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 :)

Planning to bring the catamaran back to the Great Lakes

When we purchased the cat we knew we were buying a year too early. But at the time it seemed like a good price and it might be nice to have the boat a little longer to get to know it better. We did sail/travel about 1400 nautical miles with it last year but I don't really feel like we used it much or got to know it other then over the few days we traveled from the Bahamas to the Chesapeake Bay and then winterizing it last year. Much of which I've probably forgotten since. Note the jury is still out on how the winterization went.. We will find out next month when it goes in the water.

As we talked about how we wanted to use the boat this year we seem to have narrowed it down to two options: 1. Bring the boat back to the Great Lakes or 2. Leave it in the Chesapeake for the summer using it maybe a couple weeks and a long weekend or two then take it back to the Bahamas for the winter where we may hopefully make time to use it a week or two a month. Oddly enough option 2 is Amy's least favorite option as winter is her skating season and she really does not have much time to go jetting off to the Bahamas which would mean I would be down there by myself trying to recruit our retired friends to come hang out with me on the boat. So we decided option one is probably the best and started researching how long the trip really is and what that might look like with a large catamaran.

The scale of the distance bar on the map is a bit off

Our plan is to bring it up along the East Coast of the US and though/around Canada bringing it into the Lakes via the St Lawrence. There are two reasons we are selecting this route. 1. It's a trip we want to do and hoped to do with the tug. 2. We won't have to take the mast down or worry about bridge clearances. When I called a couple places along the Hudson River they said they did not have the capability to take a mast our size down mainly due to the beam of the boat and how far their cranes can safely reach out. The other problem is even if we get it down I'm guessing we would still be somewhere around 16-17 feet high with the mast somehow laying across the roof of the boat which would rule out our ability to navigate the length of the Erie Canal. We might have been able to ship the mast but that idea did not appeal to us as we would still have to find someone to put it back up. From what we can tell we think the trip from the Chesapeake to a dock in Lake Erie will be in the range of 3000 miles. Some of the books recommended planning for 45 travel days and suggested it as minimally a 90 day trip ensuring time to see some sights and wait out various weather events. Unfortunately we have a senior in high school graduating this year and he is not really thrilled about the idea of being away from his girl friend and missing all the graduation parties this summer while traveling on the boat with his parents. So what do we do?

We think we have the semblance of a plan. We will hopefully have the boat in the water in June and mostly ready to travel. We plan to do a week or so trip with Max in early June over to Mt Vernon to visit George Washington's old stomping grounds as a shake down cruise. Max has plans in mid June at which time we hope to move the boat up to New York where it will sit for the next month or so as my/Max's trap team will compete at the State event and then Nationals a couple of weeks later. Once this event is over we may move the boat again up to Maine or the Halifax area. Once there we may leave the boat for another 2-3 weeks to allow Max to enjoy the last of his summer at home before he heads off to college. Once we drop him off at school we will then head back to the boat at the end of August and start looking for weather windows that will allow us to bring it rest of the way around to the St. Lawrence. Once we get it there it should be fairly straightforward to get back to Lake Erie. Unfortunately this will not be the kind of trip allowing us to smell many roses along the way but hopefully we can do a slower more enjoyable version of the trip on the way out of the Great Lakes next year when its time to move the boat down to St. Lucia for the start of our circumnavigation in 2028.

I think it will be a fun trip, I hope we get to see some whales along the way, I'm sure it will help us get to know how to sail the boat better, but I'm sad that we will have to skip some things along the way and we will probably have to dash the hopes of visiting Newfoundland this time. But hopefully we can make time to do that stuff next year when we bring the boat back out.

For now I'm off to try and secure a winter storage location at a place that can actually pull a boat with a 26ft beam out of the water in the Great Lakes. I've got a couple leads but so far no one has actually committed to the project.

Time to earn my Captains License

I'm not sure where this goal came from.. I suspect the goal to get both a Pilots and Captains License may have come after reading Jimmy Buffets book a Pirate Looks at 50 many years ago. A Facebook add popped up one day for Captains training class near by and it seemed like the right time. So I decided to take advantage of it. Honestly I really had no idea what I was getting into, what the extent of it would be, or what I might do with it once I got it. I just knew I wanted it. Not to mention I figured a little more knowledge never hurt anyone and it might be fun to do some boat deliveries one day should I get the opportunity. Just to ensure I was not alone in this endeavor I talked Max into joining me on this adventure which really did not take much convincing.

We both signed up for the OUPV class. Which provides the bearer of the license the ability to take no more than six paying customers out for boat trips fishing, diving, sight seeing, or whatever. This is the first level of many it seems but it is the basic starting point should one wish for a paid life at sea. Turns out one needs to be 18 to get a license however Max could take the class and the tests then wait to apply for the license when he turns 18 in a couple months. 

