Boating…. News from the boat yard!
“Oh my goodness,” Jacksonville Jack said as he stared down at the boat yard bill. He really wanted to utter a stronger epitaph but the smiling, young woman behind the counter would’ve certainly been offended.
“Is there something wrong,” said the young woman. The smile disappeared from her face and a look of real concern appeared as she snatched back the bill. “I’ll run the numbers again.”
Jack swallowed hard and looked at his companion, Boston Bob, as if ‘he’ would have some magical answer to the astronomical number at the bottom of the bill. Bob smiled his ‘I told you so’ smile then walked a little further away before turning back and shrugging.
Jack hoped that the pretty young woman would suddenly shriek ‘ah ha’ and take an eraser from her drawer and change the 2 for a 1 as the first of the bottom line. He wanted to prove Boston Bob wrong and wipe that smirk from his face.
The young woman re-crunched the numbers without shrieking but did open a big filling cabinet. She quickly thumb through hard copies until she pulled out a small stack of papers and placed them on her desk. As she turned over each one she looked up and smiled at Jack.
His heart sank even lower when she said, with the original smile back on her face, “Your bill is actually a couple hundred dollars less this time than it was the last time you were here!” Thud!
I got the call from Boston Bob, “Could you help Jacksonville Jack bring his boat around to his dock?” Bob’s explanation was brief but concise and I immediately agreed to help a fellow ‘Dead End Canal Yacht Club’ member.
Bob picked me up and gave me a quick overview, “Jack’s income from his stock portfolio has dwindled and he finally is faced with the true cost of owning his boat.”
“He swears by this boat yard? I can’t believe they would jack up the prices during these economic times….”
“They’ve never been the cheapest but they do excellent work. They’re one of the few remaining yards and there isn’t much competition,” Bob mused.
Bob dropped me off near the lift dock and left. I found Jack in the pilot house clutching a Miller Light beer in his right hand and the hated bill clutched firmly in his left hand. “Do you want to see something funny?”
I took the bill and quickly scanned it. The total was just south of 3 grand. There was an itemized break down of all the work performed but none of the numbers appeared way out of line. There was a lot of work listed on his bill and boat yards have to charge for the work or they go out of business. I could have taken the easy way out and denounced the boat yard as scoundrels or highway men but he was to flushed with anger already.
“Not funny at all,” I said as I went out to cast off the lines. As we wound are way out of the channel I watched Jack run the numbers on his pocket calculator.
“Seven hundred and fifty dollars for 10 hours labor rewiring the upper station… Six hundred dollars labor for painting the bottom…. Five hundred and fifty dollars to wax the boat…Seven hundred and fifty dollars for three gallons of bottom paint,” he crumpled the copy of the bill and tossed it down.
When we entered the dead end canal we saw a number of members lining the seawall near his dock. The word had spread very quickly thanks to Boston Bob’s big mouth. “We’ve got a reception committee,” I warned Jack.
He cracked open another beer and put on his game face. He was smiling ear to ear when he stepped off his boat. “No big deal!” He repeated the phrase over and over to each and every member. An impromptu meeting/party broke out as different members recounted their individual boat yard horror stories. After several beers most of the members wandered off to take their naps and only Boston Bob, Jacksonville Jack, Trooper Tom and I remained.
Captain Crunches parting words rang true and cruel, “If you can’t afford the boat, get rid of it!”
“Did you ever feel like hitting someone right square in the mouth,” Jack asked.
“Old Crunchie was just being his disagreeable self,” I said. Jack shook his head.
“The boat yard owner?,” asked Trooper Tom.
Jack shook his head, “No, the guy who talked me into buying all that bank stock.”
Next week a report on the ‘Dead End Canal’s Yacht Club’s’ latest trip to the Dry Tortugas National Park. And if you want to learn how to save money on your next bottom job call, boatguy Ed at 239-466-5670 or e-mail him at supershipbottom@aol.com