Dang Me, Oughta Take a Rope....

This past weekend was packed fairly full. We started off on Friday with Hurricane Earl bearing down on the East Coast. As of Thursday night it, he?, she?, was off the coast of Virginia, straight out from the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay. The storm's course was projected to take it pretty far off the coast and our area was expected to get rain with winds up to 50 knots. Still, these were projections and hurricanes have been known to do whatever they please, no matter what the meteorologist says. I kept a close watch on the storm, getting updates on it's location every few hours and it did indeed appear to be headed out away from the coastline. We made use of Cheri's new dock-lines and doubled them up with the old ones. We cleared the decks of anything that might be capable of taking flight in high winds but we decided not to remove the dodger or bimini covers for the cockpit. I did lock down the solar panels using their wire tie downs but doing this made me keenly aware of the amount of weight that is supported by the aluminum frame for the bimini. The whole thing would probably take off like a kite in hurricane force winds.

So we were prepared for a good blow and half expected to see some kind of storm surge. What we got was an overcast day with an occasional drizzle and winds as high as 3 knots. Not even good sailing weather.

We spent Saturday clearing out our second storage shed in our attempt to downsize even more. This storage is about 20 minutes from the boat, not really convenient but it is dry. We've been using it for a backup until we could clear out some of the stuff left over from living in the house. Our primary storage shed is in Deale, about 2 minutes from the boat but it's located in a bug infested field with ticks and fleas and mice. And mud. We plan to reduce our stuff even more and move what's left into a temperature controlled spot near Annapolis. Convenient?  Not at all but at this point I think we'll be down to seasonal things and won't be needing access to it so often.

We've been watching movies on our cool-man Mac mini in the main salon. We both felt the need for a little more comfort and thought a good ottoman would really fit the bill. We found a nice one at Bed, Bath and Beyond that's just the right height for propping up your feet and also provides good storage for Cheri's sewing machine with room to spare. The padded lid even flips over and turns into a coffee table top with fiddles (raised edges) to prevent stuff from sliding off.  Perfect!  This thing just might replace the table in the main salon.  We didn't have room for the four folding boxes that came with it so we tossed two and will hang onto the others just in case we find a purpose for them.  We plan to strap this baby down to one of the settees when we're underway.  It weighs about 30 pounds empty and would make quite a projectile in a knockdown.

Sunday we had our friends Anthony and Luzma join us for a sail. They arrived around 0930 and we sat around and talked until about 1100 before heading out. Once out on the Bay we found pretty good winds, about 12 knots out of the SSE. We decided to head up to Thomas Point Light so they could check it out. Along the way the wind varied from about 12 knots to zero point nada. It was odd, all or nothing. We'd be barreling along, having a great time and then all of a sudden it would just stop blowing and we'd coast for about 10 or 15 minutes. Then it would pick up again. Went like that all day. Luzma is from Peru and brought along some great food, stuff I couldn't pronounce but would definitely eat again. Mmm mmm mmmm. All in all we had a really nice visit and a decent day on the water. We got back to the dock around 1800 and had coffee and a shot of Amaretto di Amore liqueur. This is our new tradition to top off a good day of sailing. We met Anthony and Luzma when we were in the midst of selling everything we owned in preparation for moving aboard. They bought a chair we had advertised on Craigslist and then came back and helped us all day at the garage sale and continued to help us through the most frantic parts of moving out. They are wonderful people, true friends.

Monday we again had some friends come by for a sail. This time Sharon and Fred Carr joined us from Silver Spring. Sharon is Cheri's music teacher and Fred is the assistant Pastor at our church. They helped us out last month by letting us stay in their home while they were on vacation up in Canada during the final week our boat was being repaired. When we stayed at their place we noticed a buncha pictures of lighthouses so we thought it'd be good to run by Thomas Point Light (again) and Bloody Point Light on the other side of the Bay (the picture here is of Bloody Point Light before the 1960 fire and explosion that brought it's useful life to an end). Winds for this day were projected to be about 2 knots so we were planning to have to motor our way around. When we got past the breakwater though, we found that there was some good wind out there. It was blowing out of the SSE and we started out for Bloody Point.  When got out into the middle of the Bay I gave it some thought and realized that if we returned from Thomas Point to Herring Bay we'd be tacking the whole way, making for a longer trip.

With that in mind we changed our course and sailed on a "broad reach" up to the South River. Sailing with the wind coming from behind can be uncomfortable because you're traveling with the wind and not getting much cooling effect. You're also traveling with the waves and the boat tends to roll a lot. Sharon started feeling queezy shortly after we came to this new course and we sent her up on deck for some fresh air. This helped and she was feeling better before too long. As we got close enough to see the lighthouse we found about 3 different sailboat races going on in the area and decided not to interfere. We changed course to 115 degrees magnetic and headed East across the Bay. We were now sailing on a "close reach" on a "starboard tack" (aargh, sounds so nautical, can I hear ya say "lardy dar"?). The wind was holding nicely through the afternoon and had in fact increased to about 25 knots. Seas were getting a bit choppy. Fred tossed his cookies and we decided to reduce sail and try to make things more comfortable for our guests. We doused the genoa and ran under a full main and staysail. As we approached the Eastern Shore we crossed the original channel of the Susquehanna River with a depth of 175' (Chesapeake Bay Chart). Approaching the eastern side of this natural channel the depth quickly goes to about 9' so we came about and headed back across the Bay, this time "close hauled" on a "port tack". Now we were headed on a course of 240 degrees magnetic which should take us directly into Herring Bay but it also brings us about 45 degrees off the wind and the waves, which makes for some pretty lively sailing. The wind is now blowing a steady 30 knots and the waves were building up pretty big. We buried the bow at one point. We had wind howling and spray flying and poor Fred was puking on a regular basis. We rode like this for about two and a half hours with steadily worsening conditions. Things didn't let up until we rounded red #2 in Herring Bay which lines us up with the entrance to Herrington Harbour. By the time we got back to the slip Fred had lost about 25 pounds but he was feeling much better. We sat in the cockpit with coffee, Amaretto and cookies and talked about our day.

