Day two of bringing the boat back to the Great Lakes - Tolchester to Chesapeake City

Traveling on a sailboat with the mast down is a pain in the rear and nerve wracking! One is always worried about the mast moving then adding to that it makes walking around the deck quite challenging as we had all kinds of ratchet straps attached to chain plates and deck cleats all over the boat. Meaning there is a lot to trip over and bang your head on. It also means most our cleats were being used to hold the mast down vs being easily available to tie to a dock with. Not to mention the added joy of the boat now being 70ft long with the mast down and hanging 15 ft over the front of the boat and 5ft off the rear. Last time we did this we both said never again. But here we are because we were too cheap to have the mast shipped to our final destination. 

The scariest part of this trip was going to be the Atlantic leg from Cape May to the Hudson River. We figured that we needed a good 28hr weather window to accomplish that leg. The reality is we expected the journey to be around 18hrs but I like to plan a buffer into our sail plans should something unexpected happen. It appeared we were going to get that desired magic weather window in about three days. So after a few long days of getting the boy dropped off at college, getting the boat provisioned and ready, then a long day on the water heading north in the Chesapeake we decided a short leg was in order and traveled about 20NM from Tolchester, MD to Chesapeake City, MD located in the C&D canal.

This turned out to be a great stop. We arrived around 11am, we were the first boat to drop the anchor beating the weekend traffic and were able to head into town just in time for lunch. We were able to visit one of the two museums, walk around the shops a bit, found some ice cream then settled at a B&B with an outdoor bar and live music for a while. We had great weather and it made for a really relaxing day. 

Starting our adventure back to the Great Lakes - Trappe to Tolchester

When we last saw the boat we were a bit concerned about the way the yard had put the mast on the boat. We also noticed before leaving that one of our dock lines had been cut. We were thinking it happened somehow when the marina moved the boat from their Oxford location to their other location in Trappe. The line must have dropped off the side along the way allowing it to get sucked into the prop. 

Fortunately the yard also noticed this and decided to pull the boat and ordered some new parts for the prop to resolve the damage. So when we got to the yard after dropping Max off at school the day before they had the boat in the lift and waiting for the new bits to come in the next day. Additionally they had also spent some time working to get the mast mounted better on the boat which also resulted in getting the total height of the boat off the water to 14 feet 9 inches (once I removed the wind generators). This meant we would not need to cross Lake Ontario or deal with a schedule for the Welland Canal. Instead we would be able to travel the full distance of the Erie Canal that eventually ends around Buffalo, NY making for what might be a less stressful trip.

View of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge

We spent the next day provisioning, making fender boards, and attempting to tie up all of the loose ends that need to be resolved before leaving for what we planned to be a 2-3 week trip bringing the boat back to Lake Erie. The yard got our prop put back together, called in a fuel truck to ensure we could leave with full tanks, and got the boat back in the water. It was a productive day. In addition to this the yard owner had some really good news for us. He had found the owner of the Jet Express Ferry service that takes folks over to the various islands on Lake Erie and told us they would be willing to pull and store our boat along side their ferries for the winter. This meant we could eliminate 600 miles from our planed trip to Lake Michigan during a time of year that is less than ideal for travel on the Great Lakes. Plus the boat would only be an hour or so from our house vs 3.5 and on the other side of the state. 

The next morning we dropped off our rental car. Said our goodbys to all our new boat yard friends and headed out on the high tide. Logically this seemed like the right thing to do but seems I still have a lot to learn about the Chesapeake Bay. Apparently we headed out a bit too soon as we got ahead of the tide and stayed that way for the entire day which meant we were going against the tide and traveling about two to four knots slower then we would have if the tide stayed with us. Luckily we had a nice weather window with calm waters and after a full day out on the water we ended up dropping anchor just a little north of Tolcheaster, MD for the night where we got to enjoy a beautiful sunset.

We dropped the boy at college

Summer is just about gone and with that its was time to do the thing every parent dreams of and dreads at the same time. We all want our kids to be strong well rounded, independent adults. We want them well educated. But we also hate giving up the direct time we get to spend with them when they live at home, and ultimately the amount of influence we once had in their lives. We like to think it's a good influence to keep them "on track and doing all the right things" that will hopefully pay off later in their lifespan. However eventually they do have to leave the nest and start doing their own thing.

August 24th is the day we officially became empty nesters and dropped Max off for his first year at Central Michigan University. I'm sure he will do well and it seems he is already on track trying some new things and making friends. I look forward to seeing him grow over the next four years. The house will be different without the kids around as much. I look forward to figuring out what this next phase of our life's will look like as the kids continue on their own journeys and we start to develop our new routines. For now I'll enjoy what I'm guessing will be a 60% reduction in our weekly grocery bill. I'll be less excited about picking up all of his chores and having to resume my role as the lawn guy around our house but hopefully there will be slightly less work with only two of us making messes on a daily basis.

FINALLY! That's CAPTAIN to you! (with sailing endorsement, of course!)

Seems I've been deemed special enough to have received my official Captains Credential. I submitted all my stuff to the USCG on July 1 and just got the completed paper back on September 18th. Unfortunately I still don't have the medical certificate in hand. However they notified me today that it has been approved and will be mailed soon. Seems the credential is not truely valid until you have the medial certificate, MMC credential, and TWIC card all in hand at the same time.

So what did I really get here. Well I may have gotten a bit carried away with the endorsements for something I really have no plans on using but figured I might as well do them all while the base information was fresh in my brain. In addition to the test for the standard 6 pack license I went ahead and got the endorsement for the Master level which means I can drive pretty much any vessel under 50 tons full of people. I can be a Ferry Captain if I want or I can take out large charter groups on inspected vessels. Additionally I also got endorcements for Towing and Sailing. This means I can run sailing charter boats with more than 6 customers and I have the option to be a tow boat captan. 

