Chicago, IL: 27 ft Catalina Gone in One Morning

This 27 ft Catalina 27 had been up on stands in a Cook County driveway long enough that the standing rigging had seized solid and the sails, still bagged, had rotted to nothing inside their covers. Nobody had touched the winches in years. The owner wasn't looking to restore it, just wanted the space back. Getting it down off the stands was the awkward part. The hull had settled unevenly, so we had to jack and cross-brace before we could roll it clear without stressing the fiberglass. We dropped the mast first, since there was no way to move the rig down the block toward Elmwood Park with a forty-foot stick standing up over the wires. No title in the drawer, handled per the Illinois page rules. Whole job ran most of a morning between the rigging, the stands, and loading out. Back at our yard the keel came out, and the hull went to the cutting area for processing. That Catalina 27 is done being anybody's project now. Crews cover all of Cook County: Proviso, Maine, Elgin, Hanover, Orland, Elk Grove. We've pulled plenty of Catalinas out of winter storage yards where owners parked them years back and stopped paying the slip fee to move them anywhere else. Same-week pickups are normal once we've got the address and a look at how the trailer's sitting.