I gotta admit that I had mixed feelings about this day.  Fred and Sharon are dear friends and we wanted this trip to be a "thank-you" gift for all they did for us so we really felt terrible that it was so rough on them, Fred especially. On the other hand, this was some really rockin' sailing, wild and woolly and I thoroughly enjoyed that part of it. No, I didn't prolong the trip and Fred's misery just so I could enjoy the day. When he first started feeling bad we were already at the farthest point from home. Should we have returned under power? It wouldn't have bought us anything. We would have been on the same course, at the same angle to the wind and waves and I seriously doubt we would have made better speed. I guess the real question is would I have prolonged it if I had the choice? Let me think on that for a while.  Somewhere it's probably written down in some ancient book that if you make your Pastor puke then you're gonna go to Hell.  I'm pretty sure about this.

On our sail home from Rock Hall on 8-29 we encountered a problem with the mainsail and were unable to unfurl it (click here to read the original entry). I resolved the furling problem a few days later. The main halyard isn’t supposed to be under tension. When I eased up on it I was able to slowly unfurl the sail all the way with my hand by turning the furling mechanism inside the mast at the bottom of the sail. The mainsail was rolled up loosely inside the mast and pockets of sail were being pulled out through the slot. As I saw this happening I would re-furl the sail just enough to get it back inside the slot and then continue unrolling it. Once I had the entire sail out I adjusted the topping lift a bit tighter to get the boom just above horizontal. With this done I was able to furl the sail using the line from the cockpit and it worked beautifully. I maintained just a bit of tension on the out-haul as I furled the sail and it went in very nicely.

John Hellwege of Gratitude Yachting clued me in on the mainsail halyard being over-tightened as the main cause of this problem. He said the second biggest cause is an aged sail which will stretch and sag at the outer edge (leech).  Sails can be re-cut to correct this problem and extend their life.

My other problem was the sump pump for the forward shower.  I found a nice replacement for it from Jabsco (p/n 37202-2012).  I put it in and found that the real problem was that the power line was shorted and the voltage was drifting between 2 - 13 VDC.  This was causing the original pump motor, the old lump of rust, to overheat because it didn't have enough umph to crank the pump.  I thought it was shorted windings and didn't bother to check things any further.  My bad.  I haven't had enough time to trace out the wire all the way but I do know the problem is under the forward bunk because I've traced it from the switch to the bunk on one side and the pump to the bunk on the other side.  Hmmm.  Let me see now.  The most recent work done on the boat was also at the forward bunk.  Coincidence?  I don't think so.

Home Is Where I Want To Be

This past weekend was total turmoil.  After many postponements we were finally supposed to pick up the boat on Friday, 8-27.  We had been staying at Fred and Sharon's place that week while they were in Canada.  They were scheduled to return on Friday afternoon so we were all packed and heading out the door that morning when we got a call from John Hellwege at Gratitude.  When they sprayed the primer the day before it didn't set and had to be sanded down and redone.  This would take all day Friday and they'd need Saturday  for final assembly and cleaning.  This really threw a wrench in the works because we were now out of options for a place to stay, requiring a stay in a hotel.  Normally this wouldn't be a problem but we have a dog (well, a 6 pound beast) and 99% of the decent hotels don't allow pets.  We booked a room at the Comfort Inn at Chestertown and considered sneaking her in under our coat.  When we got there we sat out in the car debating how we were gonna get her past the front desk.  In the end we decided the best way was to be totally obvious about it.  We walked in the front door pulling our bags behind and with Bella in Cheri's arms.  The lady at the front desk never said a thing, probably didn't even notice.  Too busy picking out her next lollipop.

After we got settled into our room we headed over to see the boat.  I had picked up 2 six-packs of beer to share with the dudes doing the work, thinking this would be a nice way to show our thanks.  Walking out to the dock we offered several beers but they were turned down.  Huh?  This is a boat yard right?  Lardy-dar types everywhere ya look.  When we got to the boat, Howard was the only guy there, just finishing up the fiberglass work.  I offered him a beer, told him how much we appreciated all the hard work.  He declined the beer.  I opened one for myself, took a swig, asked him if he was sure he didn't want a nice, ice cold beer on a 95 degree day after working his butt off on the boat.  "No thanks", says he, "I'm on my 76th day of recovery".  Oops.  "Well", says me, "I'll drink to that!" ( I modified history a bit here but the truth is I did have a terrible time getting anyone to hoist a cold one with me.)

We washed down the topsides while the cleaning crew took on things down below.  There was quite a mess from all the cutting and grinding of fiberglass and the dust had permeated pretty much everything.  Howard had cleaned up the forward compartment once already and then these guys went over that again and everywhere else too.  After they left, Cheri and I went below and went over it again ourselves.  We had all our clothes to move back aboard and didn't want our stuff to be full of fiberglass.  That stuff's kinda itchy, ya know?  We finally finished up around 1930, made up some chicken salad sandwiches and had our first meal aboard in 2 months.

Sunday morning we got up around 0730, had breakfast aboard, got cleaned up and prepared to head home to Herrington Bay.  When we cast off we took the old dock lines and stashed them in the cockpit locker.  These things were so old and stiff it was like trying to bend steel cable.  For Cheri's birthday I gave her 4 new dock lines, 3 strand line, 3/4" x 35', just what every girl dreams of.  As we cruised down the Bay we tied a double loop bowline in one end of each line so they'd be ready when we got to our slip.  Leaving Rock Hall, Cheri took the helm and took us around to the fuel dock.  We were getting low, down to 3/16's of a tank, and I was concerned about the fuel pump sucking up crud from the bottom of the tank.  Our tank holds 150 gallons and with the impending bill for the holding tank I wasn't too excited about paying $500 (diesel is currently $3.49/gallon) to top off with fuel.  We put in $200 worth and it brought us up to 3/4 full on the gauge.  Must not be a linear gauge.  Doesn't matter, that should be enough to last us for another year.

