Bought a Boat for $1. Living #BoatLife for Life

The following story was graciously sent our way by Kristen and Gary, the folks behind Sailing Accidental Gybe. People use the #boatlife hashtag freely and its become a loose term. So many of the mariners that contact us about our products are actually living life on boats, around boats, and definitely live for boating! Kristen and Gary may just have one of the most interesting boat life stories and we're happy to give it a home! 

Here's their story - in their very own words!

What would you say if someone told you that you could own a cruising sailboat for one dollar?

Kristen and Gary said "Yes" to this very question and thus began an epic adventure for these two.

Not only did they refurbish an old 1979 Irwin Citation Sailboat but the removed the diesel engine and replaced it with an electric engine.

Then, once installed, configured and tested, they set sail from the west coast of Florida to the Keys and then north to Virginia on an epic 1,500-mile adventure.

Hello!

We are Gary and Kristen and we are two adventurous souls who grew up (as much as we actually "grew up") sailing. Kristen learned to sail on the Charles River in Boston, Massachusetts, where she then went on to teach the art of sailing to others. Gary was gifted with a home on the tidal Oyster River in Durham, NH and had his first sailboat. His family would undertake adventures as a team each summer and one of those adventures including sailing to explore Maine on his father's homebuilt sailboat for a week or two at a time.

When we met, we decided that we would try for an epic adventure together. Gary had previously had his epic adventure when he spent two years bicycling from San Diego, California to Santiago, Chile. It was time for a new adventure!

Our thoughts were to procure a boat together and try out the sailing lifestyle. Our first boat was a trailer sailor, a MacGregor 26-foot that we stripped and rebuilt for long distance cruising. We sailed that boat from Providence, Rhode Island to New York City and then up via the Hudson River and Erie Canal to the Great Lakes, Ottawa and Montreal in Canada. We then used the Saint Lawrence River to ride down to the Ridhileau River where we rejoined Lake Champlain and back to New York and New England. We spent 105 days on that trip and, seeing that we did not resent each other after such a long time in close quarters, we decided to try something a little more adventurous.

Before launching into a bigger boat, we first decided to try crewing on someone else’s boat. We went onto the internet and found several websites that connected sailors with potential crew. We connected with someone who had a 41 foot Pearson Ketch and headed down to Florida to sail with him to the Bahamas. Unfortunately, we never left the dock as his boat had serious engine issues that could not be resolved. We decided, one frustrated day in January, to take his dinghy for a ride through the canals of Cape Coral, Florida but even his outboard dinghy motor was on the fritz.

Frustrated, we rowed that dinghy for what seemed to be about a mile, mulling over our choices at this point as we waited for a boat engine to be repaired. As we were just about to turn around and head back, an elderly man of about 80 with a German accent called to us from one of the docks. We stopped to talk with Heinz and his wife, Bridgette, and related our sad story.

It was just then that Heinz's eyes lit up as he exclaimed to us, "Have I got a deal for you!"

"Our neighbor has decided that, at his age and poor health, to give away his boat for one dollar," he started.

We looked at each other and thought of the possibilities of turning this mess of an adventure into something great. It wasn't spoken at the time but we both had already said "YES," internally. The next day we met with the neighbor, Archie, who showed us the boat and started the engine. There must have been stars in our eyes because we immediately said we would take the boat and decided that with about two weeks of works, she would be ready to sail.

Little did we know that we would find ourselves working on that boat over two winters to get her restored.

We needed a place to keep our boat and on short notice as well because the owner had asked that it be removed immediately. I came up with a great idea and motioned to Gary, "You know," I started, "there are quite a few elderly retirees here that live on the canals and many of those docks are unoccupied and empty. Let's go around the neighborhood and knock-on doors and I'll ask if there is a dock, we can rent to keep our boat."

A plan like this seemed doomed to failure from the very start but the first house we knocked on brought to the door 89-year-old Edna whom I told our story. Almost unbelievably to us both, she said she would be delighted to host our boat on her dock and, when I offered to pay her for the privilege, she refused, stating that she was happy to have a new neighbor. She lived alone but had occasional visits from her daughter and son. As it turns out, we ended up being their eyes and ears to watch over her.

We repaid her by installing new toilets in her bathrooms and a new laundry room light that had failed five years ago." How did you see in such a dark room with no light?” I remembered asking once, to which she replied, "Oh, I just use a flashlight when I want to wash my clothes.” The next day saw us bicycling three miles to Lowes to appropriate a new light for her laundry and installing it for her.

Our boat, now named "The Purple Gallinule", after the southern Florida aquatic bird of the same name, had made the motor trip from her old home to Edna's new dock without fanfare. But after we shut down the engine, it never ran again. We were perplexed as to what to do and, being that this was the early spring of 2020, Covid was just becoming a major impediment to travel. We locked up our boat and flew back to New Hampshire, unsure what we would do.

It was during our time in Covid "lockdown" that we decided to try something bold and new. We already spent almost $3,000 on repairs to this engine that had not resulted in any progress, and we were reticent to spend one more penny. Instead, we decided to try a less expensive option, to remove the diesel engine and to replace it with an electric motor system from Thunderstruck Motors in California. We already had familial connections to procure used Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries from a company in Michigan, so we packed up the car and drove to Ann Arbor, Michigan to pick up a half-dozen of these batteries.

An order was placed to Thunderstruck Motors and our basement became a laboratory to set up and configure all the pieces in our home in New Hampshire.  At the end of it, we had a fully functional sailboat drive and all the components networked on our coffee table.

With a fully functional system, we disassembled all of the pieces, packed them up in boxes ands set off that fall to Florida to install the entire system onboard.  Within a few days, the entire setup was running, and we began motoring tests.  A few trials and hiccups later, we had everything we needed, including a solar recharging system, to start an adventure along the coast of Florida, down to Key West and up the coast towards New England.

We spent four months traveling along the coast and visiting many beautiful and historic places but, as we did, we began to realize that a 34-foot boat was simply not going to be a large or, in the case of this type of boat, seaworthy enough for blue water sailing.  With that in mind we began looking for a buyer and, in Deltaville, Virginia, we found not only a buyer, but our next boat, a 44-foot ketch that fit our needs perfectly.  We learned a lot from our time with our one-dollar boat, "The Purple Gallinule” and felt comfortable that our new boat, named "Athena" after the Greek Goddess of wisdom and technology, would help us to achieve our next frontiers.

We are in the process of building out a twin electric drive onboard and documenting our adventures on our YouTube Channel, "Sailing Accidental Gybe.” Among the many accouterments on our boat, we also have installed a plethora of Caframo fans throughout the vessel, one of which recently needed service.  After contacting the company, we were quickly provided with a solution and a request to share our story on this site.

One of the projects onboard “Athena” has been to “keep our cool," literally!  That has involved installing Caframo Fans - (particularly the Maestro) throughout the boat.  Although we have plenty of solar power and excellent Lithium Iron Phosphate batteries, power consumption is always a sailor's concern.  Caframo fans run quietly and efficiently, sipping very little power.  Most of all, they are easy to install and keep everyone cool with a nice breeze on hot summer days and long summer nights.  In winter, we use them to circulate our diesel heater air throughout the boat.

We are very proud and elated to move on to our sailing vessel, "Athena" and hope to share our adventures with our electric drive ketch with all who would lend us their interest.  One thing is for sure, and that is that with all of our new Caframo fans, we will be the coolest sailors on the water this summer!

Follow our adventures on our YouTube Channel, "Sailing Accidental Gybe.”

We hope to see your adventures on the water and....  keeping cool!