MOORE 24 BOAT RESCUE PROGRAM (B.R.P.)
#114 – Essex, Maryland
to Seattle, Washington
2 weeks, 13
states, 1 snow storm and a very uncooperative boatyard. The rescue of #114 was a bit more than
planned but in the end all worked out great.
#114 had been for sale in Baltimore,
MD for about 5 years with no
takers. The owner’s wife had told me
(this was an estate sale) that people looking at it had told her it was
un-seaworthy and needed a lot of improvements to make it out on the Chesapeake Bay.
She told me that even back when her husband was racing the boat they had
no idea how to rate or place the boat in its’ class,
preferring to make him race against the 50’ yachts (which he beat up on)
instead of boats it’s own size.
Apparently ULDB is not known in this area of the world.
I had been
able to look over the boat in mid January of this year while visiting family on
the east coast so I knew it was in great shape and just needed a trailer and
cleaning. When I got back to Seattle, I looked in to
buying a trailer on the east coast and finding a buyer on the west coast. I contacted a bunch of trailer stores on the
east coast but only one was ready to help me out, Dave’s Trailer’s, in Baltimore and they made
me a really nice trailer, mostly welded with a few bolt on pieces. So, with things coming together I booked a
flight February 10th 2007 to Philly where my in-laws live so I could
have someone drive me around to buy a truck for the trip. Now I’m just thinking of getting some old
truck that runs good to re-sell on the west coast, I’m only going to be driving
it 4,000 miles so I don’t need anything great, right? Well these trucks don’t exist on this part of
the east coast, the salt they use to de-ice the roads eats through the trucks
well before their life is over. I found
plenty of great low miles (under 100,000) used trucks that where totally
useless with the amount of rust on them.
After spending Sunday looking at
used trucks and tiling a kitchen for my father-in-law (had to give him
something for his trouble) I found a good truck Monday morning. Off I went in my 1989 Chevy 1500 2wd pick up,
100,000 miles on it and no rust a bunch of my stress disappeared with this
purchase.
On my way
in the adventure, I drove from Philly down to Baltimore
to pick up the trailer, which went flawlessly and then headed up to the marina
in Essex where the boat was sitting on stands
in a storage yard. I was getting there
after hours so there was no possibility of getting the boat on the trailer that
night so I just got the boat ready for travel, finalized the paperwork with the
owner and bedded down in the truck till morning and my hoped for start to my
travels across the country. All weekend
the news had been reporting on a possibly huge snow storm that may or may not hit
the area. Now since news loves a good
storm story we all felt that since they where giving
us a “maybe” it meant that the storm wasn’t really going to get us at all. Amazingly come morning I found out the
weather forecasters where wrong (once again) and it started snowing as soon as
the yard guys got to the marina. It’s 20
degrees out and snowing, but nothing is on the ground yet. The yard refuses to do anything, tells me we
should have called a week earlier, (which the previous owner assures me she did)
so they could have the boat ready. I try
everything I can - this is a boat yard, money talk’s right? Not in Baltimore….They
even had a 4x4 grade-all forklift with a picker on it instead of forks and
there was a gate right behind the boat.
They could have picked it up with that off the bridle and out the door I
would have gone. But no, nothing doing,
I was out of luck and no bribe was going to work. They staunchly refused to give me any sort of
date, or even a comment like we’ll need to wait for the spring thaw,
nothing. Their
comments to me where simply “I don’t know” or “whatever” which really left me
hanging on what to do. After
getting my aggressions out on the ¼ inch of snow in the ground I headed off to Falls church, Virginia
to my brother-in-law’s house to shack up till I could figure something out on
the boat. 
That night it snowed, 5” where I was and about
1.5” up at the boat, but soon the next day the conditions turned it to solid
ice. I could drive my truck over the 5”
of ice and leave no tracks or divots from the wheels, it was that solid.
I called
the yard twice a day for the next 2 days to try and get some sort of commitment
out of them but only received the standard “I don’t know’s”
and “Whatever’s” out of them. Friday I
drove back up to Baltimore to try a face to face again, it was forecast to be
in the upper 30’s over the weekend so if they where just waiting for things to
melt I was thinking I could talk him into a Monday hoist date. I don’t know what happened to the guy, maybe
I caught him on payday but he was real happy and agreeable, said “no problem,
see you Monday morning.” I was
astonished at my good fortune and headed back to the brother-in-law’s to house
sit for him for the weekend. Things
really worked out for the in-laws this trip.
Dad got a tiled floor and brother got his house watched and dogs taken
care of so he could have a weekend away with his fiancé.
I figure
that since I’ve nothing to do I would head out to the Yard on Sunday to see if
everything melted or not. If it hasn’t
melted my plan was to go buy some salt and spread it out everywhere to try and
remove a reason they might have to not put the boat on the trailer. Sure enough nothing had melted over the
weekend and I went out in search of salt…..couldn’t find even one bag,
everywhere was sold out from the storm and all I could find was a 5” trenching
shovel.