So at 1030 we head out into the Bay on a course of 210 degrees magnetic.  This takes up directly to the main span of the Bay Bridge and it also takes us directly into the wind.  At least what wind there was, maybe 5 knots.  Because of this we chose to run under power until we could point further south and would then raise the sails.  We had a full days cruise ahead of us, at least 6 hours, and still had to drive back to Rock Hall to retrieve our car, about a 4 hour round trip.  This was gonna be a long day no matter what we did.  So, we maintained our course pretty much all the way to Thomas Point Light.  At this time I checked the wind, looking good at about 12 knots out of the WSW, and proceeded to raise the mainsail.  Actually on our boat you don't raise the main so much as unroll it.  We have in-mast roller reefing (see the picture) so you just sit in the cockpit and tug on a couple of lines and the sail is set.  At least that's the way it's supposed to work.  Not this time.  I started crankin' on the out-haul, the line that pulls the clew of the sail out along the boom (see the picture again), unrolling it from the mast.  It was really tight and wouldn't budge.  ???  Two days later I was told that this could be caused by having too much tension on the halyard, the line used to raise the sail to the top of the mast.  At the time I didn't have a clue (clew?) so we just motored the rest of the way home.  Bummer.

It was a pleasant cruise though, temps in the high 80's, nice breeze and not a cloud in the sky.  We got back to Herrington at 1630 and by the time we got back from getting the car it was 2130, bedtime.  Long day.

One other thing we discovered was that the sump pump for the forward shower didn't work.  At first I thought it might have been related to the work that was done on the holding tank since the wiring goes through the same area.  The way our showers work is they have a deep fiberglass pan built in under the floor of the shower.  I think the reasoning here is that it's more efficient to let the water collect while you shower and then pump it all out at once.   There's a plunger type switch that you pull out when you're done taking your shower and it starts the sump pump which runs for a few minutes and then starts to growl when it sucks air, at which time you turn it off.  Anyway, I needed to verify the problem with the pump so I pulled out the plunger and went to check the voltage at the pump.  By the time I got in place to check it, the electric motor was hot to the touch but the pump wasn't pumping.  The shaft from the motor is connected to an offset arm that drives a piston connected to a diaphragm.  The pump mechanism moved freely but the motor wasn't turning which indicated an electrical short in the winding of the motor.  The pump is just a big clump of rust so we'll replace the whole unit instead of only the motor.  Of course, when we looked into a replacement pump we found that this model has been discontinued so now we need to source a replacement.  Ugh.

So,we're finally home.  Now if we could just find some time to get settled in.  With Hurricane Earl due in three days I'm sure we'll have more to discuss before too much longer.

Doldrums

 Well, Summer is coming to a close, school buses are holding up traffic again and we're still mooching shelter from friends and family.  Pete and Gina let us hide out in their home for six weeks while they stayed at their vacation home on Virginia's Eastern Shore.  But all good things must come to an end.  They were scheduled to return on August 13th (Friday the 13th!!!) so they could prepare to go back to being teachers for another year.  That's gotta be a tough transition to make.

Anyway, Cheri and I packed up and moved out, thinking we'd be moving onto the boat and sailing back to Herrington and getting on with our lives.  This was not to be.  The tank didn't arrive from Wellington Plastics in the five days planned and took another week beyond that.  Grrrr.  Musta had some trouble getting through customs.  I can just see it.  US Customs probably wouldn't take big black boxes lightly.  No ticking sounds but it could be a bomb.  I'm probably lucky they didn't blow it up to diffuse it.  So the tank didn't even arrive until late on the 12th and you just know everyone had to sit around and stare at it for a while.  And of course not much of anything is gonna get done on Friday the13th.  So now we're shooting for the 20th.

We send Cheri and Bella down to Florida again to stay the week with her Mom and I move back in with Ed and Ellen.  I'm really getting to like the pillows on their guest room bed.  The week I spend at their place is also the week of the worst storms Maryland has seen in the past 500 years.  It rains so hard you can't even see the front of the car and I have an hour commute in each direction.  That's an hour if things are going well.  They weren't.  My commute from Reisterstown to DC takes me onto 695 (Baltimore beltway), I-95 and 495 (DC beltway).  These are easily the 3 worst roads to be on at 6am and 6pm because you have the biggest conglomeration of idiots and race car drivers, all going in the same direction, idiots at 50 mph and race car drivers at 90.  Just doesn't work.  Add in some raindrops and the idiots slow down to 20 and the race car drivers speed up to 95.  Most days I'd leave before 6 in the morning and wouldn't get back to Ellen and Ed's before 8 at night.  I did realize through all of this that there are thousands of people out there who do this every day.  And they call that living?  I can't wait to get back on the boat and sail away from this madness for good.

So, Cheri comes back on the 19th and we find out that the boat won't be ready until the 27th.  Yikes!  What're we gonna do?  We are now truly homeless with no plan, other than sleep in the car and shower in the men's room at work.  Then from out of nowhere Cheri's music teacher, Sharon (and her husband Fred) offer us the use of their home while they're on vacation in Canada.  The Lord is definitely looking out for us.  I just don't know how we'll ever be able to repay all this kindness.  Gonna take a lot more than a bag of McNuggets, that's fer sure.

So, where do we stand with the repairs?  Good question.  The tank is installed.  I saw it with my own two eyes last weekend.  It's in place with the lines reconnected and nicely braced and battened down.  This week (the final week?) my old buddy Mac will be doing the final fiberglass work.  Mac is a genius with fiberglass, even built his own boat from scratch.  I have no doubt the work will be top notch.

