I'd gotten a phone call from the buyer of Aquarius in January of 2004. He wanted me to write a letter attesting to her running condition prior to the sale. It seems the boatyard where he'd left her had sunk the boat. They'd moved her to slip on an inside dock in shallow water. The tide went out and she laid over against the dock on her starboard side. Tension on the main mast starboard backstay caused the mast to be pulled back, and the wooden mast split. When the tide came back in water leaked in the hole in the starboard bow where my oldest son had hit a sea bouy, and she stayed sitting on the bottom of the river.
We saw Aquarius again that summer, at Wikander's Yacht Yard in Allen, MD. I had sailed El Tigre home to Wiki's from Florida, and Aquarius showed up in June. Her owner had managed to refloat her, cleaned her up, and rebuilt the Ford Lehman diesel engine as well as the transmission. He motored her south to Norfolk, VA late in the summer.
The boys and I found Aquarius again in December of 2005 at Tidewater Yacht Marina in Portsmouth, VA. She had been sold again to another new owner, Doc.
Aquarius didn't look like she was doing too well, and a conversation with Doc affirmed this. Her engine had frozen up the week he'd bought her. All the wiring had been ripped out, and never redone. Everything was running off of shore power to extension cords. There was no plumbing.
I got a phone call from Doc in the spring this year, asking if I had some time and would be willing to come to Portsmouth and give him some help getting Aquarius back out of there. Given that the house was up for sale and Eugene Jr was living on El Tigre in New Bern, NC finishing up his junior year of high school there, I agreed.
My sons, Peter and Nicolai, and went up to Portsmouth in April. I brought some mooring tackle along with us, and Doc arranged to have Aquarius towed out of the marina to the anchorage off of Hospital Point, just outside the marina.
We went back again a week later, and brought Venture, our 22' McGregor with us. Doc went to Oklahoma for the graduation of his daughter in May, and I took care of Aquarius for him. We met Stir Fri, who had been staying aboard and working on the boat for Doc.
Stir Fri and Doc had a falling out early in June, and I offered to take him with us when we decided to cruise the ICW south to New Bern, NC. I'll try to get that adventure written up in the Venture logs.
The last time I talked to Doc he had moved Aquarius to a boat yard in Norfolk, after the Army Corps of Engineers had given him a bad time about living long term in the anchorage at Portsmouth...
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(c)Copyright 2006 by Eugene Kashpureff