Posted on 02/10/2018 7:58:49 PM PST by Innovative
A Colorado couple said they sold everything they owned to buy a sailboat and set out for the open seas together.
Within two days, their dream became a nautical nightmare. On their way to Key West, Tanner Broadwell and Nikki Walsh's voyage abruptly ended in John’s Pass off Madeira Beach, Fla., when their 28-foot sailboat struck something underwater Wednesday night.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Ba DA Bing!
Doh!
“There’s Got to be a Mourning After....”
I knew a couple in their mid 49s who had been sailing since they were kids. When I met them they had sailed around the world twice plus many other long passages. They owned a 38 ft boat and were building a new 40 ft boat by hand.
He was the head maintenance man at a hotel. She was an emergency room RN. His job came with an apartment. They planned to finish the boat in 2 years. They had been working on it for 8 months when I met them. When the boat was finished they were going to sell the boat they had and the old car they had,, ad that money to their savings, quit their jobs and sail around the world again.
I got a post card from them 4 years later. They were in South Africa. About a year after that I got a short note and picture from them from Pitcairn Island. They were spending about 18 months island hopping before heading for the Atlantic.
The last time I heard from them they were back in Florida. They were living on the boat. She was working as a nurse, while he was overhauling the boat and looking for a job. They were planning a passage to Europe when they got the boat ready and enough cash.
The people in this story going to sea in a $10,000 boat and with very little skill was stupid.
Ten years or so ago i was looking at quite a few auction lots of storm damaged or sunk boats in the Florida area, aftermath from a hurricane. Owners it appears got a total loss on many and got their checks and with a good eye i saw quite a few really good salvage deals, sail and motor. Being a diesel specialist and electrical genius i might add i was about to jump into a hobbyist salvage project. Had my eye on several larger 40 foot or bigger Hatteras motor yachts. Real solid hulls and mostly they had Detroit Diesels which i know very well.
Never did get into anything but with the new electric power and battery options i might try converting a sail boat to electric. Looks like a good future market there.
Everything they ever worked for since childhood.
He is 26 years old. It is not like he lost his $500,000 house and $500,000 401k in one fell swoop.
They lost $10,000. Sucks, but that is nothing in the cosmic spectrum of things. Are boats insured? I don’t know. All I know is that they lost a nice opportunity for a boat trip and lost a small amount of money. Oh well.
This is not a human tragedy. It is a really minor setback.
Or maybe to make money off it.
Here is there GoFundMe account exploiting their story.
https://www.gofundme.com/TannerandNikki
I wonder what their student loan balances are.
I will just make another comment, dreams are good but are bad when reality bites back. I have dreams all the time but most i have to tell them to just piss off because its impractical, its too expensive, its unrealistic for my age and social grouping.
Dreams are the dessert after the reality main meal too me, you cannot live on just desserts.
Though snowflakes believe it.
That was fast. It usually takes a boat owner a year to lose all their money.
Rock the boat, dont rock the boat baby, rock the boat, don’t tip the boat over
Ploy to get sympathy for crowd funding. We have no photos of the so called boat - must have been a dingy for $5,000. Ignore would be my advice.
Visit to Ellen?
They should have done what Quincy did.
Fix up a boat that never went in the water and live on it.
Florida, struck something underwater, from Colorado, sold everything to buy, 28 foot sailboat ... that is not going to end well just on the facts.
Probably never heard of coral reefs, GPS, fathometers, radar, and, of course, nautical charts.
This is not as rare as some may think. Occurrences similar to this happen all the time; people take sailing lessons in a relatively benign body of water, then, heads full of mush (sorry RL), they head for the open ocean never to be seen again; people go sailing without a chart or the ability to read it, get in trouble, radio for help, report their position, but no one can find them because they are actually 100 miles for the position they reported; people in the stern fall overboard and someone else puts the boat in reverse ...; people fall over the side, those on deck call the Coast Guard, person in water drowns while bobbing a foot from the side of the boat because no one wanted to touch the person in the water ...
Or Weston Martyr's "The 'Southseaman': the life-story of a schooner."
I don’t think a 28’ $5,000 sailboat would be insurable.
—
Sure it would. As long as you kept it tied to the dock ...
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