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.