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cracks on one side. I have done quite a bit of fiberglass work over the years and this repair job was easy for me. After fixing the Phantom, I took it up to the cottage and left it there. I have been sailing it for the past 15 years. It is very easy to sail and a lot of fun. I don't think that I have ever dumped it. It's a good one. A year or two after I took the Phantom up to the cottage, JoAnne and Phil bought a used Sunfish and took that up there also. Both of these boats are 14 footers. There have been several races between the two. Usually the outcome of these races is decided by the abilities of the sailor rather than and boat advantage. These two boats will probably be there for a long time. One day in 2003, our family was on our way out of town for another trip to Cedarville. There on the side of the road was a windsurfer for sale. For some reason, I just had to have it, and $75 is not that much money. Everything was there and ready to go. Problem was, nobody was able to make it go for more that a few feet before falling into the water. JoAnne located a video tape at the library that explained how to do it, but so far it has not been mastered by anyone. I had been dreaming of a larger sailboat since I first got the sailboat bug in the late 1970's. Whenever I checked the prices, they were always more than I thought that we could afford. In the past few years, used boat prices have come way down. I think that it has something to do with the law of supply and demand that I learned about in college. Also, boats from the 1970's and 1980's are getting old now and people are tired of them. In the winter of 2003-2004 I spent many hours searching for a good price on a 30 foot or so sailboat. I had located a 28' Morgan in Massachusetts for $6000 but it was going to cost me about $2000 to get it to Ohio. Then the owner sold part of the equipment and I lost interest. After that I located another supposed 28 footer in the Tradin' Times (my former employer) and the boat was right in Cleveland. Best of all, the boat was only $5000. Later I found out that the boat was actually a Catalina 27 and the owner knew very little about boating. The boat had not been in the water for two seasons and needed lots of help. The worst part of the boat was the port rail. During a storm, that side of the boat had gone under the dock and messed up some hardware. Three of the stanchions were bent along with the bow pulpit and the lifelines needed to be replaced. The bent stanchions had caused leakage and there was evidence that there had been almost a foot of water in the bottom of the hull. Everything needed attention. I talked with the owner and got him down to $4000 and finally to $3500. He was not happy at first with the price but finally came around. We took over ownership of "Amor" in April of 2004. That spring if it was Saturday morning, I was at the boat. The first Saturday I bought 12 gallons of Clorox bleach and went over the entire hull and deck. I did not use gloves and burned my hands. The next day Laura and I tackled the interior. Mildew was in many places including the ceilings. Two days of cleaning made a big, big difference. After that I removed all wooden pieces from the Catalina, took them home to our garage and refinished them all. Shiny wood looks so much nicer than old ugly wood. Boat parts are more expensive than normal hardware items. Along with way I managed to spend another $3500 fixing up the Catalina 27. I have no idea how many hours have been spent on this boat. She was renamed "Blue." This boat has given me great pleasure. I love to go down to the boat. The marina is only 8.2 miles from my house which takes about 15 minutes. I don't have to go out sailing to enjoy the time. I can just be down there, clean up or fix things and be happy. Being by the water and all of those boats gives me a good feeling. There is electricity on the docks and I have installed a radio and TV. There is a toilet, a sink and a cooler. I can hang out there and treat it like a cottage on the lake &ldots; and I do. Blue is on the "E" dock and my buddy Kim has his boat on the "G" dock. I can look over and see if he is there. The sterns of our boats face each other. My life has gone like this: in my 20's I liked cars, in my 30's it was cameras, in my 40's I switched to computers. Those kind of carried over into most of the 50's until I was nearing 60. Now it looks like sailboats will take over in my 60's. We may own a larger boat someday. If there is another sailboat it will have a wheel, a diesel and more headroom. Right now Blue is a very nice sailboat. I have had several people come up and tell me how much they like our boat. There are 12 Catalina 27's in our marina and none are nicer than Blue.
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