Closing The Book on the 2023 Season

Amazing Grace officially ended her first season on Tuesday, October 24. It’s not the latest we’ve shut it down, but it’s close.

In the past, we’d usually unload when we returned from our final cruise of the season and I then text Ned at MBY to let him know he could haul her. It wasn’t much fun.

We were always the last boat in (and first out) of the big barn, so sometimes we’d sit in the water until December.

Weighing in a few ticks under 100,000 lbs, Amazing Grace is too big to be hauled by MBY or even Safe Harbor Onset Bay. Fortunately, our midsummer mishap immersed us into the wonderful team at Safe Harbor Plymouth, and in early September, I signed the paperwork for winter storage.

Haul Out Week 2023

I came up with a fun way to end the season by stretching it out over a few days and more or less making a week out of it. The free dockage Safe Harbor members benefit made it easy. I booked a bunch of nights at Plymouth and waited for the perfect weather day to bring her up from Onset.

Mrs. Horne was busy putting the final touches on her mother’s 100th birthday party, so I recruited Peter and Rudy (AKA “The Boys”) to crew for me.

Staying true to my word, I gave both Peter and Rudy a turn at the helm once we entered Cape Cod Bay,

Peter plans to become a Launch Operator next season at MBY and perhaps pursue a Captain’s license. With dozens of hours booked by my side, he faired well behind the wheel.

Rudy was in the Navy and used to own a small boat, so he knew what to do, but he’ll need to spend a little more time aboard to get entirely comfortable.

Of course, all they’re learning is how to drive when everything is perfect. Being a captain means confidently taking charge when things go wrong.

Next time we’re out, we’ll work on their docking skills (maybe).

We finished the first day of Haul Out Week 2023 with lunch at The Surfside Smokehouse.

Haul Out Week 2023 – Part Two

After a very successful 100th Birthday Party for my dear mother-in-law, Mrs. Horne, Peter and I met in Plymouth on Monday to complete the haul out.

Jeff Foxworthy has a comedy routine based on “You might be a redneck…”

One of my favorite lines was:

“If I can look in your tee-shirt drawer and tell where you’ve been for the last six months, you may be a redneck!”

So it wasn’t that big of a coincidence when Peter and I showed up in matching shirts.

After a quick deliberation, we decided to return to our new favorite lunch spot in Plymouth – The Artisan Pig.

Once again, we got Jillian as our server, and once again, we enjoyed their excellent homemade sausage.

We discovered that it’s possible to order just a sausage for $6.00. This will be a cornerstone of my next visit.

After lunch, we returned to the marina and took in an incredible late October afternoon.

Crafting The Offseason Service Plan

Ned trained me to give him a full dump of everything we needed to be done during the off-season by Halloween. There is a lot of downtime at most New England boatyards between December and March, so we always tried to wrap up all the work before Easter (better yet, Christmas!)

Over the summer, I created a Shared Google Doc with the Maritimo team that’s enabled me to thoroughly document any warranty issues we find and enables Maritimo to discuss solutions as well as authorize work orders.

Last week, I took that Google Doc and added in winter projects I’d like SH Plymouth to do, as well as the winterization and storage plan. As of this morning, that document is 26 pages long.

I added Safe Harbor GM Lauren Walsh and Service Manager Joe Alvesto the Maritimo team as document editors.

At 3:00, Lauren and Joe met us on the boat to go over the document and discuss options. The beauty of this document is that everyone can see what each other writes and discuss the best way to approach solutions.

I can’t say enough good things about the Safe Harbor team. Everyone we’ve met is extremely competent and genuinely nice people.

Our Final Night Aboard

As I mentioned earlier, it was always a tad depressing when we offloaded the boat on the afternoon of our final cruise. In an effort to make things more fun, we decided to spend the final night onboard, get dinner in Plymouth, and do the offload first thing Tuesday morning.

Mrs. Horne has been craving Fried Scallops for weeks, so I booked Tavern On The Wharf for dinner. Since we drove to Plymouth, we could have eaten anywhere in the area, but recall, the Tavern did an excellent job on fried seafood.

Although it’s called a Tavern, their food is probably more of an American Pub. Good, but not quite Gastro Pub.

Plymouth was beautiful on this crisp October night.

Tuesday morning was supposed to be the coldest of the season, but it felt closer to 50 than 40.

We probably took more off than needed, but it’s our first winter storage, so when in doubt, we took it. It only took two hours, and everything fit in my Acura MDX SUV (barely).

Thanks to all for a tremendous second-half season, and we’ll see you in April!