So Jason and I are just sitting around at home relaxing and about to go to bed when Jason gets a text message from one of the guys at the boatyard.  The guys lives on his boat and heard some people come into the dock where our boat was parked and then saw them run into it and drive away! 😮 Well, shit!

Obviously Jason and I bundle into the truck and drive down to the marina to assess the damage. (it’s like 11 at night) Apparently what happened is a group of guys on a pontoon boat tied up at the far end of the dock because they ran out of fuel.  They got a buddy to bring them some gas and then when they went to leave, they got caught by the wind and current and ended up over by our boat.  After landing next to our boat they gunned it and hauled ass away. Our buddy at the marina went over to inspect it and saw a lot of really deep scratches, called the cops, and then drove around to the boat ramps trying to find the guys.  (we owe Bill a beer for sure!) FWC found them when they ran out of gas AGAIN and shot off a flare. They are idiots.

So Jason talks to the cop that arrested them and he comes by to look at the boat.  Well, he brought the 2 guys from the pontoon boat with him! But, since they’re riding in the cop car, they have to be in handcuffs.  Overall it was just super awkward.  Even if the guy knew he hit our boat, he kept insisting that he had no idea he hit it and blah blah blah.  Who knows if he was telling the truth or not.  We spun the boat around so we could look at it from the pier.  Luckily I suppose, a lot of the deep gouges that Bill told us about were actually there before.  Our hull had been painted and the primer is dark gray so there are spots where the paint is messed up and the primer shows so it looks a lot worse than it really is.  So that was good.  We expected the worst!  Eventually, after going back the next morning we found that while the boat has a few more small scratches and they did probably hit us, the area that they hit was the worst paint on the entire boat and there’s so much existing damage that was worse that we’re just going to let it go.  At the end of the day, the guy walked off with a hit and run ticket that I think carries a fine of $500 and won’t look good on his record at all.  Justice has been served and I’ll probably buff the scratches out when the boat’s back out of the water again.

Overall I suppose it could have been much worse.  The only downside is that if they had really damaged the boat then insurance would have paid for a new paint job on the entire hull… which would have been nice. 😉 Although I’m glad it turned out to be essentially nothing and we can pull her back out of the water and carry on with our refit! (and take a nap because we got home after midnight!)