June 24, 2013.

So I got this really bitchin' cut the other day. I'm pretty sure its going to leave a fabulous scar.

Since everybody knows that chicks dig scars there's that as an upside. So how did you get this grand cut you ask.

I could tell a splendid tale of the Bengal Tiger run amok in Eastport but I’m pretty sure that would have made the papers.

Or there might be the story about one of the Great Whites of the Chesapeake mistaking me for a local Manatee as I enjoyed my evening swim.

While I’m sure I could spin a convincing yarn either way those stories might be expected in the blog nearer the beginning of April rather than now.

A more realistic and believable culprit that is the bane of many a nautical repair person, the hose clamp. Hose clamps can be vicious little bastards that take great joy in ripping chunks of flesh from the unsuspecting. You can almost hear them laugh as they grab the back of your shirt and slowly tear the material while you attempt to twist away and free yourself without getting sliced. As much as I’d like to see a hose clamp tried and convicted for this assault, I cannot press those charges. For they were not involved in this violation of my flesh.

The perpetrator was one of the hose clamps monstrous stainless steel cousins. Thats right, the cotter pin. I know, I couldn't believe it either.

They're so simple, so unassuming but evidently f'ing evil. I always thought you shoved them through a hole, twisted them like a pretzel and they just sat there. Now I realize they're actually just lurking, waiting for an unsuspecting dunderhead to come along and get careless.

Hello, my name is Bill and I'm a dunderhead. I had my arm wrapped around a mast and I thought to myself “this really hurts more than it ought to”. So I withdrew my arm but the cotter pin I was impaled on decided not to let go. I pulled, it sliced, I tugged, it tore. It was a battle of wills but luckily I ran out of arm to shred. So it stands Cotter Pin 1 – Bill 0. But I did get this chick magnet....

June 7, 2013.

    Sorry that I've been remiss in writing but between work at work and working on the boat there hasn't been too much time for anything else.  Oh, and speaking of work, I'm back to being a mechanic again.  Its a little sooner than I figured but the shorter hours are a blessing with so much to do on our boat.
   
    We've been following the trials and tribulations of a couple of internet friends as they grind their way through preparing to cruise.  Between the mechanical failures and their battles with various rain water leaks its been very much like recounting our own past.

    Their cruising boat is the largest sailing vessel on a small mid western lake.  The boat will soon be loaded onto a truck and driven overland to a point on the eastern seaboard where she will get her first taste of saltwater.  This week they had a mechanical failure that we've suffered through at least 3 times.  It was weird how blase we've become when it comes to this particular failure.  They're still in the “OMG, it broke” part of the cruising boat relationship while we've graduated to the “ oh that, not again” phase.

    When the coupling shaft bolts break it can be pretty traumatic.  In a standard drive train its not that big a deal unless you're in a sticky spot.  In a boat with a V-drive its a giant pain in the ass no matter where you are.

    The first time ours let go we were in the Hawk Channel a few miles from Marathon, Fl.  We had just started the engine as the wind went light and we were in the midst of a massive field of crab pot floats.  All 4 of our coupling bolts sheared off and I only had 2 more onboard.  I put the 2 new acceptable bolts into place and we very slowly sailed right up to the bridge before motoring gingerly through at 1000 RPM's.  We had our friends on s/v Freedom close at hand to give us an emergency tow in case it was needed but we ghosted into the harbor, picked up a mooring and set about a more serious repair.

    The second time we were better prepared but found ourselves in a very remote area.  It was our first trip to the Ragged Island chain in the Bahamas.  We entered the anchorage at Flamingo Cay once again in the company of the Freedom's.  As we slowly motored in towards the anchorage the coupling bolts sheared and we coasted to a stop a couple of hundred yards short of the cays protection.  I had a complete set of new bolts and after installing them we pulled the hook and motored into the anchorage proper.  

    After this second failure I did some research and bought the best bolts I could find.  I figured that shoddy bolts were failing and better bolts would be the solution.  So once we were back in the states I bought some new bolts and installed them. 