It's nice to have options but am I really qualified in any way to do any of this stuff? Probably not. But the USCG says I'm good to go. I'm sure I could figure it out with a lot of on the job training but for now I'm smart enough to know I should not be jumping into any of these things without additional experience. While it sounds impressive to say you're a Master rated Captain with endorsements for sailing and towing. It really just means one can pass a few tests the main one being that I could get all the paperwork together and filled out correctly. Frankly I'm a bit disappointed that there is no actual proof needed that one can safely operate a boat like what is required for a drivers license. In my case I filled out a couple forms that said what types of boats I've owned, how much time I've spent on them over the years, and where I took them. It's all an honor system. Until one has to demonstrate some actual seamanship skills I won't be very impressed with their licensing system.

Now that I've nearly completed the process I will say it was a bit of a roller coaster ride. A ton of information was feed to us during the in person training class I took for the 6 pack endorsement. I spent a fair amount of time in class and memorizing a bunch of stuff that is interesting to know but not really required to know to successfully operate a boat. Getting the notification that I had passed all of that felt like an accomplishment. Passing the four tests required for the entry level endorsement was not trivial. Oddly adding the endorsements for the Master rating, Towing, and Sailing did feel somewhat trivial and required much less time. With that said putting together the application and submitting that was quite time consuming. After uploading everything I was quite worried that I might have missed something, paid for the wrong drug test, or not checked a box correctly somewhere along the way. Fortunately after watching a number of YouTube videos on the process I seemed to have gotten everything correct the first time. Its feels like another weight has been taken off now that I've made it though the process successfully.

More choices

While waiting to board our flight back from Baltimore the owner of Xquisite sent me a e-mail with information about their World Rally trip. I think I am one of the first to see the details. Obviously we bought this boat with the intention to circumnavigate with it. Originally we had looked at a number of options and settled on going with the World Arc. But now we are getting some information on a 4 year around the world rally that Xquisite is planning to start next year. They are calling it the Great Xcape. We had talked to the owner about his idea for this trip last summer when we were at the Xquisite Center with our new boat. But it seems they have just now started putting the actual plans down and looking to see who will commit to such an adventure. 

It seems they are modeling it like the Oyster rally where it will hopefully be a big marketing thing for them. But going with them the adventure will be fully supported with Xquisite techs, Captains, and even a doctor traveling with the fleet. If you need crew they will provide it, if you need to leave your boat somewhere and want to join the fleet when you come back they will move it for you. They will even attempt to charter the boat for you while you're gone to help cover the costs along the way. They are planning to handle all the visa's, check in's at each country, transpiration of parts, assist with weather/route planning, and things to do at each destination. The bonus is rather then leaving from Africa and crossing back to Brazil their route plans to take the group though the Suez Canal and into the Med which I would really like to travel by boat.

I really like the idea of joining the Great Xcape. It would be fun to be one of the first doing it with them. The tech support along the way would be helpful. Amy's biggest concern is missing family and friends. I think spreading out the time doing the trip this way will allow for more trips home without feeling like you missed something with the World Arc fleet constantly moving. This trip is planning to stay much longer than a couple weeks at each destination which I'm hoping means we might be able to put the boat on the hard during the off season then come back to continue the trip when the weather permits. The down side would be it will be a smaller group, the adventure will take longer and what happens if something changes at home not allowing us to complete the trip, or just generally missing more life events (weddings, funerals, graduations, etc). I'm also guessing their version of the trip will be much more expensive the way they are currently planing it but we have yet to hear of a price.

We were planning to sign up for the World Arc trip when sign ups opened in September/October. Now we have something else to think about?

Year two of retirement

I feel like the last year has gone by really fast. I don't have any regrets about retiring nor do I feel that I'm missing any sense of accomplishment from not working. This second year I feel like I've got the hang of retirement.. establishing new routines and habits that keep me busy in ways that I truly enjoy. It was my son's senior year of high school and I'm really glad that I was around and truly present for all of his lasts. 

This year he aged out of Scouting and I backed out of my leadership role there. It was also my last year as head coach of the High School Trap team which I'm now in the process of handing over to another dad who's son is on the team. As a family we were able to travel a bit visiting my daughter when she was working at Disney, on the boat, we took a cruise over spring break, and still have a lot more planed for this year. Staying busy has not been a problem.

In about two weeks we will be dropping both Annabelle and Max off at college and that will be quite a change for us. We will officially be empty nesters! It may be quite different without any kid activities to attend, coach, or lead. We will need to find a new rhythm in our house that is not centered around our kids. But next summer we plan to start our circumnavigation which may take anywhere between 2-4 years. So we have that to look forward to and start preping for.

As far as what I had imagined doing in retirement so far none of that has really come to fruition. At one point I thought I might follow up on that offer to teach at the community college or one of the local private schools. I thought I would be playing video games more. I frankly had notions of all sorts of ways to spend my time that I have yet to get to. Of course I also thought I would have a great looking yard, be caught up on all the projects around the house and would have a regular workout routine. Well it seems I failed at all of those but maybe the workout routine. I've been doing really well at getting to the gym or something equivalent 3-4 times a week this year and have continued walking a few miles each day with the dogs. 

Financially its hard to complain the stock market has been doing great which has put us in a better position then we planed for. Our rentals are having a rough year as we had a lot of turn over coupled with a few expensive repairs but I'm optimistic that we will break even with those this year.

Looking back I was never the person that didn't enjoy working or all of the chaos or challenges that came with it but at this point I can safely say I don't miss it nor do I even think about it other than to reminisce with a former colleague from time to time. Retirement has been a great decision for me and I'm really looking forward to our next chapter!

Lowering the mast

While we have had several sailboats before I've never really been comfortable when it comes to lowering a mast and have always relied on the boat yard for help. Historically they promised a lot and generally disappointed in this area. My experience has been that they will generally operate the crane for you while you do all the work. This time may work out to be the exception?

The yard called in the crane company. Helped get everything disconnected. I'm a bit worried about getting all the wires that were running through the mast connected again when we get to our destination but that's a problem for another day. For now they are labeled showing what connects to what so I can join wire 1 to the other part of wire 1 at some point in the future. Needless to say there were a lot of wires and no easy disconnects. Fortunately we only ended up cutting one wire that we could not trace. It will be interesting to see what it might have been and how many smaller wires are in it when the time comes to join it back together.

