Missing Barn Boats

Justin Scott · January 08, 2012, 07:20:07 PM

Hull # 27 was finally found in 2011 and has moved to enjoy a new life in the dry air of the Desert Fleet in AZ.

I thought folks would be interested to know how many missing boats are still out there, undiscovered, hidden in someone's barn. It turns out that class members have chased down and recovered most of the early boats. There are now only 6 missing hull numbers and we know that at least one of them is resting on the ocean floor off Key West.

The remaining Barn boats still waiting to be found are:-

#14
#25
#32
#35
#48
and that holy grail, hull#59. Many have looked for her, but none have found her.

If anyone sees a carbon prod sticking out from under a stack of hay. Take a look at the number on the transom and let us know what you have found.

Doug Mroz · January 09, 2012, 01:00:01 AM

This is very cool that we are only missing six. Perhaps posting this to sailing anarchy may help generate leads?

Justin Scott · January 09, 2012, 01:34:12 AM

Well, strictly speaking we are only missing five because we know where one of them is. We just dont know the hull number unless someone wants to dive on her.

Anyone who reads SA and hasnt come forward yet must be hiding from the mob or the FBI.

Darren Gilbert · January 09, 2012, 08:11:30 AM

What's the tale behind the boat that went down off Key West?

Matt Sole · January 09, 2012, 03:23:52 PM

Do tell!

If the location is know how come it was never raised? Obviously no point now.

Peter Beardsley · January 09, 2012, 03:28:22 PM

Quote from: Matt Sole on January 09, 2012, 03:23:52 PM
Obviously no point now.

Except for it making for a great story. But it'd be a lot of work. We had a guy at Larchmont salvage a Shields that had been on the bottom for 3 years and fix it up. Extenuating circumstances include that he is crazy (in a good way) and that his father-in-law owns a boatyard. Pics and story posted at http://www.shieldsfleetone.org/Photos/Photos_231_Salvage/231%20salvage.htm

Justin Scott · January 09, 2012, 06:31:15 PM

Its been on the bottom for over 10 years.

The gist of the story is that it hit a reef or rock going at speed, tore a huge hole in the hull and then slowly sank as they tried to sail or get towed back. This was back around 1999/2000, when class and Perf' Boats was folding so nobody thought it was worth rescuing.

We know the missing hull numbers so we assume that one of the missing numbers is lying off Key West.

This all unfolds because our new exec cttee is bringing our class owners roster into the twenty first century and loading it on to a cloud based CRM database. This is a great idea because the contact info and history of the boats will be safely stored and not depend on some Excel spread sheets stored on mine and previous class secretarys' computers.

Six volunteers divided the class roster up among ourselves over the weekend and took a group of numbers to download the data and make sure the owners and their contact info was correct. We can also download all previous owners info to create a record for each boat. Anyway, since I seem to know where some of the skeletons are buried, I volunteered to take the older hull numbers.

Justin Scott · January 09, 2012, 06:46:57 PM

Which reminds me.......y'all ought to say a big thank you to Kelly Bechard from Sarnia, who has been huge about chasing down boats for the roster and building the map with Viper locations marked.

Kelly owns hull #57, which was originally owned by Tom Dimond and Seamus Hourihan.

Tom and Seamus duelled with Frank Hart and yours truly for 1st and 2nd for three succesive big breeze R19 North Americans. Then I bought a Viper. First regatta, there is Tom and Seamus. We were both equally surprised. Seamus, Tom, Rob Gorman, Wade, Dave Curtis etc........all the boats had big guys for crews then because the boats were brutal upwind in any breeze over 15 knots with the double sleeved treetrunk mast. The change to carbon mast has made the boat so much better behaved.

Matt Sole · January 09, 2012, 07:10:45 PM

Do you have any info on the location of the sinking of the Keys Viper as I know a few divers down there who maybe just crazy enough to see if they could find her....

Dan Tucker · January 10, 2012, 08:52:14 AM

Quote from: Matt Sole on January 09, 2012, 07:10:45 PM
Do you have any info on the location of the sinking of the Keys Viper as I know a few divers down there who maybe just crazy enough to see if they could find her....

If anyone is crazy enough to try to find that boat, it's Matt!

Matt Sole · January 10, 2012, 11:12:39 AM

Hey now Dan! Steady on! Not me but I know a good boat repair guy who also dives fro a living in Key West, so he maybe interested...

Jason Hyerstay · January 10, 2012, 12:11:33 PM

That's what you call growing the fleet from the bottom up!

Justin Scott · January 16, 2012, 08:49:12 PM

I'm close to finding 25 and I dont think 14 was ever built.

Somebody, somewhere has #59.

Ben Steinberg · January 17, 2012, 05:00:23 PM

Wasn't 25 recently sold in Texas?

Justin Scott · January 17, 2012, 07:46:39 PM

Quote from: Ben Steinberg on January 17, 2012, 05:00:23 PM
Wasn't 25 recently sold in Texas?

Yup. I found it. We now have every boat in the 20 series pinned down. 25 needs a lot of TLC though. New mast is on its way to replace the Nacra mast it currently has.

You are now looking for 32, 35, 48 and 59.

One of them is OB so there are three barn boats out there.