A Literal Failboat…

Those of you not of the millennial era may not know what a “failboat” is.  It’s pretty much just a term for an epic failure – one as big as a boat, or one sailing into its future failure with great stupidity.  It is often accompanied by a meme showing a large ship sinking, or hitting something, or unexpectedly ending up on land.

 

Unfortunately yesterday morning (after a weekend of work ridiculousness I will explain later) I woke up to this:

Then I thought “Shouldn’t there be TWO boats floating there??”  Ugh.

So that was most of our day yesterday, getting the boat back to the surface and out of the water for maintenance. Thankfully we have multiple lift bags to help us get the boat up to the surface.  Lift bags are often used by scuba divers to bring heavy objects up from the sea floor once you fill them with air from a scuba tank.  The smaller ones we use can lift 250 lbs.  Getting them placed just right took a LOT of maneuvering and trial and error.   You’ll notice it’s just the guys and some friends with their snorkels.  They’re only in about five feet of water so that makes it even trickier as the mud gets stirred up and it’s harder to see what you’re doing underwater.

First they got one hooked onto the engine base to lift the stern of the boat up a bit.  Then the worked to get two small bags roped together, one on each side of the stern to lift it further but keep it balanced.  You don’t want to only lift one side and have the boat flip over on you and make it even worse…

Once it was up a moderate amount they attached it to our second boat and towed it around the cove a bit to try and drive some of the water out by force.  Then they started bailing out the enclosed wells and the open sections until they had her floating again.

At least we know what happened.  There’s a small drainage plug in the back of the boat’s well used to drain water.  A few months ago it was leaking and we had it fixed.  Guess that didn’t hold because when we went to raise the boat the plug wasn’t even in the hole anymore.  It could have been much worse.

But then there’s the engine to think of.  Those things don’t take well to being submerged in saltwater.  So far the mechanic has been here rinsing the saltwater out of everything and doing an oil change to make sure everything is still moving and not getting corroded.  But we’ll likely have to entirely overhaul the wiring and the remote shifter.  With labor this whole shindig will probably run us $600-800, a totally unexpected expense.  At least it’s out of the water so I can give the underside a good scrub.

Being an aquaculture start-up is HARD.  A few things go wrong and bills pop up and suddenly you’re in the hole again.  It’s hardest when you’re getting started, because you have all these upfront costs (infrastructure, fish food, labor) that won’t pay off until you harvest fish – if you can grow them successfully.  This is the second start-up I’ve worked for and it can definitely be stressful at times both financially and biologically.  Once you get going you can stagger when you harvest different batches of fish so that you have income all year round, but it takes awhile to set everything in motion.

It’s times like these I dream of a cushy federal agency job with benefits and retirement accounts and health insurance.  Siiiiigghh…. Of course those aren’t looking as good these days with all the political attacks on science in general.

I’m a short-timer here in Palau!  It’s Tuesday afternoon here, and I leave Friday night!  Maine has had two or three big storms this month with another smaller one on the way, so I am excited for all the snow to be there when I get home.  I was worried I was going to miss winter completely.  Maybe even get to go skiing once or twice – bunny trails only please 🙂

Snow at Mom and Dad’s place.  Can’t wait!