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(This story is "Under Construction") " Buying and Restoring Serendipity "
By Jim Schroeger
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Serendipity
is a 1967 Westwind by Paceship. When we first saw her I was reminded of the old Kingston Trio
song "Tom Dooley" The
line goes:
"This time tomorrow, reckon where I'll be;
down
some lonesome valley, hanging
from a white oak tree"
That's exactly what she was doing: hanging from a
tree; or actually four
jack pine trees, with a scruffy old boat trailer as her neighbor. Her hull was faded and scarred,
her decks were covered with pitch and pine needles, she had a foot of slimy
water in her main cabin, her cradle boards were no where to
be seen and her cushions were sticking out of the cockpit like a big blue
tongue.
In spite of this and more interior terrors yet to be
discovered; I fell in love with her! Why? Because she was a Westwind and in
spite of all the crud and abuse she still had the look of a
thoroughbred!!
The trip
home on the rickety old trailer was the first of many renovational adventures that we would
share with this soon to be queen of my heart.
The
pictures will give you some idea of her condition when she arrived home. The pictures of the
hull were actually taken after three weeks of filling, sanding,
fairing and more filling and sanding. You can throw a little cussing into the
mix too, as some intrepid boatwright
had used a belt sander to remove some hull defects. In places her hull looked like a gravel
road ...
The interior was even worse!! There was no original
wood work, the main cabin
bulkhead was gone and
replaced with a badly fitted piece of treated plywood. All the
plexiglas windows were the color of old milk bottles, with the exception of
the main cabin starboard window, which was just plain missing. The
storage compartment doors and drawers were all de-laminating and bore a
strong resemblance to a week old pizza.
In spite of all this we set to work with
a vengeance; "what the heck,
nothing here that time, money, blood,
sweat and tears can't take care of; right??"
As it turns out I was right about
the time which turned out
to be almost one year, no comment on the money, I would say blood and sweat were in about equal
parts, but no tears at all! The work was a joy, she came alive under our
handycrafting. Each enjoyable task accomplished led to another
until one day; she was finished. There were hundreds of little victories; each
one of which could make a separate story.
But maybe that will come
later....
Oh, I do have one
comment about the money. The old owner was so anxious to sell the Westwind that he
threw in three pick up truck loads of marine equipment to seal the deal.
Over the winter we sold most of the extra goodies on ebay for more
money than we originally paid for Serendipity. Our Westwind came with a
dowry !!
Finally, the day arrived.
Here she sits on her new
trailer (see "Projects and Maintenance)
ready for the big trip:
And now it's time to enjoy the fruits of our
labors!
Jim Schroeger
"Serendipity"
Traverse City, Michigan
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