A nice upgrade we're doing on this project is a sensor and readout so we can tell how full the tank is.  I don't ever want to have to clean up from an overflowed pump-out line again.  Yuck!  I mean it's just disgusting!  Definitely worth a few bucks to be able to avoid that.  The unit we're putting in is made by Electrosense (click here for their website).  A common way for reading out tank volume is with a float, just like in your toilet tank or your gas tank.  Not such a good choice in this environment because it can easily get stuck.  Then ya hafta go in and clean it.  No thanks.  Another way is with pneumatic tubes or hoses but these can clog.  Then what?  Blow through the hose to clear it?  I don't think so.  Probably the most common readout for a holding tank is an electronic sensor that mounts on the outside wall of the tank.  This seems like the way to go because there's no moving parts and it doesn't actually come in contact with the contents of the tank.  The problem with this system is that it can be fooled by buildup on the inside of the tank.  Maybe an even bigger problem is that there have been reports of a high rate of electrical failure.  The unit made by Electrosense mounts at the top of the tank and has five sensor rods inside, each being a different length and custom tuned to our tanks volume.  The rods are mounted in a 1.5" PVC plug which threads into the top of the tank and contains the electronics for the sending unit.  Low voltage signals are sent over a Cat5e cable to the display, which in our case will be mounted at the Nav Station.  The only time this thing uses any power is when you push a button on the display which lights up the LED's of the rods that are immersed.  Pretty simple and a nice power saver too.

I just received a few more pictures from John showing the most recent progress.  I'll include them here for your perusal.  The one with the blue squiggly line shows the black poly tank in place with bracing.  The blue line is the Cat5e cable for the sensor readout.  This picture was taken at an angle so the black tank is actually laying horizontally under the floor.

The next picture shows the new wood panels installed with an access panel for hiding stuff way down there.  After that we see the next level being glassed in.  This provides another level of storage below the bunk and has multiple access panels.  There's a ton of storage space under this bunk!

So, we're almost there.  Just a few more days and we can begin to get our lives back to normal, whatever that is.

Getting Tanked

OK, we've gotten beyond the worst of all this.  I'm talking about the initial discovery of the leaking holding tank, the realization that we had been mislead by the sellers when we bought the boat and the general stink of it all.  Now we're back in Limbo, living in Pete and Gina's basement (which is nicely finished and furnished and very comfortable, thank you), and well into the replacement of the tank.

John Hellwege, service manager at Gratitude Yachting Center, has decided to make their shop the leading East Coast authority on everything Island Packet.  It appears that ours is only the second 420 to suffer the indignity of a holding tank failure.  The location of this tank is in a bad spot, centered in the forward cabin, partly under the forward bunk and partly under the walkway to the head.  John's decided to try to minimize the destruction necessary to remove it by going in through the storage area under the bunk and exposing as much of the tank as possible.  For those not familiar with the IP420, the forward bunk is hinged so it can be lifted to reveal a large storage area underneath.  Pullout panels in the floor provide access to even more storage beneath that.  Underneath this second level is where the holding tank is hidden away.

This part of the project, removing the tank, went pretty quickly.  Referring to drawings, they mapped out existing hoses and bulkheads that were hidden from view.  After removing the drawers and hardware they were able to make precise cuts and remove only what was necessary from the support structure beneath the bunk.  The entire first level of storage was removed in one piece which will make it less painful to put back together again in the end.  Once down to the second level they removed one section of flooring and some bracing to expose the tank.

With the tank exposed the plan was to cut it into sections for removal.  When the tank was first drilled into it was found to be pressurized.  This indicated that the vent line was plugged which explained why the tank was unable to be pumped out.  At first, everyone was thinking that this was the real cause of our problem and that the tank wouldn't need to be replaced.  At this point no one had actually done a visual verification that there really was a hole in the tank.  To be able to see underneath the tank you would have to be a double jointed contortionist with a flashlight in your mouth and mirrors in each hand.  Being smarter than most, John used his cell phone camera and after several tries discovered a hole along the seam the size of a half dollar.  I never doubted there was a hole down there because I had spent several hours cleaning up the putrid mess that had leaked out of the tank.  John's photograph verified our suspicions.  The picture here shows the cut out section of the tank with the hole in the center.

So, the tank was removed in sections using a small grinder with a cutoff wheel, a sawzall and hacksaw blades.  The floor of the area underneath was scrubbed clean as was the bilge.  Now when you first enter the boat down the companionway you are greeted with the clean smell of fiberglass and plastic, the smell of a new boat.  This is the first time we've had this on this boat.  There is still a faint odor in the forward cabin, kinda like sulfur, which can be traced to the hanging locker.  We'll hafta tear into that and get it completely cleaned out.  This will require removing the cedar lining that was just installed this past winter.  Bummer.

We were originally going to use an off-the-shelf tank made by Moeller Plastics.  This was a standard rectangular model, 28" x 23" x 11.5", and the largest we could fit would have been 30 gallons.  We decided to bite the bullet and go with a custom made tank that'll fit the space better and give us more volume.  The actual cost is about the same since the Moeller tank would have required additional bracing and man-hours for installation.  The tank we finally settled on will be built to our specs by Wellington Plastics in British Columbia, made from 1/2" welded polyethylene.  The biggest drawback with the custom tank is having to wait for it to be built.  This, along with 5 days for shipping, has added 3 weeks to this project, basically doubling the amount of time for the repair.  Yikes you say, six weeks!  That's what we said too.  But after giving it some thought we felt it was better to have the larger tank for resale value and were willing to put in the extra time to have this done right.  With a boat of this quality you just can't do things half-way.

Here's some pics showing what's going on.  The first one is of our bunk in the forward cabin with the mattress and top level removed.  You can see part of the holding tank showing through the floor.  The machinery in the background is the air conditioner for the forward stateroom.  It uses the storage area under the bunk as an air return chamber.  Pretty cool, so to speak.  When it's running you can't even hear it.  The next picture shows the top section of the bunk that was removed in one large piece so reassembly will go quicker. The third picture shows the tank before they cut into it.  That's only about half the tank showing as the rest of it extends to the left under the cabin sole.  To remove the tank in one piece would have required cutting out the side of the bunk and a section of the floor. If you look at the exposed compartment below the tank you can see some of the hoses and valves for the tank.  You can also see some of the crud that had leaked out.  Mmmmm, nice huh?  This area was all covered up when we first found we had a problem.  To the left of the hoses in this picture is another compartment under the cabin sole and this is where I found the original mess.  It's also where we found the "leaking valve" while the boat was in Florida prior to the survey.  It should have been obvious to anyone familiar with the layout of the boat what the real problem was.  I claim innocence (read stupidity) since I didn't have a clue about where the holding tank was.  The surveyor on the other hand was intimately aware of it, having recently inspected another 420.  But I digress.  Sorry about that.