The crane showed up around 1130 on a day that was 89 degrees and very humid. Luckily the yard treated this event as an all hands on deck maneuver from a staffing standpoint I think I had 5 guys plus the crane operator for this project. Getting it off proved to be pretty easy. Unfortunately the yard had not got around to making the braces/brackets they had committed to prior to lowering the mast so there was nothing to lay the mast in on the boat once it was removed. They ended up moving it over and setting it on some blocks on land. At this point everyone took a break and started scratching their heads on next steps. I realized there were also no straps to tie it down and asked Amy to make the 35 minute drive to the hardware store to buy everything they had in the racket strap section.

Meanwhile the yard guys found a spreader bar to help balance the mast as it would be moved over the boat. They had also decided to use some of the blocks they set boats on to temporarily rest the mast on my boat with. Unfortunately these were to be stacked on each other until the actual supports could be made. The new plan was to later use their smaller crane to raise it on deck enough to get the promised supports under it the next day. I was not very excited about this idea but unfortunately it seemed like a reasonable approach for what we could do at this moment and I was not very excited about paying the crane guy to sit around any longer then we had to or worse yet come back the next day.

Now that some informal plans were made up it was time to set the mast onto the boat. Unfortunately because of the way our mast is rigged to rake back there is some diamond shaped rigging starting midway up the mast that makes that happen. This rigging seemed to be hitting our bimini top and limited how far we could push the mast towards the back of the boat making it hang over the front of the boat about 15ft. It seemed we had a few options:

1. We could disconnect it which would allow us to push the mast back further and better balance the boat but would require a rigger when we put it up somewhere that understands our boat, why it was shaped that way, and knows how to get it back to that shape for optimal performance. This did not sound like a great idea as a good rigger can be hard to come by.
2. We could raise the mast up higher on deck (about 3-4ft) to ensure the cable would clear our bimini but then we might be to high to make it under the lowest bridge along the canal. 
3. We could take the top and windshield down which would provide zero protection from the elements during the 2000 mile journey and possibly make our helm position very uncomfortable. 

4. 

   A problem waiting to happen

   We could let the mast hang over the front of the boat more than we would like which would somewhat limit our travel days on the Atlantic and Great Lakes to ideal weather only. 

In my mind all of those options sucked. I looked over to my left and started looking at the straps on the travel lift and decided to just get the mast on deck for now and hopefully we could use the travel lift to bring it back up to change the mast position vs being limited to their crane. Hopefully once they get some chalks made to hold the mast more appropriately we might be able to have a better idea of where our height cut off will officially be and with some creative engineering we may be able to move the mast back and keep our top and window protection. For the moment I'm pretty sure we can make it under the 20ft bridge but I would really like the option of making it under the 15ft bridge.

Some other fun challenges I have not mentioned yet. 

1. We decided to do all of this work while the boat is still on the Chesapeake Bay. It seemed like a good idea at the time as the yard we were at was willing to do the work and their labor rates are quite fair compared to doing this somewhere in NY. This means we will have to travel up the Bay, though the C&D canal, then down to Cape May, and then 18hrs up the East Coast in the Atlantic with our mast down before we get to the Hudson River where the conditions will start to become easier weather/element wise about 1/3 the way up.
2. We found out our mast is really 69ft long. This means we are now a 69ft boat which will make docking interesting, limiting, and expensive anywhere we stop. It also means a best case setup we will have 10ft of mast hanging over each end of our boat.
3. 
   Turns out there is no where in Buffalo, NY (the end of the Erie Canal) that can put a mast this big up on a catamaran. Luckily I found a place in Oswego, NY that can which is where we will come out if we go the Lake Ontario route.

Our current thoughts are that we would like to leave the mast down until we get to where we will have the boat hauled out on Lake Michigan. This will allow us to do some maintenance on the mast next spring. Items like cleaning up some of the rusted fittings so we can hopefully see where the rust is coming from, replacing the tricolor light that worked but had water in it, replacing some of the stainless bits on the roller furling that are showing their age, etc. Additionally if we leave the mast down there is a chance we might be able to get the boat into inside storage for the winter which would hopefully be easier on the boat as it seemed our gel coat did not appreciate all the freezing and melting last winter even though the boat was shrink wrapped. So lots of items to work though as we make this journey at the end of the month. But for now the big dependency we have is the yard getting the chalks made and placed under the mast then ensuring its tied down well enough to make this trip prior to August 25th when we get back to the boat. Any wagers if it will happen before we get there?

A change in plans

We have been planning to do the Down East Loop pretty much since we purchased the catamaran to bring the boat back to the Great Lakes. It was a trip we really wanted to do and frankly we were thinking this boat would be to tall to get though the NY canal system. Unfortunately it seems we have run out of time to make that trip happen this summer. So we are moving to plan b. I had forgotten that boats with 20ft of height can still travel the canal system. Unfortunately they can't do the Erie Canal but they can travel up the Hudson to Oswego, NY then out to Lake Ontario. Once on Lake Ontario we can travel west to on Lake Ontario to the Welland Canal to Lake Erie then bring it rest the way around to Lake Michigan where it will be stored for the winter. This is our new plan.

The top of the mast on our catamaran is about 81ft off the water. I was guessing that our boat was about 15ft off the water which would make the mast some where around 60-65ft in length. Our original thought was to pull the mast and have it trucked to the marina we planned to store the boat at in Michigan this winter. I tried the UShip website that lets folks that do this kind of work bid on the job. I was getting quotes in the range of $1500-1800 not cheap but we were thinking it would be much more convenient then having the mast on deck for the almost 2000 mile trip. I happened to find a boat shipping company and called them for a quote this is when they explained to me these guys had no idea what they were doing and I should avoid services like this at all costs. It seems anything over 50 some feet requires special permits and a specially marked car to follow it. Their quote was 15k for the job. I did some googling and realized what they were saying was correct and due to my mast length it might be best to put it on a special truck like they had to haul it vs letting it bounce around with 15ft or more hanging off the end. Needless to say I was not very excited about spending that kind of money. So it was time to consider other options.

