Friday, December 14, 2007

The Falcon Is No More

For those of you who a new to this blog: The Falcon was a boat built in Milwaukee by a man who intended to sail her across the Atlantic. He never made it. Instead, he ran her aground close to the Milwaukee shoreline and left her to the elements. She was stranded for weeks, and the man could not be found. As it turns out, he had gone back to his home country somewhere across the Atlantic.The two photos above were supplied by Leslie Jahnke, one of out local kayakers (and Cajun-style accordionist...but I digress).

The Coast guard took a hands off position as the craft was not a hazard to navigation. The latest, as reported in the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, is that a company was hired to get the corpse ashore and haul it away. Laden with ice, chains broke, and the hull would not go easily. Finally, she was cut into thirds and taken to a less than glorious finish. As I had said in one of my earlier posts, this ain't no way to treat a lady.

Paddle safe...

DS

4 comments:

Captn O Dark 30 and Super Boo said...

Definately non-sailor types doing the salvage...

The Coast Guard has large float bags for floating sinkers and chain when putting bouys back on station. (bunch of whinners about jursitiction) How about doing the right thing? Could have donated the boats to a kids camp, or auctioned it off. Not the saw!!

This is just wrong.

DaveO said...

Kinda like when the Corps of Engineers decides its gonna 'fix' the river. The bull in the china shop approach. That being said the owner must have a lot more money than brains.

derrick said...

yah know it kind of reminds me of the days when all the men in the family would stand around an old car that would'nt start and invariably the solution would always come down to hitting, smashing or breaking something. LOL!

Silbs said...

First of all, I don't know how the guy could have abandoned her, especially having done the building himself. It is a pity she could not be refloated. There are lots of boulders in that area, and I suspect that that was not in the cards.