    The third time the bolts sheared we were motoring south on the Chesapeake Bay.  We were a few miles north of Norfolk with no appreciable wind.  The water was 70 feet deep so anchoring was not an option.  We pulled out the genoa and “sailed” at about a half a knot southward.  I was sure that since we had the extraordinary bolts in place we must have snagged a crab pot and the props sudden stop had sheared the bolts.  So following this line of thinking somebody was going to have to go over the side and clear the propeller.  I soon had a line tied around my chest to keep me with the boat as I slipped into the water. 

    The first thing I remember noticing is how clear the water was down near the mouth of the Chesapeake.  My second thought was how the hell I was going to get back onboard if the wind suddenly piped up.  The waters clarity revealed to me that there was in fact nothing binding the prop shaft.  The bolts had just inexplicably failed again.  An underway repair was once again made and we continued on.

    The alignment had always checked out as good so I had always considered the broken bolts to be the issue but in a safe anchorage after a thorough examination I found what I think was the real culprit.  The female threads for the bolts were located in the flange on the transmission.  I found them to be “bell mouthed”.  The threads were plenty solid enough to get a proper torque on but there was enough play to allow lateral movement under strain.  I changed out the flange and (knocking wood now) the problem has been solved.

    The past is the past and we survived it and I'm sure they will as well.  I still remember the first time it failed on us and how traumatic it was and looking back it just seems like soooo long ago.  Enough for tonight, its raining and I have to go check for new leaks...

    Until next time you can read about 2 couples that I've been following as they get ready to cut their respective docklines at s/v Honey Rider and s/v Kintala .

May 18, 2013.

Since the Veranda has been back in the water its been a parade of niggling little things that had to be addressed. Some are unusual like my wifes desire to use a pressure washer to clean our oriental carpets.

  The biggest chore turned out to be the simple bleeding of the air out of the fresh water half of the cooling system.

Our engine sits very low in the boat with the water heater sitting a level above it. As a result I have to fill the fresh water side of the engine through the even higher, expansion tank. This way the water runs down to the engine and the air is vented from the system at the water heaters highest fitting. It was tedious but we got it done. The v-drive has fresh oil and the transmission has new fluid. The engine oil has been topped so it was time to give her a run-up.

She fired right up and there was great joy in the village. That is until I put it in gear....vibration, crap. I thought I had the alignment pretty close but evidently I was wrong. Space at the marina is pretty tight with so many boats being launched so I’ve got to get Veranda out of there. After a 13 hour day at work on Thursday we wolfed down some dinner and got to work.

The biggest drawback to our boat has always been access to the V-drive, transmission and shaft coupling. Things in this area have improved greatly since we pulled the piece o'shit Fisher Panda out of the boat and shit canned it. It used to be that I could either see the coupling OR get one hand on it. This made adjusting the stuffing box a challenge. Now I can either see it or get BOTH hands on it, huge improvement.

Right after dinner I did some major deconstruction of the galley cabinetry to gain access to the coupling. Our coupling is a beefy little bastard held together by 8 bolts. Because of clearances you can only use open end wrenches on them as you spin the fine pitch bolts out a quarter turn at a time. It took me almost an hour to remove the eight bolts.

When I pulled the shaft back from the transmission coupling the alignment was in fact out of tolerance. Thank you Jesus, because if I did all this for nothing I might have lost it. Anyway, I straightened out the alignment had the cabinet back together, tools put away and was all washed up by 2200 hours. Three hours, new record, two handed access is a good thing.

Early the next morning I started her up and let her warm up for a bit while got ready to get her out of the marina. We had a busy day planned at the marina so I couldn't afford the time to take Veranda the mile and a half to her slip in Back Creek so I decided to take it 50 yards into the harbor and leave her on a mooring for the day.

I loosened lines and hopped up onto the side deck and leaned into the cockpit to get a quick glance at the ignition panel to make sure we were warmed up and ready to go. This is when extreme tightness of my anus kept me from shitting myself. THE OIL PRESSURE WAS LOW AND WE WERE ABOUT TO OVERHEAT. The panel was under my chin and I was leaning into the cockpit looking at the panel upside down. The vein in my head was bulging and I was starting to taste bile when I realized that the low oil pressure I was seeing was actually the temperature gauge indicating a warm engine with the needle off to the left. Conversely the high temperature I saw was actually excellent oil pressure. Damn, upside down, no glasses, confused the gauges, nothing to see here people, ignore the screaming, just go about your business.