The next option was to lay it down on the boat somehow. We have done this before with our first boat (you can scroll back and look at that trip further back in this blog) and it was quite challenging to move around the boat with the mast down to manage dock lines and fenders as we traveled through the canal system. But for 15k I figured we might be able to suck up the inconvenience :). I started measuring things on the boat. It seems our bimini is just under 15ft high, we might be able to make this work if I take down the wind generators somehow which the base sits about 6 inches higher than our canvas top. If we can get under 15ft we can travel the Erie Canal which would allow us to skip Lake Ontario.
So we decided to bring a crane in to lower our mast and transport the boat with the mast down via the canal system. Unfortunately doing this while the boat is in the Chesapeake Bay will mean we will have to do an overnight run in the Atlantic from Cape May to NYC with the mast tied down on our deck and hoping for good weather.

I hope this was a good decision!

New summer toy

I've been reminded again (maybe the hard way) that I should stay off of Facebook Marketplace and that I'm completely irresponsible. Max likes cars and I was telling him about the BMW Z3. It was a car that I always liked and very nearly purchased back in the late 90's back when Amy and I were engaged and still had single people money. She needed a new car at the time and we both loved the looks of it but eventually decided it was not practical and moved on to a four door sedan that was cheaper and would be better suited to car seats one day. The car stuck with me however and was the background on my desktop for a year or so after making the responsible decision.

Well after showing him the car he quickly started looking at them on Market Place. He found a bunch of them all relatively cheap. I explained that I liked the color of the one from the James Bond movie Golden Eye that the car had been introduced in and that when I had test driven them back in the day I would only consider the 2.8 6 cylinder engine or maybe the M version of the car. Sure enough he found one nearby for sale. I guess he hit me in a weak moment as next thing I knew we were driving out to look at it. When we got there the car was rust free, appeared to have very few of the known issues we had read about online (on the way over to see it), and the owner was telling us all the right things. After a quick test drive it seemed I had purchased a brand new to me 28 year old car. Like any old car it needs some attention. The seats need to be recovered, the stereo system needs to be replaced (I think all the speakers are blown out), and I'm sure all the plastic bits for the cooling system will fail at the most in opportune time. But the body is clean, the top works, and the engine and suspension seem to be in good working order.

It will be interesting to see what this thing ends up costing in the long run. The previous owner seems to have keep up with the maintenance for the most part but I've never owned a classic car before so I'm not really sure what I'm getting into. Can it be worse than an old boat? I guess time will tell. For now I can assure you that for the last three weeks it's been a fun car to enjoy the warm summer days in. I have not owned a vehicle with a manual transmission in about 30 years. Other than the occasional rental car in Europe, Asia, or South Africa I probably have not driven one in about 15 years so it's taking a bit to get proficient with again. The upside is that Max was excited to learn to drive a stick shift and after three lessons is now fairly proficient driving it. The downside is he seems to want to drive my toy around everywhere to show off to his friends.

Its been a busy summer so far - July update

Somehow it seems we have managed to get to the halfway point of summer and I feel like it should just be starting.

This summer Annabelle has been doing an internship at Cedar Point. Her position is of course at the very bottom of the totem pole but is working with the team that is responsible for all the employee events. That might entail helping to setup and run employee ride nights where they open a ride or two after hours just for the employees, movies on the beach, or monthly employee birthday celebrations. It sounds like she is rarely doing the same thing every day and seems to be enjoying the experience this year working in the office and at the events vs the Life Guard position she held there last summer.

Max has kept busy he started the summer with a trip to Colorado with his girlfriend's family. He is also on the summer swim team. It's been fun to see him still enjoying swimming and the new friends he's made there. He's had a few odd jobs this summer from taking care of a couple farms while the families are away to helping his Scout Master flush fire hydrants. The kid is quite good at spotting opportunities and seems to be raking in the cash this summer.

Last weekend we had his graduation party at the house which was a lot of fun. It's always nice to see all the various folks from different friend groups in your life come together in one place. I just wish it didn't feel so rushed. We spent a fair amount of time planning and getting ready for the event then when it happens it goes by too fast. Overall I enjoyed it and he had a number of friends and family friends from various stages of his life stop by to celebrate with him which was nice. As a bonus Mimi way overdid it on making deserts so we have our entire dining room table now covered in them and have been doing our best to "eliminate" them before they go bad. I think she made 15 different deserts just for the event. :)

Unfortunately we have not had the chance to use the boats as much as I would like. One weekend we took the Tug over to Leamington for an event with our boat club. Another time we were able to take it over to Put-in-Bay for a couple of nights. We did finally get the catamaran in the water, got it cleaned up a bit and took it to St Michaels for a couple nights on anchor before bringing it back to Oxford where its been sitting for the last month.

At the moment I'm thinking I'm going to head down to visit it next week for a few days put on the new head sail, work on the out board, and sort out a few other projects. When we launched it our outboard seemed it might be having a cooling problem as it was not spitting water at all. I messed with it a bit before leaving the dock, something happened and it worked one time but has not been spitting water since. It does not seem to be overheating when we used it but I would still like to get that issue sorted before we leave.

Speaking of leaving.. what are our plans? Well it seems to still be a work in progress. At the moment we think we want to leave the Chesapeake area around the first week of August to start bringing it back around to the Great Lakes. Max is planning a guys trip that week and we are thinking Amy and I may fly up clean the boat up get it provisioned then start moving it towards Cape May. At which point we are thinking we will fly Max and his girl friend out for a week and see how far we can move the boat up the coast. At which point we have to be back home for Max's last 4H shoot. We will stay home the week after then drop Max off at college then head back to the boat with just the two of us where ever it ends up to bring it rest the way around Canada and into the Great Lakes during the end of August/beginning of September. If we can get the boat into Long Island we may have a free dock we can leave the boat at during that time but I would really like to get it further north than that. I'm still not sure if our boat will fit under all the bridges it will take to get to our relatives dock but I suppose I can start mapping that out next week.

