some salvaging. Stainless and bronze bits will be stripped and the lead keel saved for use in future ballast projects. But abandoned fiberglass boats meet a brutal end, being sawed in to pieces that would fit in to a Dumpster. After that, the landfill.

Little Lady may be headed for the landfill.

Sometimes however, there’s a small window of opportunity to rescue a boat from such a fate. A time when someone can come in and just take the boat off the boat yard’s hands and spare it the expense and effort.

There are two such opportunities right now at Alan Arnfast’s SailCraft Service boat yard.

A green light on Little Lady.

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Posted Wednesday May 12, 2010 by Melinda Penkava