Never, Ever, Never, Never Buy a Charter Boat. Ever.

01/08/13 - "Up until this past year we've been doing mostly repairs to all the stuff she had wrong with her when we bought her.  Let me tell ya, it is really rewarding to be making improvements instead of repairs".

I actually had to go and say that, didn't I?  Nothing like tempting fate.

I got a call yesterday from Hinckley.  They pulled the rudder to repair the blisters and found that the stuffing box had some damage.  Apparently Island Packet used stainless steel studs to bolt down the bronze stuffing box.  Two of the studs were badly corroded due to dissimilar metals.  One of them was just a shell with threads and was completely eaten away inside.  But there's more.  Once the rudder post was out of the way they also found that the sleeve, the metal tube the shaft runs through where it enters the hull, was cracked.  They removed the stuffing box, which includes the sleeve and a mounting plate combined, and found the area underneath the plate was leveled with several inches of epoxy and the epoxy was cracked in a number of places.  The fiberglass underneath that was totally soaked from seawater leaking in.  It was so soft you could press a nail into it.  The repair requires taking out the old epoxy and removing the mushy fiberglass, then building it back up again after it's all dried out.  Once the fiberglass is repaired we'll glass in a G10 tube that'll hold the new sleeve ("G-10/FR-4 is a thermosetting industrial laminate consisting of a continuous filament glass cloth material with an epoxy resin binder. It has characteristics of high strength, excellent electrical properties and chemical/water resistance not only at room temperature but also under humid or moist conditions.")  The epoxy will be replaced to give the plate a flat surface to bolt up to and new studs will be embedded in the epoxy but this time they'll be silicon bronze, not stainless steel.  We can build it stronger, better.

The Hinckley dudes believe that this was damage done years ago while the boat was in charter.  I'm absolutely positive it didn't happen since we've owned the boat.  It appears that when the rudder was hit it kicked the shoe, the support at the bottom of the rudder, off to the side.  This would have put quite a bit of pressure inside the sleeve from the angle of the rudder post.  The sleeve cracked, as did the epoxy.  The shoe must not have been off-center by much.  I didn't see it before it was removed but I did spend quite a bit of time around the rudder when I was inspecting the blisters.  It also wasn't noticed during the survey when we bought the boat, September '09, and I didn't see it during all the work we did that winter, January '10.  The survey did comment on a slight binding in the steering and also on the corroded condition of the stuffing box bolts.

This is a major repair and it falls right in line with the other damage (holding tank, engine heat exchanger) that wasn't noted in the survey.  We may still not be done repairing problems from this boat's life in charter.  It occurred to me that if we had bumped the rudder with the fiberglass in this condition it probably would have punched a pretty big hole in the bottom of the boat.  I think I've reached the point here where I can honestly say that buying a boat that was previously chartered is not worth it.  These boats get abused because the people who use them don't own them.  They don't care about the boat or what happens to it.  I don't think the charter boats get the care and feeding they should from the charter companies either.  Can you imagine buying a boat as an investment and putting it in charter?  After some years of service you decide it's time for your family to enjoy and you find it totally trashed.  This is how this boat was when we bought it.  All the interior teak was water stained from leaving the ports and hatches open.  The holding tank was blown out.  The heat exchanger on the engine was unserviceable, ruined from neglect.  The hanging lockers in the forward stateroom wreaked of effluent.  When we bought the boat we had a cushion in value of about $100k to make repairs, based on the selling price of other 420's versus what we paid for her.  At the time we thought we were doing OK, well within that cushion.  I can honestly say now that it wasn't worth the money, time and effort we've put into it.  What?  Me frustrated?  Nooooooo!

Let The Games Begin!

 Whitehall Creek

We moved the boat on Saturday, 01/12/13, from Herrington Harbour North to Whitehall Creek Marina, located just outside of Annapolis, where Hinckley has their yard.  We had moved everything we needed off the boat the weekend before so this was a simple drop-off job.  It was a beautiful day, clear sky with temps in the low 50's but there was no wind so we motored the whole way, 6.5 to 7 knots, on glassy water and arrived in three hours.  This marina is tucked way back there on the creek and I even managed to run aground in 12' of water (don't even ask).  "It's not my fault, it's not my fault"!  Not sure if that was actually said out loud or not.  The picture at the top was taken the next day, cold, damp and miserable.  We definitely picked the right day for this.

