The Zombie Fleet

[toddster]

Every marina has them. Those once-loved boats that just seem to gather moss and rot in place. Somebody keeps paying the mooring fees, for some reason...

Anyway, this didn't seem to quite fit into the "ugly boat" thread. And it seems like a good Halloween topic. Yesterday, I noticed that a rather graceful Cal 28 flattop that I've always admired from a distance has started sprouting mushrooms. Last registration sticker expired two years ago. Looks like it has entered the ranks of the floating dead...

What's spooky in your marina?

 

[familysailor]

For a moment there i thought we were all doomed because someone taught Zombies to sail.....

Whew!

 

[Bob Perry]

"What's spooky in your marina?"

Me.

 

[Jose Carumba]

 

[nathan_bossett]

What's spooky in your marina?

Not my marina, but I sailed into here (Vallejo) about 6 months ago:

(front row with the sterns facing us, third boat from the right. It's a little hard to see the boat given the way she's berthed so look at the masts if you don't see her at first)

 

[Ishmael]

 

[Ajax]

Love the topic. Nathan, that looks like a Navy yard full of mothballed ships.

 

[Brodie]

Having moved from Rhode Island to Florida I am amazed at the number of derelict, neglected or abandoned boats here. Launched my kayak across from the Davis Island Yacht Club in Tampa today and the mooring field was full of horrors. The docks weren't much better.

 

[Bryanjb]

I do love Davis Island Yacht club though.

 

[Brodie]

It is a pretty nice spot for a YC. The club itself looked very nice. I kept thinking of the ugly boat thread while paddling through the mooring field but so many of the boats had people living on them that it didn't feel right to take pictures, particularly not while in my brand new kayak that was probably worth more than half the boats out there....

 

[rattus32]

I keep hearing the Vincent Price "Ahh-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha" in my mind when I see those boats. Would make a great setting for an aquatic Halloween Marina of Terror...

 

[Ishmael]

 

[Ishmael]

Yes, that is a piece of driftwood.

 

[Ishmael]

This one's not going anywhere soon.

 

[Ishmael]

I have posted this one before, but it never ceases to amaze me. It was finally gone (after 15 years or so) the last time we went there, but I don't know if it moved or sank.

 

[SloopJonB]

Yes, that is a piece of driftwood.

That is actually kind of cool on some bizarre level.

This one's not going anywhere soon.

My guess is the owner hasn't been back since the last hurricane.

 

[foshizzle]

At the right price (free) some of those zombies could be reconditioned relatively cheaply. Last winter my partner and I reconditioned a Pearson Flyer that had been on the hard 12 years. The only thing that made it a major pain in the ass was that the inboard engine was a block of rust and had to be replaced.

 

[toddster]

Some of those examples look like the good boats in my marina. It hardly counts unless there is grass growing on the deck...

 

[steele]

Across from my slip are several boats just like this, sadly they are boats worth saving, but with shredded canvas flapping in the wind and running rigging rotting into clumps of slime. They include 2 J 30s, an Aphrodite 101', an Olson 30, and Baba 30. Most of their scuppers are clogged so the decks look llike a swamp. I am waiting for the dock lines to rot away and have them end up drifting loose in a winter storm, bull in a china shop style. What I do not get is the morrage at the marina is not cheep, at least 2 of the boats are owned be sailors who have had major health issues but can not part with the boats. They are spending $400 a month to let their dreams decompose into scrap.