The class entails teaching you over a period of 60 hours how to "successfully" take the four tests required for this license. Additionally they offer to help review your paperwork for submission once you have past the tests and have all the other required items in hand.. More on that later. The four tests required are 

• Rules of the Road
• Navigation General
• Chart Navigation
• Deck General/Safety

The class was taught over a period of ten consecutive days and required two full weekends. There were no excused absences, if you missed you were not allowed to sit for the exams. It was a commitment. Most the classroom time was spent on learning the rules of the road which seemed to come down to memorization. Then there was chart plotting. Surprisingly chart plotting was quite a challenge for me. Mainly because I'm not a very exacting or detailed orientated person. Turns out you need to be pretty precise with those sliders and compass rose when determining coordinates, drift, and routes. Frankly after going though it I'm not really sure how relevant it is in todays age where everything is electronic, we have multiple back ups, and charts are hardly carried in stores anymore. But we had to show proficiency with it none the less. I suppose knowing that I still remember how to use a chart, can plot a course, look in the coastal guides & or piloting guides for a white light flashing four times as I come into a channel may give me some additional confidence while I'm out there. But I would still feel better if I had some working knowledge of celestial naviagation or something slightly more useful for determining where I am should I loose all the electronics while out of sight of land.

After completing our classroom time they suggest studying for a week or so at home before taking the tests. All four tests are available though the school and done online. The tests all have to be taken at the same time. They did give us a 10 minute break between tests. One has to have a laptop with a video camera attached ensuring the proctors see a 360 degree view of the room you're in before starting the test and then watching you while you take them. If you step out of view of the camera during testing it's an automatic failure. This does not sound like a big deal when taking a multiple choice test however when doing the charting test where you end up with a full size chart rolled out on the dining room table looking for points on the map then charting angles, approaches, and what nots its a bit more intimidating. At one point I simply crawled up kneeling on the table while drawing lines and looking for bouy's to ensure I did not step out of view of the camera.

Prior to ending the training our instructor informed us that only about 70% of the class would actually complete/pass the tests to successfully become licensed captains. I'm proud to say both Max and I successfully completed it and Max was their youngest ever to take the class and additionally passed everything the first time. 

So now with the hard work done of passing the knowledge based tests we now both have to get physicals where they test hearing and vision. We both needed current First Aid/CPR certificates. Once that is complete we need to apply for TWIC cards which is a government background check ensuring we are not terrorists I suppose then follow that activity up with a drug test. Once we have positive results from all of those in hand we can then submit our application for the license along with our documented time at sea.

Turns out all this is quite expensive. First there is the cost of the class in our case about $1200 each, then the cost of taking the exams another $100 each. Then the costs of a physical, drug testing (if you're actually a working captain then you need to join a drug consortium where they test you regularly. I think this is about $200 a year), then the background check $135. Additionally we needed valid First Aid/CPR certificates which we had but they were not USCG approved which meant we got to pay $125 each to take an approved first aid class. Finally there is then the cost for submitting all of this for the license which is around another $150. Seems we will be in this for around 2K each once it's all said and done.

At this point I have the completed testing certificate in hand, a USCG approved First Aid/CPR certification, and my physical completed. I still need to complete the drug testing and background check then I should be able to apply for the license. I've been dragging my feet on those last two waiting for Max to turn 18 so we can do both the last two at the same time. Not to mention with the government shutdown we've been told the application process is quite slow right now. So hopefully that gets cleared up sometime soon.

I'll be sure to post here to brag a bit when it's finally official! Guessing sometime this summer.

Its time to sell the tug

Some people say the best two days of boat ownership are the day you buy it and the day you sell it. I disagree. I have generally enjoyed all of our boats. It's weird to say but I think you have to love them like a family member in that some days they really frustrate you and some days they provide an absolutely blissful experience. Not to mention they are a bit like your kids in that both are always needing more money and attention. The other side of that you have to put a lot of your trust into them that they will take care of you along the way ensuring you arrive at the destination safely.

When we bought the tug we originally planned to do the Great Loop in it and sell it when we were done moving back to the sailboat. About the time we were coming back from the Bahamas we realized how little many of the boats down there actually sailed, we were running out of time and would have to skip the Canadian canals, and that we really liked doing the rivers. We also knew we wanted to do the Down East Loop and maybe even the Inside Passage to Alaska with it one summer which would not be ideal in a sailboat. So we decided to put our sailboat that was in storage up for sale and keep the tug. For better or worse the sailboat sold really quick which made things easy. Unfortunately over the last three summers we have not made the time to use the tug as much as we would have liked as it seems that all our kids activities have kept us pretty busy only allowing us to put around 75-100hrs of engine time a year on it.