You can see in the bottom picture that the new tank wouldn't be able to fit through the existing hole if it was the same size as the original.  This creates a problem or two.  We want to minimize the amount of damage to the surrounding cabin.  We also want to have a tank that's pretty much the same volume, 60 gallons.  Last but not least, we want to squeeze it through a hole that was too small for the original 60 gallon tank to come out of.  Same old story, Tom wants it all.  John took the dimensions of the original tank and shrunk it down just enough to fit.  He estimates the new tank volume to be 55 gallons.

Over the last year we've gone through quite a bit with this boat, from purchase to repairs and upgrades and now this stupid holding tank.  Working with the folks at Gratitude Yachting Center has been a real pleasure.  Jack and Sharon Malatich were our brokers and were instrumental in finding the perfect boat for us.  They ensured our concerns were addressed and practically held our hands throughout the process of buying the boat.  John Hellwege has made sure all the work we've had done was of the highest quality and yet stayed within our budget.  He understood our goals and kept them in mind for every aspect of the rebuild.  He's gone out of his way to make things right for us, even the little things like cleaning up the boat and leaving the A/C on for us so it'd be comfortable when we came up for the weekend.  In this industry where an "estimated time of repair" is nothing but a pipe dream and brokers are only around when you flash some cash, Gratitude Yachting Center stands out as being different from all the rest.  They treat you with honesty and respect, as they would treat family or a friend.  We've made some good friends at Gratitude.

An Apple A Day.....

On the day of The Great Holding Tank Disaster (GHTD) Cheri and I were putting together a new computer for La Vida Dulce.  We took the time to look into software that was available for navigation and other things that would be needed from the boat's point of view.  It quickly became apparent that everything out there is PC based which makes sense since the world revolves around Windows.  Unfortunately, I am sick and tired of everything Microsoft and couldn't stand the thought of having to deal with another PC and all the frustration that traditionally goes with it.  My brother-in-law converted over to a Mac last year and he loves it.  He showed it off to me recently and I felt like I was looking at a real solution.  I envisioned hours of internet use without having Explorer hang up.  Woohooo!  Yes, I know, there are other browsers available.  I use Mozilla at work and it's way better than IE.  Never-the-less, the whole mentality of "get it into production now and fix the problems later", which is pretty much the mantra of anything PC, has driven me to the edge.

So we jumped.  We looked at Mac laptops but the gazillion dollar price tags scared us off.  The all-in-one desktop was really cool but pricey too and the monitor was too big to use at the Nav Station.  Then we saw the Mac-mini.  This has everything I wanted wrapped up in a small 8" x 8" x 2" box:

• 2.4GHz Intel Core 2 Duo
• 2GB memory
• 320GB hard drive
• 8x double-layer SuperDrive
• NVIDIA GeForce 320M graphics
• Mac OS X Snow Leopard

  You can add up to 8GB memory and a 500 GB hard drive but the base product is plenty for our needs.  It's really built for hooking up to your home theater and that works out fine for us.  We've set it up with a Samsung 23" LCD monitor on a Bretford desk mount at the Nav Station.  We went with the Apple wireless keyboard and mouse to keep everything clean, plus the keyboard is 1/2 the size of a regular one, which is perfect for using on the boat.  The monitor draws just 45 watts and the Mac mini draws 85 but drops to 10 watts in sleep mode.  Also perfect for the boat.  We wanted to have a 37" flat screen in the forward stateroom and a smaller screen in the Main Salon.  The Mac mini will support both at once.  Cool!  We'll have music, movies and TV over the internet using Pandora, Netflix and Online-television.tv.  This'll serve us well until we finally head away from the mainland and by then I hope to have all our music on a hard drive.  I don't expect we'll spend too much time watching TV or movies at that point.

We mounted the arm for the monitor at the Nav Station.  It's bolted down to the desktop and is stiff as a brick.  It kinda resembles the mast so I can pass it off as being a continuation of the interior design motif.  Right.  Like she'd really buy that.  The monitor is black framed and just kinda disappears against the instrument panel, at the same time hiding all the switches and gadgets from view.  For access to anything you simply pull the monitor out of the way.  I plan to add a hook to the cabinet with an eye mounted to the arm so I can lock down the monitor while we're underway.  Where it's mounted, the monitor can be turned for viewing from anywhere in the Galley or Main Salon.  All the wiring for the Mac is run through the Nav Station cabinet so it's a really clean installation.  Plus the Mac mini can be run by a remote control so it'll be nice for sitting back and watching TV or movies.  Oh yeah, one more thing.  The Mac can run Windows based software so now I've got the best of both worlds.

I actually got to use the Mac mini for about 2 hours before the GHTD but we've been off the boat ever since.  Bummer.  My short experience with it has been all positive.  I think it's gonna be a real breath of fresh air after years of dealing with Microsoft.  And let me tell you, a little fresh air is really needed right now.

On Saturday, 7/3, we sailed up to Gratitude.  We had originally planned to go there for 3 days so we could take in the fireworks and visit with my cousin's family; Steve, Vicki and Brandon Ward.  Now with the GHTD our plans had changed.  We were too mortified to have anyone come visit.  I mean, I want people to visit the boat and walk away with memories of a pleasant sail on our beautiful boat.  Right now they'd walk away with memories of dirty diapers.  Yuck!  So we canceled our social visit and turned the trip into a delivery.  We'd leave the boat so that repairs could begin the following week.  That meant that we had to drop off a car in Rock Hall the day before, requiring a 2 hour drive in each direction.  Love that Bay Bridge traffic!

