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For sale: Ike-battered boats at bargain prices

01:14 PM CST on Friday, November 7, 2008

By Kevin Reece / 11 News

SAN LEON, Texas -- In a once-empty lot at the south end of San Leon, boat buyers can find plenty of bargains.

Video
Kevin Reece's 11 News report
November 6, 2008

"This one here took a whooopin," said Sally Sutherlin who gave us a tour of the boating graveyard. "This one's almost broken right in two."

They are the castaways and thrown away pieces of Hurricane Ike.

There are more than 200 -- and counting.

"Just a little bit of paint and spackle, you know, salt water is a natural preservative by the way," joked Sutherlin.

All joking aside, this is big business. Many of the boats are battered, but salvagable. And selling for a song.

"I call it win-win gambling. Because at the end of the day, you either win a boat or you get your money back because you didn't win. But it's a fun game to play," said Sutherlin.

All of the boats were totaled by insurance companies. The owners' claims paid. Now the boats are up for auction to help the insurance ecompanies recover some of their costs.

11 NEWS

From yachts to sailboats, you can buy a boat for a song.

That's where US Auctions.com and Sully Sutherlin come in. They're offering the boats for sale online. They ran the gamut from a formerly submerged 55-foot Azimut worth $1.5 million to a damaged 22-foot sailboat where the highest bid so far is $102.50.

"They sit in the water. They sit on the roads because nobody wants them," said David Allen with TNT Yacht Repair in Keman. "Somebody has to do this."

At the back of the yard, in an area they jokingly call death row, sits several boats marked with a yellow X, which means they aren't repairable at all. They'll be crushed and sent to a landfill.

But most of the boats in the graveyard are sound enough for someone to consider saving.

"Hey, maybe even consider, you know, purchasing something to repair and bring it back to life," said Allen. "And some of these are definitely worth it."

An inventory worth $20 million, in fact, before Hurricane Ike landed them on land and on-line.

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