Ever sailed in any kind of liquid food?   Well it’s not fun.  Not at all.  But it had to be done as its time to take this beautiful wench to the boat yard to have a survey done on her (and we mean the boat, not the wife).  We decided to travel her north towards North Carolina because there are not a lot of boatyards to choose from in Little River, SC.  And we had a time crunch so we had to deal with it even though it was not optimum boating conditions.

Visibility started out rough and this was my first time to boat/sail/motor in the  Atlantic .

It was indeed like being in Pea Soup. [fvplayer src=”https://thecrabbycaptainandthesunnysailor.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/pea-3.mp4″ splash=”https://thecrabbycaptainandthesunnysailor.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/pea-soup-1.gif” width=”720″ height=”480″]

Midway through the day, the sun came out and we made it to our destination with a bit of time to spare.  Our choice of  boatyards was Southport Marina  and we received an early bird discount because we scheduled the work before Mar 31.  Many marinas offer discounts if you book with them during their slow season and we made to the marina by March 30!  <whew!>

The next morning we were scheduled for a survey which was done by Anthony Williams, whom we almost lost while trying to leave the dock! The seas were quite rough and the wind was a brisk 25mph pushing the boat into the dock.  Tony and I shoved the boat away from the dock but the wind out-muscled us!  Captain John throttled the engine to full power to get us away from the wooden dock and Tony was the last one aboard.  In fact, he almost didn’t make it and had to swing his body onto the “sugar scoop” like a pro!

As new boat owners, we wanted to be sure we answered all the right questions and did our due dilegence during this survey.  There are some amazing publications online to help prepare one for a boat purchase.  It is very important that one get a qualified surveyor that is certified by NAMS or SAMS.  And we made sure our surveyor was proficient in assessing sailboats, not just power boats.  Keep in mind that many insurance companies require a survey done by a licensed surveyor.

And the lift begins!

The work was done well and the boat yard was great about sending us photos of the progress through email.  Even though we could not stay to see the progress day by day, it was helpful to see the work that was being done from another state.

As you can see, the Music was badly in need of a bottom job but her bottom was still in fine shape!

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