OK, so by the end of the first week we're past the point of no return.  The boat's up on the hard, parked high and dry next to the shops.  They have a pretty cool setup with a second floor deck around the building.  With the boat standing next to it they can put a gangplank from the deck to the boat for easy access.  Beats having to climb a ladder all day.  This is especially nice for the kind of work these guys will be doing, having to carry in cabinets, tools and bulky equipment.

In that first week they removed everything in the galley from the countertop up.  Once the counter was off we quickly spotted the problem with the freezer.  There's a gap between the hull and the side of the freezer box that was filled with expanding foam but it didn't go all the way up, leaving a 2" gap underneath the cabinet along the starboard side.  We suspected something like this because we'd been having problems with this cabinet being constantly wet inside and actually icing up at times.  We'll shoot some more insulation in there, the expanding foam type, and hopefully that'll solve our problems.  We actually dug down into other areas around the box and the rest of the insulation appears to be in good condition.  We also got a better look at some of the real problem areas of the cabinets and may come up with some better ways of dealing with them.

With the boat up on the hard we got our first good look at the hull in three years.  This is the original bottom paint, put on in April 2010 and it's looking really good.  We used Pettit Trinidad SR which is a hard, non-ablative paint, meaning that it doesn't come off with time.  Ablative paints are made to ablate (duh) so when a critter attaches itself the paint just flakes off and drops to the bottom of the Bay.  Keeps the boat clean but I gotta think it's gonna be hard on the Bay, all those little flakes of paint piling up over the years.  Except for a few areas around the water line and at the bottom of the keel where we plowed through the mud a few times the paint has held up really well.  We'll be raising the waterline about three inches because of the weight of all the junk we've brought on the boat since we moved aboard.  The area of the keel where we ran aground (more than once) is down to bare fiberglass and will need to be sealed with a barrier coat before being painted.  While I was getting a good close look at the hull the sun worked it's way around to the West and highlighted another problem area.  Our rudder has blisters.  I've never had to deal with this and had to look it up (click here).  Basically this is water finding it's way past the gel coat into the fiberglass.  Apparently there's a number of causes and a range of severity.  The repair is handled differently depending on the amount of intrusion into the layers of fiberglass.  There is a chance that this is just surface blisters and involves only the paint.  We'll soon know.  The rudder is being removed to repair a leak where the shaft enters the hull and the blisters will be repaired while it's off the boat.  The shaft for the rudder is so long they have to dig a trench in the gravel to get it out because the Travel lift can't lift the boat high enough.  This is called "the snowball effect".  Little problems turn into big ones.  Big ones turn into disasters.  Conversely, as the problems increase in size so your wallet gets sucked into itself simply by repeated opening and closing, becoming smaller and smaller until it implodes.  The sound this makes is usually mistaken by others for flatulence and the final result is much the same.  It stinks so you wrinkle up your nose and move on.  Get used to it.  You own a boat.

One good thing that we found was the paint we put on the propeller (PropSpeed) really worked!  It's been on there for three years now and only needed a high pressure wash-down to get the gunk off.  Hardly any barnacles at all.  That's just amazing!  The paint is pretty pricey but it definitely does the job.  Having a clean prop really makes a big difference.

Well, it's only been a week and things are really happening.  Some good, some bad, but at least this is a good time to be taking care of things.  We still have 700 days to go.

In the meantime.....plans are moving ahead for the rally to Bermuda (click here).  We're signed up along with 10 other boats and it's planned to happen in late May of this year.  We're taking three weeks off for this, figuring one week of non-stop sailing in each direction with a week to play on the beach while we're there.  Much of the work we'll be doing this winter will be getting the boat ready for this trip.  Much to do I assure you.  I'll tell you more in the next installment.

Time For A Change

We had looked into getting a different boat as a solution to some of the aggravations we have with this one.  The galley is nice but it's full of compromises.  Much of the storage here has areas that are difficult to get into.  The freezer is poorly insulated and is a huge power drain on the batteries.  The side-by-side sinks are too small for our dishes and pans and because of that, after-meal-cleanup is a pain.  The aft cabin needs more storage too or it ends up looking like a garage.  After living with it for three years we've thought of better ways things could have been done or at least done better for us.  We looked at some really nice boats but they all had design compromises in one way or another.  After a year of trying to sell our boat in a lousy "buyer's market" we decided it made more sense for us to keep our beautiful Island Packet and invest in some improvements to make this boat work better for us.  We've had friends suggest that what we're planning to do will not add any value to the boat and is just a waste of money.  I guess if we were planning to sell it any time soon that would be true.  The reality is that we're keeping this boat and will be using it in a way that will make it an intimate part of everything we do for the next ten or fifteen years.  We're investing not so much in the value of the boat but in the quality of our future.

