There is an old saying that you get what you pay for.
Prospective buyers looking for a boat learned this valuable lesson.
And a Florida captain wants to sell his boat for $1 but there is one scary catch.
A boat captain is dealing with a ticking bomb
Battling the open sea takes a toll on a ship and its owner.
Captain Allan Askar set sail from St. Augustine, Florida to the Dominican Republic before Christmas.
His journey was short-lived after he ran into rough conditions on the high seas.
“The wind was pushing me downwind and the waves were building up and also going down, meaning I need to surf waves,” Askar told WESH 2 News. “It was man versus seas.”
Askar had only made about 70 miles down Florida’s coast when things took a turn for the worse.
The captain spent about 16 hours straight fighting the waves and storm.
“I was pretty much fighting with all kinds of conditions, and my body was quite exhausted,” Askar recalled.
An exhausted Askar dropped his ship’s anchor and fell into a deep sleep.
His sailboat ended up drifting onto the beach in New Smyrna Beach, Florida.
The boat had run aground, and he had no way of getting back into the Atlantic Ocean.
Captain puts his boat on sale for $1 to dump it
Askar’s sailboat was becoming quite the sight on the beach as it sat there.
“It’s been an attraction for everybody around. I mean, we took the kids there the other day,” a local resident said.
The captain realized that he needed to get rid of the boat because it could become a costly problem.
Askar faced massive fines and even a potential jail sentence for leaving his boat on a beach for more than 30 days.
Volusia County put out an arrest warrant for a man for abandoning his sailboat in New Smyrna Beach in January 2024.
So, he came up with what he thought was the best way possible to get rid of the sailboat.
He put it up for sale on Craigslist for $1.
Moving the boat from the beach would have cost him a small fortune.
“It will be operation by land at this point, and it will cost like [$]20, 25,000 altogether,” Askar said.
Askar said it was a good boat despite being grounded on the beach.
“Very good, reliable boat, very solid construction. It will last another 50 years even with abuse it’s currently taken,” Askar explained.
He was even willing to help pay for the boat to be moved off the beach.
Some locals expressed interest in buying the sailboat built in 1977 but no one ponied up the $1 to make it happen.
Askar surrendered the boat to Volusia County after he could not find any buyers for it.
The county began to dismantle the boat on the beach to take it to a landfill.
“This immediate removal was critical as the vessel posed significant risks to the public and the environment. The concern of the vessel breaking its anchor lines during a future storm or tidal event caused additional concern, as it would result in potential leaks or scattering hazardous debris along the beach and into the water with the potential of impacting vulnerable structures and shorelines,” Volusia County said in a statement.
Sometimes a deal is too good to be true.
DeSantis Daily will keep you up-to-date on any new developments in this ongoing story.