We sailed up on Saturday with light winds, 6 to 8 knots, and averaged about 3.5 knots in speed.  It took us all day to get there, leaving Herrington Harbour at 0830 and arriving at Gratitude at 1930.  We had reservations for dinner at the Osprey Point Inn at 2000 which didn't leave us much time to tie up the boat and get ready.  Cheri hit the showers but I opted for a quick sponge bath.  We showed up at the inn just at 2000 and found that they didn't have us down for a reservation.  Not a problem though and they gave us a table for two in the best part of the room.  This place is really fine dining, gourmet in fact, and in my opinion is one of the best places to eat in Maryland.  Highly recommended.  After dinner as we walked out to the car we could see the start of the fireworks display over the tree tops (they do them on the 3rd in Rock Hall).  We hurried back to the marina and hiked out to the end of the stone jetty.  We had a perfect view across the water of the display going off just a few blocks away.  What a sight, really beautiful.

We spent the night on the boat with every hatch and port opened up to a nice sweet breeze off the water.  In the morning we headed back to Silver Spring after stopping for some pancakes, eggs and coffee.  The weekend turned out to be very nice.  Now we're in the wait mode for 3 weeks.  Waiting to get our home back.  Waiting to get our life back in order.  Waiting to get some time in on the Mac.  And waiting to go sailing again on this awesome boat.   I just gotta say, even with the setback of the GHTD our life on La Vida Dulce is pure magic.

An Unpleasant Occurrance (or...... S _ _ T Happens)

This is a nasty little story involving rotten scoundrels, dirty deeds and other disagreeable matters.  There's nothing funny or cute or nice here.  I'll try to say something nice in my next entry but for now I gotta tell it like it is.

In the previous entry about our cruise to the Little Choptank River (click here) I mentioned that we had some trouble with the holding tank overflowing into the hanging lockers.  At the time we thought this was caused by a blockage in one of the lines.  Since then we've discovered the real cause of the problem.

Last Summer we were deeply entrenched in our search for a new boat that would take us around the world.  We found one that fit our requirements to a T but it was located down in Bradenton, Florida and had been in the charter fleet down in the British Virgin Islands.  Our broker convinced us to go down and check it out because the price was low, close to the limit for what we could afford, and this was probably going to be the only way we would ever be able to get an Island Packet 420, the boat of our dreams.  We flew down and spent a miserably hot day going over her with a fine tooth comb.  She showed some wear and tear which was to be expected from charter life but we also found some serious signs of neglect.  All the teak woodwork down below was water stained, as if all the ports and hatches had been left open constantly, rain or shine.  We also found raw sewage beneath the cabin sole (floor) under the valves for the holding tank.  We were told this was from a leaky valve and would be taken care of.  Another area of concern was in the two hanging lockers which are located back to back on the bulkhead between the main salon and the forward stateroom.  Both lockers are lined with cedar which had water stains and smelled like 10 day old fish.  We were told this odor was probably caused by storing away wet foul weather gear.  We presented a list of concerns to our brokers and were told that everything could be repaired over the winter at a reasonable expense and when combined with the low purchase price we would still be way under the market value of the boat.  We had her surveyed, the results of which basically mirrored our list, and went ahead and made the purchase.

 After having the boat trucked up to Rock Hall we spent 8 months and over $40,000 having everything on our list repaired.  One of our biggest concerns was the smell down below and this was addressed by replacing all the hoses for the two heads and the holding tank.  We also replaced the cedar lining in the two hanging lockers.

 We sold our house in Silver Spring along with everything that attached us to life on shore and on May 15th of this year we moved on board, confident that we had prepared the boat to be our new home.  In order to reduce the possibility of mildew and other unpleasant things, we decided to use the marina's facilities while the boat was in the slip and only use the boat's toilets and showers when on the hook.

 After living aboard for three weeks we planned a 5 day sail and pumped out the holding tank prior to leaving.  This was a new experience for us.  Herrington Harbour has 2 pumping stations set up on a dock near the entrance to the marina.  You just motor over and tie up alongside.  The marina supplies tokens which are used to run the pump.  There's a long, corrugated hose that's at least 3" in diameter with a control valve on the end and a fitting with a rubber seal around the end.  The holding tank on the boat has a line that goes to a deck fitting (I should point out here that this line runs up through the hanging locker in the forward stateroom).  The hose from the dock forms a vacuum tight seal against the deck fitting and sucks the gunk out of the tank.  There's a clear plastic section near the valve so you can see when it's done pumping too.  Lovely.  When you first put in the token you're supposed to wait about a minute because the pump is located on shore and has to pump down this 3" hose that's the length of the dock.  If you open the valve too soon you loose suction.  We waited until we felt the hose jump a few times which indicates that everything is ready to go and then placed the rubber seal against the deck fitting and opened the valve.  It pumped just fine for about 10 or 15 seconds, then slowed to just a drizzle.  We checked the suction by dipping the pumpout hose into the creek and it sucked just fine.  OK, must be working, right?  I mean, after all, we hadn't been using the on-board heads much so how full could it be?  Two days later, while on our trip to The Little Choptank River the pumpout line overflowed into the hanging lockers.  This was written off as a line being plugged and we continued on.  After getting back to the marina we pumped out again.  Same thing, worked fine for 10 or 15 seconds, then nothing.  I ran a water hose into the pumpout line to flush out the tank and let it run for quite a while.  When I went to pump it out I got clear water but only for about 10 or 15 seconds, then nothing.  ???

 Later that night we were getting ready for bed when we got this terrible odor in the forward cabin.  Bella, you bad dog!  We looked all around but couldn't find any surprises she might have left.  Only after looking in the compartments below the cabin sole (floor) did I find the source of the smell.  Our holding tank wasn't holding.  There was raw sewage  flowing out from under the tank in exactly the same spot where we had seen the problem with the leaky valve last September.  While cleaning up this mess ( I'm still gagging) it became clear to me what was going on.  The tank wouldn't pump out because it had a hole in the bottom and couldn't form suction.  Nothing was coming out until now because the contents of the tank had been sitting in there for at least a year while the boat was for sale and had baked into a solid mass.  When I ran all that water into the tank it re-hydrated everything and opened up the leak.  This is a great subject for a blog, huh?