With that in mind we've made a plan of attack and this winter is going to be very busy.  We had several companies come to the boat and give estimates on the work we'll be farming out, the stuff that's just too time consuming or physically out of our league.  We found that Hinckley Yachts in Annapolis provided the quality of work we wanted at competitive prices.  We felt the most comfortable with these guys too.  They actually respond to phone calls and e-mails and have a work ethic that's more in tune with the way we do things.  So many people in the marine service industry don't.  We had one very "respected" cabinet maker tell us how interested he was to do this job in the galley.  We tried for six weeks to get an estimate from him but he never returned phone calls or e-mails.  Not once.  With Hinckley you get a response within 24 hours.

Yesterday (1-7-13) we toured the yard, met the folks who would actually be doing the work and sat down with Jeff Talarico, the Service Manager, to nail down specifics.  We'll be moving the boat there next weekend where she'll be on the hard for two months.  We're now living in an apartment on the beach at Herrington Harbour South for the rest of the winter.

The galley work is scheduled to begin in mid-January.  We're doing a full-on renovation here including replacing the countertop with Corian and replacing all the cabinetry from the counter up.  The new cabinets will be extended in from the bulkhead an inch and will extend all the way up to the overhead.  We've found the existing shelf space above those cabinets to be pretty useless and having extra storage room inside the cabinets would be more beneficial.  Plus we estimate we'll be almost doubling the useable space in these cabinets.  We'll be adding a cabinet beneath the companionway (where the drop boards are currently stored) with two 3/4 depth slide out drawers.  We're converting the storage area beneath the oven to a pull out drawer.  That's always been one of those blind storage spots that ends up being wasted space.  Being able to pull it out will make a huge difference.  The lid for the freezer/ fridge will be split in two so you only open the side you actually need access to.  We won't be using struts on the new lids so they'll be able to open all the way back to allow easier access.  The struts are nice but they really restrict the opening of the lid.  We'll also be re-insulating the area around the freezer and fridge while the countertop is off.  The space for the micro-wave (removed - we didn't use it) will become a cabinet with tambour doors and a shelf inside and there will be a cabinet across the back of the stove, also with tambour doors.  The stove will be moved forward 2" and lowered 1" so the Corian piece on top of it will be flush with the rest of the countertop.  When the stove is in use that piece will slip into a pocket behind the stove.  We're also having a piece of stainless steel attached to the area above the stove (the underside of the deck) to make clean-up a little easier.  To the port side of the fridge will be a piece of raised Corian counter with slots cut in for knife storage.  The two small sinks will become one, approximately the same size.  The cabinet to the right of the oven will be converted to two drawers (three total with the existing one above).  The space inside this cabinet has proven difficult to use and we felt drawers would serve us better.  There will also be a corner cabinet to the left of the freezer that will house the coffee maker on a pull-out shelf.  This corner of the existing cabinet has been mostly inaccessible.  The area behind the fridge will become a cabinet for dishes and cups.

During this two month period we'll also be adding cabinets in the aft cabin where the existing shelf is, at the head of the bunk along the port side.  Hopefully this will be the answer to our storage needs back there and the aft cabin will no longer serve as the garage.  Another cabinet project at this time will be an addition above the Nav Station to house the radios.  We'll be reconfiguring the existing equipment panel here and adding a sub-panel for DC power as well as a display that's tied to the multi-function display in the cockpit.

We've decided to install a Northern Lights 6 kw genset.  This will also be done by Hinckley at the same time as the work on the galley.  It'll be located in the space below the cockpit floor, just aft of the rear bulkhead in the aft cabin.    The bulkhead will have to be bumped out a few inches but shouldn't interfere with the bunk too much.  We had considered several other makes but this was the best choice for us.  International parts availability, lower running speed equating to longer life and lower noise levels, ease of access for maintenance, and reliability were the major considerations.  I guess size played a major part too because this space is limited by the rudder post at the back and this is why we have to bump out the forward end into the bunk area.  The genset will be housed in a sound enclosure and mounted on a roll-out shelf that will pull out into the aft cabin to make maintenance easier.  We're also adding an automated oil change system that will pump out the old oil and then pump in the new.  This will also work with the engine, making this usually nasty job much easier to perform. In the space where the genset is going we now have a stack of 28 lead ingots.  It's been estimated they weigh around 1100 lbs.  Seems like overkill to me.  I was going to sell them to a friend but the guys at Hinckley suggested we hang onto them until everything's done and then we can use some to balance the boat out.  Good idea.