Other fun things we have been up to.. 

• This week we were in Cape Coral checking on a few of our rental properties. They seem to be doing well but for some reason we have a number of tenants turning over at the same time which is never fun.
• On our way over to MD to use the Catamaran we got detoured and drove by Frank Loyd Wrights Falling Water house. We of course turned right around and went back to check it out. I did not realize it's a World Heritage Site and now a museum. It is pretty remarkable and always quite impressive when an artist has a blank check book and an amazing vision they can execute. The house and the estate are quite impressive and very much worth visiting if one has the chance.
• We took our Trap team to States and Nationals. We ended up placing 4th in the State this year and 20th out of 250 teams represented at Nationals. We also beat two of the teams at Nationals that beat us at States which is fun :). Max shot personal bests at both events which of course is a nice way to wrap up one's high school shooting career. Additionally he decided to shoot Trap with the 4H team this year and placed first in the county. Next up is the State level event in August. This weekend we will be having the awards banquet and I'll officially be passing off the head coach position to another one of the coaches which is a bit exciting and bitter sweet. I have enjoyed working with the new kids and getting them out there and shooting well. I may or may not miss the time commitment it took to run the fund raisers, organize the team, and all the other less fun work that is required to keep a team running this winter. I'm sure the team will be in good hands and look forward to seeing them at the local events in the future.

Well that pretty much sums up our summer so far and the plans we have through September. I was really looking forward to the trip to bring the boat around but unfortunately it now seems that we are going to be in delivery mode to get it back to Lake Michigan. I'm really hoping we can slow down next summer and take some time to see a few things along the way when taking the boat back out to the East Coast next Auguest. We have also talked about keeping the boat in the Great Lakes for a season and pushing the WorldArc back a year. Then there is also the folks at Xquisite taking about doing a world sailing rally over a period of four years that would leave a month ahead of the Arc. It's nice to have options. I look forward to seeing which ones we choose!

More boat work

Something is wrong it's June and our boat is still not in the water :(. I attempted to be lazy and asked the yard to paint the bottom of the boat but it seems they have not gotten around to it yet nor did they ever get around to asking which through haul I needed replaced? In a previous post you can read about my adventures with getting the new ball valve replaced. Continuing that saga.. after getting home I did get confirmation from the manufacturer of the synthetic valve that it would work but would not allow much in the way of heat tolerance should I over heat my generator at some point. So not wanting to end up with a melted value in a far off anchorage somewhere I bought a new metal ball valve at West Marine and figured no big deal I'll just swap it. I got to the boat figured I would knock this project out in about 30 minutes. Nope seems West only sells US threaded valves and I needed an EU threaded one. Who knew they used a different thread standard over there? I attempted a stop at two plumbing supply stores to see if they might have an adaptor or even a EU valve. Nope.. Well this meant I needed to head back over to West Marine for a new brass US through haul fitting and nipple for this now escalating project. The downside is I have no less then 8-10 through hauls on this boat. I'm assuming they are all EU threaded and now I'm going to have one oddball US one. I can't wait to see what kind of pain this may cause me down the road? Anyway back to the story. I attempted to borrow a through haul tool from the yard that's supposed to make removing them easier as they are usually glued and sealed into the boat pretty well. Seems what they had didn't fit my through haul so we attacked it with a pipe wrench and made a little bit of progress. Unfortunately our progress was not enough that I could get a cutting wheel in between to simply cut it off so we ended up grinding off two sides of it turning it into more of a rectangle then a circle then one of the guys in the yard found a four foot pipe wrench that must have weighed 50 lbs. Once we got that thing on there (it took two of us to hold it) we then had enough leverage to get it turning and out of the boat. After another 5hrs or so into this project (including some travel time to the various stores mentioned above) we now had a nice big empty hole in the boat that we could fill with the new fitting. Now after the third time of attempting this project I hope it's completed and won't leak once the boat goes in the water. I'm keeping my fingers crossed..

My next project was to run a halyard for our self tacking jib that came out of the mast by accident last fall when I took the sails off the boat. That project ended in complete failure after getting Max up the mast we had no luck getting the line all the way down. It seemed to keep hitting something regardless of how much we attempted to wiggle it from the top? After sleeping on it I'm wondering if I might have more luck running something like a pipe snake up the mast but am not really sure how I might pull that to the block once it makes its was up (wire coat hanger.. maybe?)? After keeping Max up there for an hour or so trying everything we could think of I decided it may be time to call a professional?

Freshly painted bottom

Next on the list was bottom paint. I originally thought we might get it sanded and painted in a day. Boy did I underestimate my stamina for this project. With two of us working on it, it only took 4-5 hours to get the haul sanded but I was pretty well spent by the time we were done. If I was on my own for this one it would have been a two day project. Then maybe another two days to paint though this part was way easier. Its times like this that it's really nice to have a 18 year old around that is actually helpful. We ended up doing two coats using six gallons of paint with enough left over to do the rudders, bow, front of the hauls, transom, and keels with a third coat. I'm not sure what kind of ablative paint was on the boat before but after having good luck with CSC Micron on the Tug during our loop trip I decided to put it on this boat. Hopefully it works out and I don't have to think about it for a couple more seasons. Next time I think I'll do the first coat using a different color to make it easier to see where I've painted and how it's wearing over time.

While I had Max with me we also got the mainsail on the boat. For once a project actually went pretty easy and again it was really nice to have a second person helping with this one. While we got the sail on mast and working the wind had picked up just enough that we didn't want to leave it up while we were still on that hard to attempt to figure out how the reefing lines work. Hopefully I can find a diagram somewhere on that and I can come back to get that done fairly quickly another day. Hopefully it won't be too difficult?

After a solid two days of projects we should be ready to splash. Hopefully the boat will be in the water when we get back to MD in two weeks.

