Thursday, August 27, 2009

Dallas to Palacios, TX via Rockport

Ok...so we found the boat, now the question was how to get it to Palacios, TX. With researching we discovered that prices in Palacios at boat yards were more expensive then prices 60 miles south in a coastal town called Rockport. I suppose it was because Palacios is the "Shrimp Capitol of Texas", so they are use to working with big shrimpers, not small sailboat cruisers.

We found a "do it yourself boatyard" called House of Boats and worked with them to have Pilgrim delivered to them where they could do the work needed to get Pilgrim ready for salt water. Things were going smoothly until we realized that Pilgrim would have to picked up by a crane and placed on their trailer, well no crane at the marina at Lake Ray Hubbard. Ok...now what? We called the previous owners and discussed the dilemma. Come to find out, they knew a guy who had a trailer that fit Pilgrim, we could rent it and they would bring it to Rockport for us if we paid for the gas. Yeah! What a deal. The date was set for July 13, 2009 and all was arranged, now came the waiting. We just put Pilgrim into someone else's hands for the 370 mile journey.


July 13th arrived, we got up early for the 200 mile drive to Rockport. We were excited, nervous with a little anxiety mixed in, but we were ready for Pilgrim to get there in one piece with no problems. We knew it would be a good 8 hours+ for them driving so that should put them into Rockport by 3:00 pm at the latest. The phone rang and they were on the east side of Rockport, that was at 2:00 pm. We watched as Pilgrim came down the road, it looked like she was pushing the suburban instead of the other way around, but she was there in one piece, but with some damage. The mast step was ripped out of the deck and the extrusion on the rolling furler was bent when the mast was taken down and there was a pretty good scratch down the port bow side when the boat scraped the ladder during loading. It was all fixable.

Now came the most nerve racking experience I have ever felt. Dave was inside dealing with the boat yard manager and I was outside watching these young guys moving quickly to hoist Pilgrim off the trailer and onto jack stands. I was so nervous, I just knew that something would let go and Pilgrim would come crashing downing, along with our dream. Dave came out, saw the look on my face and said, "they do this all the time". Some how that helped.
All details were wrapped up and we had a date of July 25th to launch Pilgrim and leave the next morning to sail her up the ICW to Palacios, TX. Again we had to leave Pilgrim in someone else's hands to complete the work as we drove home completely exhausted.
Fair winds, my friends....

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