Anomaly is now making her Northwest Passage at about 62 mph behind a Kenworth. This gives me a chance to rant and rave about East Coast Boatyards. Of course I only experienced 4 of them out of thousands. But I was either overcharged or over billed (in my opinion) in three of them. For example in Maine I was charged 3 hours labor to do a 45 minute job, that being to fix what they had done wrong in the first place. In Salem, I was over billed about 30% in hours for varnish work, I had been on the boat the whole time and kept track of the time actually spent. In the Chesapeake I was charged over 6 hours of crane time (upcharged, too) for a crane that was onsite provably only 90 minutes. These are but a few examples. In these yards, any request to have something done was likely to be met with a "well, maybe we can somehow get to that" and pained expressions. That is the rant.

Which brings me to Hinckelys in Stuart. At every turn they were accommodating in the extreme. The attitude was "yes we will make that happen, whatever it takes, we are here to help". It didn't seem to matter that I was a transient customer with a stated intent of leaving the area for good, or that I was merely a 45 foot sailboat amongst the many 80 foot and larger motor yachts they had as customers. Labor charges were very reasonable, crane charge for unstepping the masts was too. The truck was delayed and I asked (fully expecting the answer "no") if they could bring in a lift crew on Saturday to load the boat. "No problem, we will make it happen." And it did. No time-and-a-half, no extra hours billed, no whining. I was not even charged for several days in a slip getting ready to haul, or 10 weeks in the yard waiting for the truck to get there. I talked to many other customers there and my experience was not unique. That is a rave.

I am perhaps not easy to please, but this yard pleased me. My only complaint is about the weather - I guess that's too much to ask?