This bought, I went back to the yard and
chipped and shoveled the 2 inches of ice away from around the boat. Over 5 hours I chipped away a path 9’ wide
and 50’ long in front of the boat. This
is a lifetime’s worth of snow/ice shoveling for a Seattle guy, not something I ever want to do
again. Arms shaking I headed back to Virginia
to pack up for Monday’s planned departure.
Monday
morning back at the yard at sunrise, and the angry grumpy “I don’t know” yard
guy from the previous week showed up and started a half-assed attempt at
getting things moved so the boat could get out.
At one point even leaving for 45 minutes, I figured it was breakfast time. Since things seemed to be moving forward,
albeit slowly, I just tried to stay out of the way but in sight so they knew I
was waiting. By noon, 5 hours after they
started moving the 3 trailers that where in the way, the Moore was on the
trailer and the yard guy then asked for the $100 I had offered him the previous
Tuesday to put the boat on the trailer.
Needless to say that didn’t happen.
Finally I was strapped down and on the road, February 19th, a
week late but I’m off. YIPPEEEEEEEEEE!
That day I
made it up over the Appalachian Mountains to Charleston, West Virginia. Now I’ve only seen pictures of leafless trees
encased in ice, and its nothing compared to seeing it in person. At the top of the pass with thousands of
acres of ice encased leafless trees sparkling in the setting sun it was
breathtaking to say the least. Once into
West Virginia I saw the most amazing thing
near the town of Big Beaver. Most of us know what a double wide is, ever
seen a double tall? Yes, two single wides stacked on top of each other, a two story single
wide…I’ll bet his neighbors are jealous.
I tried to spend the night in a Wal-Mart parking lot near Charleston, WV,
but when I got there I found out it was a 24 hour Wal-Mart, and people seemed
to enjoy dragging their trucks down the Wal-Mart driveway, and all the trucks
had cherry bombs for mufflers, off to a hotel I went.
The next
morning, Tuesday, back on the road and into Kentucky I went, drove right by the Wild
Turkey distillery, but it was too early and they weren’t open for tasting yet,
darn-it! I thought for sure there would
be a good bluegrass station in Kentucky but I couldn’t find one at all, only
new country, which was disappointing. Then into Indiana and across Illinois to meet up with I-70 in St. Louis, MO. I crossed Missouri
with no problems and headed up 29 to join I-80 near Omaha.
Just before Kansas City I looked into the
weather and saw only wind on I-80, so to avoid the high tough passes of I-70
after Denver I
headed North.
As I learned, never underestimate the winds of Wyoming.
I spent Tuesday night in York,
Nebraska and was back on the road
by 7 am Wednesday morning. Nebraska and Wyoming
where slow going. Not only are they
uphill ‘til the continental divide, the wind was on my nose at over 30 knots
for most of they way. There were times
near the divide that with the gas peddle floored the truck could only push 40
mph, and that seemed scary with the boat wiggling around in the wind. 
At
one point in the afternoon while listening to a bluegrass song about the wind
that blows from Cheyenne to Yellowstone I decided it would be much safer if I pulled
over and took a nap until sunset when the wind would pipe down a bit. The truck shook throughout my nap in the
strong winds. Once the sun set things
calmed down and I drove till midnight to get out of Wyoming
and spent the night in Ogden,
Utah, carefully avoiding the
malls.
Thursday,
day 4 of the drive I headed north on I-84 with a 20 knot tail wind and blue
skies. Things looked great, my plan was
to make it to Hood River and hang out with the guys there for the night
and get home Friday to Seattle. I had no idea there was a 5,000 ft mountain
pass in eastern Oregon
I had to go over. It’s right there on
the map near Pendleton, Oregon,
I’ve just always thought of eastern Oregon
as flat desert plains. Well it isn’t, if
I had been an hour or two later I would not have made it over the Blue Mountains as it was snowing hard. Southbound traffic was chaining up but the
northbound traffic has an easier climb and we made it over driving really
slow. I was thinking “this would be
great, make it all this way to get stuck in snow again a half day from Seattle, great.” But we made it through and pulled into Hood River, Oregon
just after sunset. I pulled off the
freeway and I hear yelling coming from a white van driving by the other way,
turns out it was Tyler
welcoming us to town. After a good many Rainiers at the shack with the guys from Hood River Yacht
Club (Doug Archibald, Tyler Bech, Brian Petros, and Sandwich) I headed off to Seattle on Friday morning with a substantial
hang over.
2pm Friday
and I’m back in Seattle with a new Moore for the fleet. 13 states, god knows how many tanks of gas,
but it was a great experience. I’m sure
there are more Moore’s out there for the B.R.P., I saw plenty in Santa Cruz
and Richmond
alone, that would be a much more civilized drive! #14 should be on its way back
to California from Virginia any day now, good luck Dylan, and
see you at the Ditch Run.
Ben Braden
Moore
24 Northwest Fleet Captain
#26 ‘More Uff Da’