The boy graduated Friday

Boy did this school year go by quickly for me. I knew it would be quick before it even started and here we are what seems like a few moments later with it all wrapped up. It went by so fast I almost feel like I missed it?

Max did well. He managed to check off all of the things parents like to brag about. He graduated in the top 10% of his class, was a part of the National Honor Society, and won some competitive scholarships that will help pay for college. During his time in high school he also spent two years in the welding program so not only did he follow the college prep track he also learned a useful skill that could help his entrance into the trades should he wish to go down that path one day. In addition to excelling at school he also managed to earn varsity letters while on tennis team, swim team, wrestling, and trap teams. When he was not busy with that he was also was very active in Scouting where he earned the rank of Eagle Scout. Currently he is just one background check away from being able to submit his USCG Captains license application.

The kids done well, his parents are proud, and he still has big ambitions. He decided to attend Central Michigan University next year for Pre-Med. He wants to be an Orthopedic Dr. one day.

Our original plan was that Max would go away to college for a year then might join us for our circumnavigation. Unfortunately when I talked to the finical office at the school they informed us that taking a year's leave of absence at any point during his time with them would eliminate all of the scholarships he had been awarded. I had this same discussion with several of the other State schools all of which answered the same way. It was only one of the small private schools he visited that said maybe they would consider a it. So I guess we will see. Maybe he can figure out a way to take a semester and a summer off or maybe his plans will change once he gets there? I look forward to seeing what he does reguardless!

New ball valve for the generator & new name

When we surveyed the boat one of the issues identified was a broken handle for a though haul that let the generator spit its hot exhaust water out under the boat. This is done to allow the air to come out an above water exhaust port allowing the generator to run really quietly presumably while in a full anchorage somewhere magical. For some reason this through haul was a ball valve which let one close the underwater route thus sending the exhaust water and air out the same port. I'm not really sure why one might close the valve but someone had tried and broken it somewhere along the way. It appears something may have been stuck in it when they tried this as the actual ball appeared damaged after I got it out. I asked the Xquisite folks to fix it when they hauled the boat in the Bahamas but it seemed they didn't have a replacement valve. I asked the yard the boat is currently in to address it this winter. Seems they never got to it so I decided to just do it myself last weekend when I was at the boat. My first trip was to the hardware store as of course I did not have a pipe wrench or anything large enough to get it off. Once I got back and got it off then it was off to West Marine for a new valve which they had but did not have any plumbers tape so then I got to make a trip to Lowes for that and an additional extra large adjustable wrench that would allow me to get the nipple off and reuse it. So in all this one project only took me six hours but I was happy to have it completed as its not something easily done while the boats in the water. 

New name

My next project was supposed to be putting the main sail on the boat but that seemed like a lot to take on before dark so I decided to tackle getting the boat renamed. Last time I was at the boat I got measurements for where I wanted the name and then got the decals printed back at home and luckily I even remembered to bring the new decals with me. So after a couple hours of pealing the old name off, a lot of cleaning, then a bunch of measuring in an attempt to get the words centered and hopefully not going off on a huge slant I ended up with this. It's not perfect but I don't think a casual observer will notice that it's not quite straight? So I'm now one more step closer to being fully legal. I still have to get the three Coast Guard placards up which I've purchased but not yet taken the time to stick in the expected locations. I also need to get the Coast Guard registration numbers made and permanently mounted somewhere. While it seems a previous owner did pay to have the boat imported it seems they never actually bothered with the numbers or placard's. So still a bit more to do before I can get a USCG inspection done.

The next day I had planned to put the main sail on. Well I got distracted from that by a dripping I heard that turned out to be our forward storage locker being full of water but unable to drain. It seems enough seeds from the trees had gotten in there to clog up the drain cover thus allowing the entire compartment to fill with water over the winter. This had happened in one of the anchor chain lockers as well which I cleaned out last time. Luckily this locker only housed our inflatable fenders and a foot pump so after draining it to get it somewhat cleaned up which is challenging without a nearby water supply. I inflated all the fenders, got them washed off, then tied down to the boat along with a couple lines that might hopefully dry out without incurring anymore mold. The entire thing was quite gross. Needless to say this process distracted me until about lunch time which is when I decided I was done and just wanted to head home as I had to be back for Trap practice the next day.

Previous name

Now the best part. Once I got stuff turned off, packed up, and put away ready to head home it hit me that the new ball valve I bought may not have been a great idea. As you can see from the picture something had leaked on it and the original bronze valve was quite green and salty. I had decided I would spend the extra money when at West Marine to get the fancy composite valve that we have everywhere else on the boat that does not rust. Well once I sat down and started thinking about it I wondered how much heat that thing could deal with and after a quick google search I got the idea it might work but it was not the best idea should we overheat the generator at some point in the future and while spiffy to have something that does not turn green and nasty it was probably not a good idea to have a through haul that might melt and sink the boat. So I'm back to square one. The ball valve still needs to be replaced before going in the water. UGH, after 18hrs of driving, four days of time, not to mention the cost of gas and food, then 6hrs getting parts and doing the project, it was all wasted by a single bad decision! I guess it could have been worse should I have actually melted the new valve and sunk the boat but man that was a bit of a disappointing drive back home.

Boat work

Last week I drove over to Maryland to see how the boat faired during the winter months. It seems to have made it though ok (so far). I'll know for sure once we put it in the water start the engines then start turning on the various water pumps and systems. But for now I can say that our batteries were not fully discharged. One of the house banks were down to 72% and the other was at 80%. The folks at Mastervolt told me to expect about a 2% decline per month which would mean they should have been around 90%. To me this confirms what I already knew my batteries are older have a fair amount of cycles on them and I would guess are at about 75-80% of what new ones might be. Hopefully we will get a better feel for that this summer as I've considered changing them out before we leave on the big trip. I believe two are seven years old and the other two are 5-6yrs old. Most the manufactures suggest they have a ten year life span. Unfortunately everything on this boat flows through these and the inverters one way or another so we are 100% reliant on our batteries to provide power for everything from the TV to the autopilot when away from the dock. If these were like normal tractor batteries that most older boats like our tug used I would just replace them but this boat came with the fancy lithium ones (which we wanted) and are supper expensive. Ours are Mastervolt as is rest of our system and then of course that integrates in to CZone which pretty much controls everything on the boat. I'll have to look into the ramifications of getting an alternative battery brand as I suspect I can save about 50% over another set of Mastervolts.