I have been fascinated with circumnavigation since I was a kid. But it never seemed possible or something that I might be able to do until I found the world of YouTube sailors maybe ten-twelve years ago. Once I saw them doing it and found groups like the Oyster Around the World Rally and the World Arc I knew it was something I really wanted to do. It took a bit of talking but I got Amy to agree to the idea of trying to do it one day. Now that both of my parents have died and my kids are almost out of the house I realized there are not that many more one days so we sat down and put a date on when we wanted to leave. The key was to balance our youth/health, my in-laws health/needs, our kids needs/weddings/grand kids, and the time/money equation. As you can imagine there are a lot of conflicting priorities there but January of 2028 is what we came up with for a date we wanted to leave for that trip. This is basically a long way of saying while we still want to do all of the adventures we planned with the tug. However, we feel like many of those can be done between or while balancing the other life events and maybe its best to do the circumnavigation now and then come back to those smaller adventures closer to home later.

With all of that said I officially signed with a broker today to sell the tug and start focusing our time on learning the sailboat we bought last year for the circumnavigation. I'll miss the tug. It's been a very reliable, easy, and a comfortable boat for us. I hope we can find as nice of a boat once again when it's time to sell the sailboat and buy the boat for the next adventure.

The Neglicted Blog

Seems my biggest theme for this blog is neglect, unfortunately not boating, photography, or some fun adventure. I honestly opened this up to sit down to write a monthly update post when I noticed I had not done a monthly update in the last four months. In my head they were happening. I'm not sure how that got away from me? 

So where do I start?

Seems I last talked about photography so I'll start there. I've been neglecting my photography goal (imagine that) of getting out taking pictures then actually looking at them to pick a few to post each week. For anyone that knows me since closing the photography studio about 20yrs ago I have not used a camera much and worse yet when I do, I don't take the next step to actually look at the fruits of my efforts. This year I wanted to challenge myself to do more. I started out strong on that mission over here but fell off after about week seven. Hopefully with spring emerging I can get myself motivated to get out more with the camera and back to actively posting. Oddly it seems maintaining hobbies is just as hard in retirement as during one's working years. There always seems to be other stuff that needs to be done first... or maybe I just have too many interests? Either way for a brief moment I'm actually feeling caught up and like there may actually be some time to do something I want to vs what I have to. I'm off to find some pictures to post then maybe tonight I'll get back to that giant lego set I got as a birthday present that's been sitting half done for a while now :)

Dusting off my 85 1.2

Yesterday I took the 135mm lens I borrowed out for a walk with the dogs today I took the 85 out at about the same time of day. Unfortunately the light was not as nice but the goal was to see how the two compared when attempting to shoot about the same subject.

This is going to be a tough choice. The 85 reminded me how sharp it is and while a bit heavier and slightly bigger I'm not sure there is a huge difference between the two lenses other than focal length. The only difference is that all of these images were shot at an aperture of 1.2 vs the 1.8 of the 135 lens. I guess I should have tried using it at 1.8 to judge the focus fall off as having shot at 1.2 at first look clearly drops off much quicker.

I think next I'm going to shoot some indoor subjects that don't move in an attempt to directly compare the two. At the moment I'm leaning toward the 135 but really want to convince myself it's based on the merits vs a shinny new toy.

Photographing a couple of my favorite subjects today

On my way back from a coaches meeting in Lansing today I stopped by the local camera store and they were kind enough to lend me a lens I've been lusting over for a couple years now. When I bought this latest camera I convinced myself that I would have a lot of fun with the 85 1.2 as I loved the images I could get from an 85 1.4 I had with my prior system. Unfortunately that fun has not yet happened. I do like the images it creates but don't find myself using it much and have been thinking a lot about replacing it with the 135 1.8. For two years now I've been thinking about selling the 85 to fund the 135. I don't use it much, it's heavy, and frankly is too big for my camera bag. But I know I'm going to loose a lot of money selling it and I just might find an amazing use for it one day so I continue to sit here staring at on my desk while it collects dust. 

In hopes of convincing me to trade in my 85 towards the 135 and ultimatly making money on both sides of the transaction the fellow at the store was kind enough to let me use their 135 for the next week. Also he might have been tired of handing it to me to fondle every time I visited the store :). 

I have to say based on my first use of it I really like the focal length and the pictures look really good! I hope to get out using it every day this week and really compare the two to see if its really a good fit or just one of those things that we all think would be nice to have in the back of our heads. Either way my goal is to finally make a decision and maybe some additional room on my desk ;) So keep an eye out for some more posts/pictures this week. Note: All of these are with the 135.