 Here's how I picture the history of this little event.  I believe it all started while the boat was in charter down in the British Virgin Islands, probably over two years ago.  Some unfortunate Yuppie couple had rented this boat for their annual vacation, paid thousands of dollars.  While sailing around Paradise the holding tank backed up into the hanging lockers because it couldn't be pumped out and then the tank leaked out into the bilge.  The stink musta been so bad they opened all the ports and hatches for fresh air until they got back to the Charter company's docks.  Their vacation was ruined.  The boat probably sat at the dock with everything open, rain or shine, and this is how all the woodwork down below was ruined.  When the owners finally saw the condition of their beautiful Island Packet they decided to just sell it instead of dumping money into repairs.  The boat then sat in Florida for a year because no one wanted to buy a stinky boat.  Over that time the price was dropped $110,00 to the point where we finally got suckered in.  No one involved in this sale was up front about the actual problem.  We were mislead about "leaky valves" and "stinky wet clothes".  The gentleman who did the survey for us was recommended by the broker representing the sellers.  The surveyor never mentioned any problem with the holding tank even though we had pointed out the "leak" at the valves.  As it turns out, this is a fairly common problem on Island Packets.  The tanks are all made from aluminum and there have been quite a few reports of failed tanks.  Seems to me that a good surveyor would have been familiar with this.  It was his job to be completely thorough in his inspection and yet he missed the biggest, most obvious problem on the boat.  I hate being taken for a sucker.

 We probably would have bought the boat anyway, even had we known about this problem.  Island Packets in good condition sell for about twice what we had set for a ceiling price when we were looking at boats.  Having to do some repairs was really the only way we would be able to get "the perfect boat" and the cost of those repairs could be rolled into the loan.  No problem.  My problem is with being lied to and let me tell you, a lie by omission is still a lie.  Grrrrr.

So on Saturday, 7-3, we sailed the boat back up to Gratitude to have the tank replaced.  It's located under the floor and bunk in the forward stateroom.  To take it out in one piece would require that half the cabin be disassembled.  Big job.  To reduce the destruction, Gratitude is going to remove the inside of the bunk, two layers of storage cabinetry, and cut out the flooring underneath to get at the tank.  Then they'll cut the tank into pieces to get it out.  The new tank will have to be smaller to get back in the same hole so we're going with a 35 gallon tank made out of some kind of poly plastic with 3/8" walls.  It looks like the cause of these tank failures is uric acid attacking the aluminum, causing corrosion and, after about 8 or 10 years, eating it's way through.  Hopefully the poly tank will last longer.

Here's the kicker.  We hafta be outa the boat for the next 3 weeks and it's gonna cost us $8000 out of pocket.  Grrrr.  If only they had been more up-front about this before we bought the boat.  Now I'm gonna hafta spend all my afternoons on the streetcorner begging for spare change.  On the upside, our dear friends, Peter and Gina Judd have offered us their home while they're on vacation down in Virginia.  Once again, friends and family are there when you need them.  And I can always count on rush hour traffic to choke up some coin.

Little Choptank River 6-9-10 to 6-13-10

 Little Choptank River Chart
Pictures From Our Little Choptank River Cruise

 On June 2nd Cheri's 8 year old grandson Jack arrived from Phoenix, Arizona for a long awaited visit.  Cheri is great with kids and lives for the chance to be "The Granny".  This visit had been in the makings for about 9 months and we wanted to make it special in every conceivable way. Unfortunately, things don't always work out the way you plan.  Jack suffered from severe homesickness from the moment he stepped off the plane and only made it through 4 days.  We enjoyed our brief visit and hope that some day he'll want to come back and try it again.

We had originally planned for a 12 day sail around the Bay with trips to St. Michaels, Annapolis and Solomons Island divided up with several days at anchor in between each port visit.  With the change in plans we decided to go conservative.  The 12 day cruise became a 5 day cruise and instead of trips to St. Michaels and the like, we would limit ourselves to living on the hook ("at anchor" for you landlubbers).  Being on the hook has more appeal for me anyway.

On Wednesday morning we sailed out from Herrington Harbour early, 0840.  Weather reports called for 30 knot winds, 5' seas and small craft warnings beginning in the afternoon so I hoped to be in some safe and snug anchorage before then.  As we headed out it started to rain, which wasn't called for until later in the day.  Shoulda been a good indicator but we went on anyway.  Winds were 15 to 20 knots at this time so we put up all the sails, main, genoa and staysail, to make the most of it and sailed off for the Choptank River.  I was planning to head for La Trappe Creek across from the town of Cambridge.  The reality was that by the time we got to the eastern side of the Bay the winds were up to 35 knots and we had reduced sail to just the main and staysail.  We were still moving along at 8.5 knots and healed over at 20 degrees.  With the wind blowing out of the SW I was now concerned about enduring the lengthy sail up the Choptank and as we neared the mouth of the river we shifted to Plan B and made for the Little Choptank.  As it's name implies, The Little Choptank is a smaller river than it's neighbor, the Choptank, and I was thinking it would provide some relief from the storm and get us to an anchorage sooner.  Seemed to make sense at the time.  As we rounded the abandoned Sharps Island Light winds were up to a steady 40 knots and we saw one gust over 47 knots.  Waves were easily at the predicted 5' height and the surface of the water was streaked with foam.  It was really blowin'!  To make the Little Choptank we had to tack four times because we were being blown off course into the mouth of the Choptank.  Tacking on our boat is made way easier since the staysail is on a self-tacking boom and with the genoa down there's no line handling required, just turn the wheel and go.  Due to the rough seas, every time we tacked we lost headway and after a while I realized we weren't going to get anywhere under sail.  We fired up the engine, furled the sails and headed for sanctuary.  The wind and waves were coming at us from just off the starboard bow and made for a wild ride.  With the engine at 2000 rpm we would normally be making about 7 knots but now we were down to three.  I kept thinking that once we got in the lee, the wind shadow, of the southern shore the going would be easier but as we rounded channel marker #5 into the river we got pounded from the side with the full force of the wind and waves.  As we drove further on and the river narrowed, things began to settle down a bit and when we finally dropped anchor behind Cherry Point our instruments showed the wind speed was down to 30 knots.  We were in a safe, very well protected spot for the night and settled in for dinner and a game of backgammon.

