Boy's Boat Sinks; Doesn't That Stink!

My Son's Classic Aluminum Boat Sank 

When Two Storms Came Through the Area 

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Maybe the boat does have what looks like strange bat wing protrusions.  This might have endeared my son to love the boat even more when looking over the boat as a potential purchase.  He bought it.

It's a 1961 Lonestar boat, which had been very well maintain by an old fisherman.  He had handmade the slatted floor, bench seat and gas tank cover.  I felt we now owned a boat that had been very well loved.  Dressed in less than perfect clothes, every member of the family was given a paint brush and we made this boat smile.  The surface of the boat changed from a aged powder to a slick shine.

When God was finished making the State of Maine, He took the left over rocks and boulders and threw them in our lake.  The safest place to keep this boat would be on a mooring, and not on the dock, which is surrounded by rocks.

The boat does not have a pump to keep rainwater out, so we measured and then purchased a mooring cover to keep the boat dry.  It came with a strong guarantee.  But two summer storms came through and we were out of state.  The cover must have shifted and with nobody there to bail the water out of the boat; the boat sank. 

Our neighbor called to tell us the boat had sunk, but it hadn't fully sunk.  It was doing it's impersonation of a hump-back whale feeding.  As the fog lifted only one word came to mind, DAMN!  Even the seagulls on our raft were quiet and somber.  They knew something was wrong.

The boat was brought into shallower waters by the boys.  Notice the rocks on the dock.  The water level had risen and the rocks kept the dock from shifting and then floating away. 

One of the boys is holding the boat up while the other boy is sliding an old wooden playpen under the boat...and then they started bailing the lake out of the boat.

The mooring cover rubbed in the sand of the bottom of the lake as it floated on the mooring; a large hole resulted.  I sent a picture of the mooring cover with a hole to the manufacturer.  Enclosed was the story with pictures of how the boat sunk, and finally with a copy of this last picture above.  I drew an arrow pointing to the crack in this boy's fanny and said, "I'll take care of this crack, if you help me fix the hole in the mooring cover (all I need is about one square yard in this color [enclosed a small sample])".

They sent me more than enough fabric to fix the hole.  I patched the mooring cover and the boat was put back together.