Setting It Right

Court, Arrest, Plan

His helper let me know that the parts had never been ordered, and that this was a pattern. He had ripped off numerous people the same way. The helper mentioned the name of an attorney and that some other guys were trying to bring charges against him too. I called the attorney, and we proceeded to have him arrested by a fraud detective in Brunswick County. This was just our case; there were many more victims.

He later took a plea deal and was ordered to pay restitution, split among the eight of us he defrauded.

I got in touch with John, the man I'd bought the boat from, to let him know what was going on. That's when he told me Chris Prince had worked on the boat before. Looking back, I wish I had found Chris from the start — but I digress. Chris and his wife came to my rescue and took care of a major issue the situation had caused.

We sat down some time later and came up with a plan and an estimate. The yacht was going to have to be hauled out and put on the hard for all the work it now needed. We got the tow and haul-out scheduled for August 2021. The pets and I moved off the boat and into an Airbnb for what I thought would only be a few months. I ordered two new engine blocks in September 2021, after being told they would be here in December. I called to check on them in January and was told they would arrive in February. The engines were coming from GM's China facility, and when the war in Ukraine started, I knew they would never get here, so I canceled them. Engine blocks for my boat could not be found in the US, which is why we had ordered them from Summit Racing. We were on the hunt again, and we were not the only ones. The supply chain issue was affecting everyone with yachts trying to find parts.