Things happen

By Mike Jastrzebski

When you live on a sailboat there’s one constant that you live with, things are going to happen. Some of those things will be enjoyable, some not so much.

We left Harbortown Marina in Cape Canaveral on Thursday heading to Ft. Lauderdale for a couple of weeks before heading back to the Bahamas. About a half dozen friends we’ve made since we arrived last July stopped by to see us off. It was a very pleasant experience.

But things didn’t quite go as planned. The prop was encrusted with barnacles and Mary had to go into the water and scrape the prop. Why Mary? She has a wet suit and I don’t. Even though we live in Florida the water does get cold at this time of the year.

Finally, two hours later we were on our way. Sunny, a little breezy, and calm water. We did have a little trouble with the transmission slipping but I handled that and then sat back and enjoyed the first two and a half days of our trip before the problems started.

Just past Jupiter, Florida our engine began to overheat and I knew from past experience that the repair job was going to take a few days and parts I didn’t have on hand. So what’s a boater to do? Why, we called BoatUS, gave them our towing insurance info, and sat back to wait.

A short time later the tow boat arrived and towed us to us to an anchorage where we spent the night. Sunday morning they were back for us and took us the rest of the way to Ft. Lauderdale. The silver lining in this part of our journey was that we got to sit back and enjoy the ride.

The conclusion I’ve arrived at after these last few days is that if you own a boat you’re crazy if you don’t carry towing insurance, and as far as I’m concerned, that means TowBoatUS insurance.

I can’t help but wonder if any of our readers would like to share their own experiences with TowBoatUS or its competitors. If so, please tell your story in the comments section. I for one would like to hear about them.

Share on Facebook