This edition of Epay Stories 1975 Reinell 26 Sailboat has been updated and revised.
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The characters and events in this story are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Table of Contents
Preface
1975 Reinell 26 Sailboat
About the Author
Preface
This story if one in a series of fictional narratives of activities related to purchases on the Internet. Of course, there are many true stories that begin with an ecommerce sale. People who buy or sell on the internet often encounter events they did not expect. Either there is an upset in the purchase, something happens in the delivery, or the object traded is not what the buyer thought he was buying. With goodwill and perseverance most of the misunderstandings can be resolved. Like any transaction at a distance, there is this chance for miscommunication. Sometimes the most interesting events occur when the buyer starts examining and using the item purchased, for better or worse.
1975 Reinell 26 Sailboat
Usually after both spring break and summer break the first thing the English teacher has us do is write an essay about the vacation. Most of the time I have nothing to really write about. Cutting the grass and throwing a stick for the dog to fetch are not exciting events. But this time it is different. If I were at home and could write this on the computer it would be a lot easier. Having to write with a pen when my arms and part of my hands are still in bandages makes it difficult to write, but I think the story will make up for the poor handwriting. I'm still taking some painkillers, too, so that makes it harder to concentrate and not repeat myself. But here goes.
My father is a salesman for the bearing factory here in town. He spends a lot of time traveling so he does not spend as much time with our family as he would like. He says it is good for me to have a male figure to help me out when he is not around. He thinks a good older guide for me is his brother, my Uncle Fred. I don't think that he realizes that in many respects Uncle Fred is more like a sixteen year old boy than a thirty-four year old production planner. Maybe that is why I like to spend time with Uncle Fred. He does things that my father would never do. My father would think they were too dangerous or a waste of the time that I could spend studying.
Uncle Fred likes "things." In particular he likes shiny things like the bearings they make at the factory. Or knives, or swords, or guns. Mainly he likes shiny metal things that are simple and that can be used to do something. He says simple tools are much more practical than modern computerized objects made of plastic.
"When the man with the sword meets the man with the tablet computer, the man with the sword will be the one who walks away," he tells me. "Right, Uncle Fred." I don't know where he gets strange ideas like this but then he watches a lot of old movies that make him feel like he is in the film.
Uncle Fred lived in an apartment near the factory until a couple years ago. By then he had bought so many shiny things on Epay that there was not room in the apartment for everything so he bought a small house that has a double garage, a dry basement, and a workshop. He says now he has enough space for all his things and all the tools he needs to take care of them..
It seems that as time goes by the things that Uncle Fred buys on Epay become larger and larger. He started out with pens, watches, and folding knives. Then he moved up to tools and swords. Next it was a sports car. This year he decided it was time for a sailboat. The nearest decent size lake for a sailboat is a three hour drive from here but that didn't seem to bother him. His truck is equipped to tow a boat, but not just any kind of boat. It had to be a sailboat. He says this fits in with his "minimalist" attitude that the objects he buys should be as simple as possible and as close to natural as possible. I don't know. When you live three hours from the nearest large body of water it takes a lot of organizing and driving to use the "natural" sailboat. A power boat that can run on the river nearby would seem to make more sense to me but he did not ask my opinion before he bought the sailboat. Even with the space he has at his house, there is not room enough for the boat and the trailer to transport it. He stores it at a boat and trailer storage lot nearby.
One of the guys Uncle Fred works with used to have a sailboat so Fred asked him a lot of questions before he bought the boat. The guy told him the best time to buy a boat is in the fall before the winter when the owner will have to store the boat. If the owner has decided to get rid of the boat, that is likely when he will do it. He would probably be better off to pay for the storage until the next spring and sell it at a higher price when the new buyer is excited about using it. He also told him it would be better to buy a boat that had always been used in fresh water rather than in sea water. He said there would be fewer problems with corrosion.
Uncle Fred buys most of his things, both large and small, on Epay. He tells me, "I enjoy the challenge of an auction. It is a contest to determine who has done their homework and determined the real market value of something. When I lose the contest and don't buy the object I was bidding on , I think it means I have done a better job of estimating the true value of the object. Of course, sometimes the buyer just really wants the object no matter what the price, and is willing to pay whatever price they have to pay to buy it. That is fine with me. If they really want it that much, let them have it. Some things like old, but not antique, cars and boats usually sell at very low prices compared with what they originally cost or what the current owner has spent on it. That is because it is really a hobby item and hobbies don't have a sound monetary value. It depends on how much someone is interested in the item. These old items are priced very low because they are expensive to maintain. They are somewhat like industrial property that loses its value when it can no longer earn a reasonable return on the investment. A car that spends half its time in a garage being repaired is not very valuable to someone who needs a car to drive to work, no matter how nice it may look or how many celebrities had similar cars fifty years ago."
The twenty-six foot Reinell sailboat and its trailer arrived on the back of a heavy transport carrier that usually carries bulldozers or small industrial cranes. It was deposited at a storage lot in early October. Uncle Fred spent a weekend crawling around on top of and inside of it with a clipboard and a camera. He made lists of everything that was on the boat. There were lots of notes and photos of all the things that needed attention. He said he would have all winter to find replacement parts and make some of the repairs that he was capable of doing himself. The extra time meant he could pay less for these parts. He said even the fact that when he bought something he could ship it by the cheapest method because he had no urgency made it better for him. Occasionally when he was at our house he would mention the work he had been doing on the boat. He seemed to feel very good about it even though it would still be a long time before it was in the water. He said he was buying extra equipment for the boat because he wanted to be prepared in case the built-in equipment like the lights did not work. This was mainly small items like a butane lamp, a butane camp stove, and a portable toilet.
When Uncle Fred came over for Christmas dinner he was excited about his plans for the boat. He asked me if I was interested in taking the boat to a large lake at spring b
reak. He said we could test everything and learn how it all worked before summer arrived. The weather would still be pretty cool. There was no heating on the boat but we should no be very cold late in the spring. We would go to a large lake in the south for the first trip. In the summer we could take the boat to the north for the cooler temperatures. He had not paid very much for the boat he said. The company that made the boat had gone out of business many years before so it was an orphan that meant parts could be difficult to find. Uncle Fred viewed this as a starter boat to learn from. In fact, the trailer for the boat was probably worth more than the boat itself. The wife of the owner claimed everything worked fine. He had made a video the