Yep, it's true. We're saying goodbye to Tickety Boo, our Moody 346 sailboat. It's a very sad farewell on our part. This isn't the way we thought our future would be unfolding, that's for sure.
You might remember that about a year ago, we hauled Tickety Boo out at Indiantown Marina in Florida to check her bottom. We had leak in the bilge by the compression post which was discovered during a rigging inspection. Once the boat was out of the water, you could see that Tickety Boo had a crack in her hull by the keel stub - a pretty serious issue.
That put an immediate halt to our plans to head to the Bahamas. Instead, we headed to the workyard for repairs with the hope that we'd be back out on the water in no time.
Things didn't turn out as we hoped. We spent all of last year trying to get things sorted. The insurance process took a while to work through. Once that was finished, we lined someone up to fix Tickety Boo.
All good, right?
Nope. He bailed on us.
Then we lined someone else up. He flaked out on us.
Then we lined another person up. Yep, you guessed it . . . that didn't work out either.
Turns out it isn't easy to get someone experienced and reliable to fix your boat.
We toyed with the idea of fixing it ourselves, but decided it wasn't a project that we wanted to take on.
There we were - stuck with a broken boat that we couldn't get fixed and faced with a tough decision. An emotional roller coaster ride ensued. What to do, what to do . . . indecision took over our lives for quite a while.
By the time the end of 2019 was nearing, we were no further forward. In fact, it felt like we had moved backward. Because we wanted to make sure that we could get our boat fixed, we had put all our other boat projects on hold last year. So even if we could have managed to find someone to fix Tickety Boo in the end, we'd still have lots of other work to do on her.
Finally, we said enough is enough and we made the tough decision to say goodbye to our sweet little sailboat. Life is for living and hanging around on a broken boat in a workyard isn't our idea of living.
We're currently going through all of our stuff and deciding what to sell, what to get rid of, and what to keep as we prepare to downsize and move into our tiny camper once we've found Tickety Boo a new owner. Then we'll probably head out west. That's the extent of our plans for now. We need time to regroup and decide where to from here.
For those of you who have followed us for a while, you might remember our tiny camper. Her name is Scamper and she's a 13' Scamp travel trailer. Yeah, I know, her name isn't all that clever. Curious what she looks like? You can see pictures of her HERE.
We originally bought Scamper in 2015 and traveled around the States before buying Tickety Boo. She seemed roomy enough at the time, but after living aboard a 34' sailboat for the past four years, this is gonna involve some serious downsizing. But it will be fun. And it will be an adventure, something we've been sorely missing for the past year.
We'll be putting Tickety Boo up for sale soon and I'll post all the details here and over on our Facebook page. I'd love to get your help spreading the word when the time comes. She'd be a great project boat for someone with fiberglass skills (or who wants to learn about fiberglassing). Maybe she'd be the perfect boat for you or someone you know? Feel free to contact us if that's the case at thecynicalsailor (at) gmail (dot) com.
As for what's happening with this blog, I'm not sure yet. But, in the meantime, you can find me over at my writing blog. And if you're a Mollie McGhie fan, no worries, I still plan on writing my humorous sailing mysteries. If you want to be notified when I have new releases, please sign up for my newsletter and/or follow my Facebook author page.