On Thursday we woke up at 0500, poked our heads outside and saw a wall of water, thunderstorm, coming our way out of the North.  We quickly buttoned up and waited it out.  Once the boat was closed up we realized we had a serious problem.  Our holding tank had overflowed into one of the hanging lockers.  Yuck!  The holding tank is part of the sewage system on a boat.  Back in the old days everybody just pumped the toilets into the Bay.  That was OK until boating got to be really really popular and then all of a sudden there were 20,000 boats pumping their refuse into the Bay and people started seeing Baby Ruth bars floating around.  Yuck!  So now we pump everything into a 60 gallon holding tank and pump it out when we get back to the marina.  We had just pumped ours out 2 days before so we were kinda surprised (and disappointed) to have this problem.  The nearest place to pump out was several miles away near the mouth of the River so we fired up the engine and headed that way after the rain passed through.  When we got out of the creek we had a good cell phone signal so I called John Hellwege at Gratitude and asked him what we should do.  I won't tell you what he had us do because then I'll get a $10,000 fine but it turned out the system was plugged and there was only one way to fix it.  Once we got that straightened out we headed over to Phillips Creek which gave us a good anchorage for the wind now coming out of the North.  We spent most of the day scrubbing out the hanging locker with bleach and water and anything else we could find and finally got it under control.

It was now 2000 (8PM) so we decided to take our new dinghy out for a spin to break her in.  Phillips Creek is a really beautiful, secluded spot with trees right down to the shore and only 3 or 4 houses within sight.  We basically had the place to ourselves.  There is a cute little island nearby with a home on it and we decided to buzz around that for our trial run.  We only have a 6 HP engine on this thing so I was pretty surprised when it got up and planed.  We were skimming across the surface at a pretty good clip when we came to an abrupt stop.  I mean "on a dime" kinda stop.  I think it knocked out one of my fillings.  The engine stalled out and when I tilted it out of the water there was mud all over the prop.  Hmm.  I stuck my hand into the water about 4" and grabbed a hand full of mud.  Unbelievable!  We were like 500' from shore.  Cheri got kinda upset with me because we didn't have any safety stuff aboard, including oars, but I told her if we needed to, we could just walk to shore.  She said she didn't want to walk 500' through knee deep mud to get to shore.  We took the seat off and used that for a paddle (her idea) and when we got out to deep enough water I tried the engine again.  Fired right up.  At this point it should be obvious to everyone that I do have a guardian angel.  We idled back to the boat under a really beautiful sunset.

The next morning, Friday, we had blueberry pancakes with eggs and coffee for breakfast.  Mmm, mmm, mmmm.  We putzed around the boat for a while and then decided to try the dinghy thing again.  We loaded up and headed up Phillips Creek as far as we could.  This was done at a nice leisurely pace I might add.  This creek meanders for quite a while and is mostly very secluded with a few farms showing through the trees or hunting type shacks with private docks.  Mostly there were duck blinds.  On the way back we cut the engine and drifted downstream while we had lunch; sandwiches, chips, lemonade and orange slices.  When we got back to the cove where La Vida Dulce was anchored we avoided the cute little island.

That afternoon we heard that the wind was supposed to shift back to the South so we moved the boat further up the river to find a new spot to anchor.  Phillips Creek is the last spot on the river with any channel markers so we were kinda winging it, going slow and staying towards the middle of the river.  We got pretty far back before finding a spot in Smith Cove but the water was only 6' deep and we felt pretty exposed to weather.  Listening to the radio again we now found that the wind was going to be out of the North (make up your mind!) so we went back to Phillips Creek for another night.  After dark we were sitting up on deck and heard some fairly large critters splashing about not too far from the boat.  We decided they must be turtles since we're too far North for alligators.

Saturday we moved the boat back to Cherry Point because of the wind finally coming out of the South, plus we wanted to explore a little further up Fisherman's Creek.  We took the dinghy about 2 miles upstream to Church Creek to visit it's namesake, a church that had been built around 1670.  Little tiny chapel by the creek and it had it's own dock so the locals could just motor over for the service.  Cool!  The church was located in the middle of this huge graveyard.  We saw gravestones dated as far back as 1688.  There were plenty of huge old trees for shade and Bella seemed to really enjoy getting back on Terra-Firma again.  When we got back to the boat we found we had company, one other boat sharing the anchorage.  This was the only other boat we saw on the river the entire 5 days.  That night we had Bubba burgers grilled on our cool-man, stern rail mounted, propane grill.

The next morning we decided to head out early, around 0900.  Before we got the anchor up our neighbor pulled out and promptly ran aground, having ventured way outside the channel into about 3' of water.  We pulled up within hollerin' distance and asked if they needed help.  Duh.  It turned out their boat's draft was 6.5' and they were really in, but good.  We spent about 2 hours trying everything to get them out but were unable to make any progress.  In the end they decided to wait for high tide and sent us on our way.  As we motored out of the river it occurred to me that it was already high tide.  We'll look for them the next time we go to the Little Choptank.

Our sail home was actually motoring almost the entire way due to a lack of wind.  The water's surface was glassy smooth, very serene.  We saw huge schools of fish churning up the surface and I spied 3 rays gliding beside our boat with the tips of their fins sticking out of the water.  We got back late in the afternoon with plenty of time to clean up the boat and still manage to get out for some dinner.

It seems like each time we go out I rediscover just how great La Vida Dulce really is.  In weather that might have been overwhelming or even frightening on another boat, we felt safe and confident.  Her weight kept her stable and manageable in rough seas.  Her sail plan is readily adaptable for changing conditions and was easily and safely managed from the cockpit.  The combination of hull shape, topside design and dodger/bimini canvass kept us dry and comfortable.  In the video "Storm Tactics" by Lin + Larry Pardey they say that when the weather drives you back to the marina you should instead turn around and head out into the storm to experience it, to see how your boat performs and how you perform.  This is what we did and we now know that we have a boat and a crew that can manage it.  In fact, I found it pretty exciting and way more of a challenge than sticking to fair weather sailing.  I don't think we'll be letting lousy weather keep us in the marina again.