Over the winter I had taken all the sails and the lazy jack system off the boat so I could drop them off at the sail loft for maintenance. They were able to fix up the stack pack which I was a bit concerned about. It turned out the sun cover on our self tacking jib was not on correctly which allowed the UV to damage some of the threads which had caused our problems with the battens falling out of it the one night it flopped around a bit. They added some chafe protection to the main sail then of course there is the genoa that had to be replaced. Other than that we were in good shape. Now that the sails were all nicely folded they were also much easier to manage. It only took two of us to carry the mainsail now and it fit in the truck much better :). 

Once at the boat I was able to get the shrink wrap and the frame supporting it off. Seems shrink wrapping it was a good call.. I'm told they got a fair about of snow and ice in the area this year and as a bonus the boat still looked pretty clean. I did ask the yard to wax it and for the first time ever also enlisted their help to do the bottom paint. This was a job I probably should have done but I'm guessing it would have taken me two days minimum. Frankly I won't miss the sore muscles or being covered in that sticky stuff for the 3-5 days after. Maybe it will be worth it? I was hoping to get the yard guys to come over and help get the sails on the boat with their craine but after several requests they seemed to prefer to forget about it and head home vs helping me. Of course spring is a busy season for them and they were quite distracted getting other boats ready and launching all day so I can't blame them for not remembering to give their time to me when they actually had real paying work to do. I was able to roll the sails over with quite a bit of effort then got some rope on them which allowed me to hoist them both up using the spinnaker halliard. This worked out pretty well but frankly would have been much easier had I enlisted additional help. Unfortunately I could not get the jib on as I lost the halliard for that sail last fall when I took the sail off. This will require a trip up the mast and then rerunning the line back though the mast which means I'll have to find someone willing to support this effort. With any luck I can drag Max along with me as he likes going up the mast. So with that project on hold I decided to focus on getting the main sail back on. I started with the stack pack and after about six hours finally had it on. I should note when taking it off I noticed that a few of the lines involved with it had broken and been patched together by the previous owner so this involved a couple trips to West Marine to purchase new line to make the system work as designed again.

My next project required a trip to the hardware store for an angle grinder. Last year when using the anchor we found the anchor was just a bit too wide for the anchor locker opening. To fix this issue I sanded back about a 1/4 inch of the aluminum support where it got hung up on in the anchor locker. After a bit of testing it looked like this simple solution should fix the problem.. Hopefully it does not return when it's really hot out again causing things to expand? The other project I wanted to address was our anchor chain. When we had the boat surveyed it was suggested the chain had seen better days and was due for replacement. After letting about 100ft of chain out it seemed that really only the first 30-40ft of chain was severally rusted so I cut it off at the 50ft mark with my shinny new angle grinder. I think we started with 250ft of chain so this now puts us down to about 200ft which should still be plenty. Additionally there is another 200-250ft of rope rode attached to that. I will take another look at the chain next fall or spring before we leave to ensure it's still in acceptable shape to hopefully serve two more years of almost full time duty. On the upside I suspect I eliminated about 75-100lbs of weight from the boat :). Lastly I replaced a bunch of anode's and added a line cutter to one of the props. When we bought the boat the previous owner had to replace the prop that was lost during the sea trial. Unfortunately it seems he just replaced the prop and chose not to purchase the line cutter that was attached to the lost prop. Needless to say I ordered a new one that matched the one on the starboard side ensuring maybe some level of protection from jumping in the water should we take out someone's crab pot along our journey. The anode's on the boat were not a big deal to replace but it seems the ones on the props had to come from Gory. This just means they are German and expensive. Somehow I was able to get those shipped in and replaced before I left. I had planned on doing an oil change & impeller change on the outboard but after looking at it decided the oil appeared clean and should be fine for the limited use it will see this season.

After three days of work I think I managed to get the list down to just two things left to do before launching. I still need to replace a though haul for the underwater exhaust for our generator which is broken in the off position (This has been broken since we purchased the boat). Finally the yard needs to get the bottom painted. The remaining items on the punch list can be done once it's in the water. I hope to make it back to the boat in a week or so as I left the main sail sitting on the top deck waiting to go on and will hopefully have the new through haul fitting for replacement. Lots to do but first I need to head out to take some prom pictures of the boy and his girl friend. See you next week.

Side project

For my birthday I decided to splurge and buy a Lego McLaren P1. For those not familiar it's a giant Lego car set. I had seen versions of these giant Lego sets at Max's friend's houses and of course the Lego stores over the years and fantasized about building one at some point but it was really easy to say it was just a crazy expensive whim then move on. Besides what would one do with it after the fun of building it. Well after all our holiday purchases I had a bunch of Amazon points left on my credit card and decided to burn them on the crazy expensive whim as a gift to myself. I have to say I underestimated how big of a project it would be. The kit had something like 4000 pieces. I started it back in February and just completed it tonight. Granted I didn't work on it every night and it may have sat untouched on the dinning room table for a few weeks here and there. I will say it was a fun project. 

The kit itself is quite impressive. Not only does the steering, hood, trunk, and doors work. The engine's also work. As part of the kit I got to build a working V8 engine with moving pistons and a 7 speed gear box with paddle shifters that work and actually shifts when the wheels move. Additionally as the real car uses electric propulsion to get off the line they included a separate simulated electric motor that one can shift the car into using if desired. The level of detail is quite impressive. Frankly Lego's and their building techniques have really evolved since I was a kid. The fact that this somewhat working car is completely built out of Legos does not cease to amaze me nor does their ability to break it down into such a simple build process. Ok so maybe not simple the manuals were well over 1000 pages but somehow it was not cumbersome or overly complicated process. I think it had 24 bags of parts each taking me 30-45 minutes to assemble.

