During the off-season I store my boat at a marina located at the mouth of the Saginaw Bay in Michigan. I was there every day last week getting some jobs done before I launched.

Early last week I watched as the sellers of a 37' Catalina, well kept and in excellent shape, prepared their boat for transport. The buyer arrived a week ago Thursday. He had flown in from Wisconsin and was there to take possession and oversee arrangements to have his new boat trucked from Michigan to Wisconsin. He was visibly excited, like a father fussing over a newborn baby.

I arrived at the marina this past Monday morning to find the Catalina and its cradle already loaded on a tractor-trailer rig of a commercial marine transport company. The new owner hovered as the truck driver and marina employees loaded the mast and secured everything. It wasn’t until late Monday afternoon that everything was ready to go and the truck finally departed.

Yesterday afternoon, while launching my boat, the marina employees told me that the Catalina had fallen off the trailer en route to Wisconsin. Apparently, somewhere near the Straits of Mackinac, the truck driver swerved (reason unknown) and the boat came loose. No one I talked to knew the extent of the damage to the boat. The new owner got the phone call about the accident while sitting in the local airport waiting for his flight back to Wisconsin.

I just can’t imagine.