We replaced all our batteries and increased storage for the house bank.  For those who might not know......the house bank provides DC power for everything on the boat except the engine and the genset.  This means lights, refrigeration (major consumer!), water pumps, bow thruster, windlass, watermaker.  Uhm, pretty much everything.  When we've anchored out in the past our batteries would run down below 50% of their storage capacity in about 20 hours.  50% is the magic number for these and if you take them down beyond that you're shortening their useful life.  Considering that our batteries cost about $400 each it's a good idea to stretch 'em out for as long as you can.  When we bought the boat it had four 100a/hr batteries in the house bank and one for the engine.  That means we had 400a/hrs in the house bank with 200 a/hrs available to us between charges.  The freezer compressor cycles constantly because it's poorly insulated and because we keep it at 12 degrees F to keep the ice cream at the correct consistency.  That's important!  We could probably improve things a bit by running it at 20 degrees but then the ice cream is all mushy.  Some things ya just don't compromise on.  So, we replaced the four 100a/hr batteries with some new ones that are dimensionally the same but are rated at 125a/hr (Lifeline AGM type batteries, p/n GPL-31XT).  The compartment these are located in had some extra space so with a little hocus pocus we managed to squeeze in six of these babies.  Now our house bank is 750a/hrs!  Combine that with the new insulation around the freezer and we should be doing much better, well within the 50% range.

When we renewed our battery bank we also replaced our Xantrex Freedom Marine 20 inverter/charger with a Magnum Energy Pure Sine inverter/charger rated at 2800 watts and 125 amps.  Our charger works in three stages; bulk, absorb and float.  Each stage has a different rate of charge and is designed to provide the longest life for the batteries.  For our new battery bank the ideal bulk charge rate is 175 amps.  We couldn't afford the inverter with the mondo charger (4000watts/200amps) so we settled for the 125 and will supplement it with the 50 amp charger that came with the boat.  This means that I'll need to be pro-active in the bulk charge stage and shut off the little charger when the inverter switches over to a lower charge rate.  I monitor it pretty closely anyway and may set up an alarm to remind me.  This will be infinitely better than running the engine for hours on end while at anchor.  Instead we'll be running the genset at a good load and it'll be inside of a sound enclosure.  Ugh, quiet good!

While we're discussing power there's another facet to this whole thing.  We're adding two more solar panels.  Right now we have two 85 watt panels.  We'll be adding two 130 watt panels for a total of 430 watts.  Of course that's only under ideal conditions but just increasing from 170 to 430 should be a pretty significant increase in our solar charging ability.  Add that to our 400 watt wind generator and we may actually be able to keep those new batteries charged without much input from the genset.

These are big improvements for La Vida Dulce.  Up until this past year we've been doing mostly repairs to all the stuff she had wrong with her when we bought her.  Let me tell ya, it is really rewarding to be making improvements instead of repairs.  Don't get me wrong, we still do repairs.......

A few weeks ago we were sitting on our fancy new cushions in the salon.  That's right, we were actually hanging out in the salon.  We heard the water pump kick on and listened for it to shut off.  It didn't.  I pulled open the compartment where our water pump is located and it was merrily pumping our freshly filled water tank (250 gallons) into the bilge.  "Hey Cheri!  Kill the breaker!"  Our water heater is located in the next compartment (beneath the starboard settee) and I traced our leak to the return line.  The hose barb here is plastic, probably about 12 years old, and had broken off.  I set about removing the old fitting.  As I did this I noticed the supply line had calcium built up around it which indicates a leak.  I barely touched the hose and the fitting came off in my hand.  The plastic had turned to mush!  I replaced both fittings with 1/2" x 1/2" brass hose barbs.  Still need to go back and check the fittings for the water lines coming from the engine.  Be a real bummer to have those come off!  Also need to check all the other plastic water fittings on this tub.  I'm not real sure why they elected to use plastic but I am pretty sure I've lost confidence in it.  We're going with brass fittings for everything unless someone chimes in beforehand and convinces me not to.

So, we're headed in the right direction.  We got a little side-tracked with trying to sell the boat but we're back on track now.  By the end of the next two years we're gonna have a boat that provides comfort and safety, is pretty much self-contained and that will be able to take us anywhere we want to go, at least anywhere that's accessible by water.

< 720 days to go.