Of course now that it's done I now need to figure out what to do with it? I have seen some wall mounts for picture frames allowing folks to hang them displayed on a wall or something. While the project was fun I don't know that I'm in love with it enough to want to look at it every day. Maybe I can find a kid that wants it or perhaps sell it on eBay? At this point I don't know what I'm actually going to do with it but I'm sure eventually I'll need to get it off the dinning room table to make room for the next project or maybe even eat there one day :)

New sail

When we surveyed the boat I suspected the Genoa had seen better days as there was a large section in the front that appeared to be delaminated. It seemed someone had attempted to put some stitching in to avoid it spreading further. We used it on our trip from the Bahamas to the Chesapeake last summer and it worked fine but I knew when I took the sails off for maintenance this winter they would tell me it's done. About a month ago I got the call. The loft told me it was basically junk. If I wanted to put a couple thousand dollars into it they could keep it alive for a bit longer but it would be best to put that money towards a new sail. On a good note though.. It seemed our mainsail was in reasonable condition, our self tacking jib was still in good shape but the sun protector was not on correctly which had lead to the stitching holding the battens to fail. This seemed to be an easy fix and I was able to get a couple new battens made to replace the ones we lost overboard for the jib. For some reason I did not drop off the Parasailor for inspection. Maybe I'll do that next winter?

So now the dilemma is what to do. It seems that the boat came with fairly high end sails which are now six years old and have presumably served a fair amount of time in the Caribbean. I'm guessing these fancy sails probably help make our big heavy cat perform slightly less like a big heavy cat? Unfortunately when it comes down to it I really know nothing about sail design or materials. After hearing 2-3 recommendations from a couple of sail makers and doing some reading I decided to stick with a higher end newer generation laminate material called Hydra Net Radial. The universal suggestion was to go with the 9oz or 393 HNR blend for our boat size. The marketing says this should last twice as long as the traditional Dacron material would and will be well suited for the number of miles we are planning to use it for during our circumnavigation. Based on the very small sample of material I got it seems tear proof unless I took the scissors to it but it did seem to loose its shape from my attempt to tear it which is a bit concerning?

I stopped by the sail loft today to pick up my newly repaired sails and put down a deposit for the new Genoa. I was given the choice of ordering it in black or white, adding a graphic or something fun. I went for plain white and could not think of a cool graphic. Even if I did go with some kind of graphic I'm sure I would spend a fair amount of time wondering how that might effect the resale value of the boat if someone thought the amazing picture of me on the head sail was dumb. I'm told the new sail will be manufactured overseas somewhere then shipped to the loft sometime before June. I'm hoping we will have it prior to leaving to bring the boat around to the Great Lakes this summer. Unfortunately having not spent a great deal of time with the original sail I will probably not be able to tell a difference in performance with the new sail. Instead I'm looking at it like preventive maintenance. One was well worn and now it's time to just replace it. Meanwhile I'm trying not to think of the cost. Don't let anyone tell you sailing is inexpensive or cheaper than fuel. For the cost of this one sail I could probably pay for the fuel to do the Great Loop twice in my Nordic Tug or I could buy two brand new Yanmar replacement engines for this boat. I suspect somewhere along the trip we will need to purchase a new main sail and possibly a new jib as well. I'm hoping we don't but we have budgeted for it none the less.

Senior Prom Already

I can't believe last weekend was Max's senior prom. He and his girl friend Sofia decided they wanted to do pictures at a local florist that usually has some amazing grounds set up for folks to use for just this kind of occasion. Unfortunately it seems prom is a bit early this year and there were no flowers in the ground yet so we tried to make the best of it. Below are a couple of the pictures I liked.

It's crazy to think in only one more month I'll officially have two high school graduates. A few months after that and we will be empty nesters with two kids in college! It's crazy how fast this school year has gone by.

Found winter storage on Lake Michigan!

I've been looking for a place that can pull a catamaran our size for no less than two years now. At one point we were going to put an offer in on a different boat and I spent all of two days calling every marina on the Great Lakes I could find about the possibility of hauling out a 50ft boat that is 26ft wide. Seems the 26ft thing is the real problem. Most of the boat wells are about 14ft wide, some are 18-20ft, and I even found one or two that were 24ft wide. The other option is to use a craine which we were quoted a price of 10k a day. So 20k just to haul out then go back in. Who knows if they have any clue on how to handle a catamaran without damaging it as these guys are just contractors that pick large things up for a living mainly around construction sites.

Last year at a boat show around Sandusky I found a yard in Cleveland that said they could do it. I called them several times this spring playing phone tag with them but never getting an answer so I decided to make the 3hr drive over there. Once there they seemed confused that I was looking for winter storage when everyone else is looking to get their boats in the water right now. After explaining that I did not want to do a 3000 mile trip bringing my boat back to the Great Lakes without a place to haul it they finally decided to chat with me about specifics. Seems our boat is too heavy for their craine so it was back to the drawing board. As usual I asked if they might have any suggestions and what they gave me I had already called or they could not do it.

Two years ago when I was looking I had found a yard somewhere on Lake Michigan that thought they might be able to do it but getting the boat in the well would be a tight fit. By this point I had forgotten the name of the place but after chasing down just about every marina on Lake Erie and Lake Huron this spring I was starting to think about them again.  Then I found this picture posted on the Great Loop site. If you look in the background one can see another boat exactly like mine sitting on the hard. Seems I've found a winner! I reached out to the poster and found out it's at Safe Harbor Grand Isle in Grand Haven. This will still be 3hrs away from us but much closer than MD. I'm excited that I've got this key hurdle to our trip planning taken care of. Of course right now I'm just assuming they will take me but I'm pretty sure if they can pull it they will have a spot for it to sit all winter. Then there is also the additional 600 miles or so we will have to travel with the boat to get it from Lake Erie to Lake Michigan where this marina is located during a time of the season with more limited weather windows but that's a problem for a different day :).

You can see the Xquisite X5 behind the FP pictured above if you look hard enough :)