99 Problems But a Yacht Ain't One

Yeah,so, the yacht.... As you all know, we bought a new house recently.  What you probably don't know is that the house came with a yacht.  When we were first looking at the house we saw from the pictures that there was some sort of boat in the backyard and thought, weird but whatever, because the listing very clearly said "boat does not convey".  So when we went in person and saw this giant thing in the backyard we weren't too worried, it was obviously a very expensive boat at some point and it was on a trailer and the back of the fence was built to be opened wide enough to get the boat out.  So we didn't think much of it.  I mean after all, it was winter and storing a boat is expensive.  Fast forward to the week of closing and we come to the house to do the final walk through.  The yacht is still in the backyard.  Hmmm.  That's weird, it was almost a 60 day closing, so they had plenty of time to go get it at this point.  But we don't close for a few more days, so our realtor makes some calls and we get assured the boat will be gone by closing.  Here is the "yacht" in question.

Looks nice, right?  And this picture does not do it justice as far as the sheer size is concerned. This thing is 30 feet long and that ladder hanging off the back starts about three feet off the ground so you really need like a chair to get up onto he ladder.  

Anyway, the day before closin S drives by the house to see if the yacht is still there because it's clearly visible from the road, that's how big it is.  And the stupid thing is still there.  Our realtor tells us, oh they are elderly, as if this was any sort of good reason for this boat to still be in the backyard.  At this point I start to get worried that these people are planning on storing their boat for free in our backyard till spring and I was not having that.  So we have the realtor draw up paper work saying that they had until Sunday to get the boat or the boat became ours (closing was on a Thursday).  I thought, this will motivate them, they lose their expensive yacht if they don't come get it.

Saturday night rolls around and the yacht is still there.  It's become obvious that they aren't coming,  and we explore the boat more and realize how trashed it is.   All of the electrical is ripped out, the boat has sat uncovered for what looks like years.  Below deck is a bedroom and bathroom, but is smells weird and looks scary.  The wheels on the trailer are all flat and the side of the yacht not pictured only has 2 flat tires instead of three.  Oh boy.

Then we talk to the neighbors, the boat has been in the backyard like that for TEN years, never once moving.  Also, when the boat was back in Florida before here the people who owned it built a dock that blocked the water access for their neighbors.  This apparently really pissed the neighbors off so the guy swam below the boat in a scuba suit and drilled holes in the bottom of the boat and sunk it.  And to top it all off, apparently the boat was famous in our neighborhood for being the place all of the local cats liked to give birth in.  Yeah, yuck.

So we were basically tricked into dealing with the old crappy boat and I'm sure the original owners had a good laugh after signing the papers we stupidly thought would motivate them into getting their boat. But, this story has a happy ending.  I spent some time last week calling around to all of the local boat places and finally after lots of people telling me it was worthless and I was going to be stuck with it forever, some used boat guy gave the me the name of Capitan Mac, who runs a boat salvage yard.  And sure enough I gave him a call and sent him a few pictures and he was interested.  So he came out and I managed to talk him into buying the yacht for $800.  It took him and his assistant (his first mate??) about two hours that day to get it out of the yard and then another hour the next day to get it all of the way gone.  And while they were looking it over the first mate went below deck and his foot went right through the floor board and into six inches of nasty water.  Gross.

Once they moved the boat I was looking around at all of the snail shells and stuff that had collected under the boat over the years when I saw the body of a seahorse!  I was so excited I ran to get S, who was talking to the guys.  They were all like, really?? a real seahorse?  And I said, yes, come see!  And they ran over only to see the fake plastic seahorse I thought was real because it was so dirty.  Embarrassing.  

As the Captian and his first mate drove the boat out of the yard our next door neighbors came outside and clapped and cheered to see it leave!  Other neighbors stood outside watching open mouthed as the ugly boat they had been staring at moved for the first time in ten years.  I think everyone will love us now for getting rid of the thing in less than a week of living here.

So the yacht is no longer a problem, though we do have a boat shaped area of dirt in the yard where it once was.  And even if "Captian Mac's" check bounces, at least that yacht is no longer our problem.  

-Liz