The trip to the mooring only took a minute but the drive train was smooth as silk. I left her out on the mooring and grinned my way through a challenging day at work. After work Christy and I went out to the boat, fired her up and the Veranda made her maiden voyage of a mile and a half to her slip.

She was fast as hell and smooth like she never has been. If anything was gonna be a bummer on our trip home it was the fact that the water was really low. We warped our way into our slip and made it look easy. A neighbor was there to grab a line and a friend was standing there with a “welcome back” bottle of wine. We're safely tied up, sitting with 4 inches under the keel and never touched bottom....a really nice ending to a long cold winter.

April 14, 2013

Lets talk a little bit about fitness. When you move aboard and sail away you lose a lot of the conveniences of shore side life. Number one on the list is the loss of having an automobile. Now a trip to the grocery store includes the thought “how much can we carry back to the boat?”

Our backpack is filled with canvas bags with heavy duty handles and a few over the shoulder sports type bags. Trudging down the side of the road with a bag in each hand, a heavy bag over each shoulder and the heaviest crap in your backpack is part of the usual post shopping ritual.

So a bit of attention to fitness is important. A lot of people think they'll lose that extra 20 pounds after they move aboard. Sometimes they do but more often it just doesn't happen. Getting into better shape before you depart is one of those things you can accomplish while you get the boat ready.

We've just spent the winter in a rented home while we refit the boat. I've had a couch to potato on and 2 refrigerators to eat from so lo and behold, I gained 5 pounds. Damn.

Christy has been using a device called a FitBit to monitor how much natural exercise she gets. The FitBit is tiny and she wears it on a lanyard around her neck. It records the number of steps she walks in a 24 hour period, the number of flights of stairs she climbs and calories burned. It's a pretty cool little tool to help you monitor just how much exercise you get during a day.

10,000 steps a day is a normal goal and after sitting at her desk all day Christy takes a walk when she gets home to surpass that number. I teased her a bit about being so maniacal about getting in her 10,000 steps no matter what the weather. So I guess I shouldn't have too surprised to receive my own personal FitBit after gaining my 5 pounds.

While Christy spends most of her day at her desk I spend a good portion of mine running around the boatyard. I'm pretty sure the longest walk in the boatyard is less than 300 yards. So color us surprised when my first days walking total was over 13,000 steps. At 2.4 feet per stride that works out to a shade under 6 miles. 6 miles covered without really going anywhere, sheesh.

Now that I've had the FitBit for 2 weeks I've found that the 6 mile day was at the lower end of the range for me. My average day is upwards of 9 miles with a 12 miler as the biggie. I don't walk nearly as much on the weekends but my weekly updates from FitBit tell me that I average over 50 miles per week.

Even with all that walking I was still stuck with that extra 5 pounds until I adopted a new strategy. I stopped eating junk food after 8PM. Two weeks later the extra five was gone.

April 5, 2013.

In my haste to post an April First post I completely forgot to wish everyone a Happy Easter or as I like to call it Zombie Jesus Day.

The engine installation has gone reasonably well with the best part being that the engine didn't fall on me while I reworked the engine bed beneath it.

I used a Fein Saw to cut away the old engine bed to make room for a new, lower bed. For those unfamiliar with a Fein saw, its one of the most versatile cutting tools around. There are dozens of different cutting blades available and they can be mounted in any orientation so you can get the saw into some pretty difficult spaces. Its definitely my favorite hand held power tool. Once the old bed was cut away I was left with a few options.

The vertical stringers were still usable so I had a few choices. I could build wood beds and fiberglass them into place along the stringers or I could use aluminum or steel angle iron and through bolt it to the stringers. I passed on the wood and fiberglass option because its not the best way to accomplished what I wanted and it is a lot of work to do in the time I have available.

I've put aluminum angle into a boat before and it makes a really nice engine bed. The downside is that it seems that no matter how careful you are, after time they always end up looking like corroded pieces of shit. Its pretty much the same story with steel angle iron.

This left me with what turned out to be an excellent option. We use a lot of G-10 here in the yard where solid fiberglass is required. G-10 is hard as hell compressed fiberglass. When you handle it it seems as if it would shatter if you smacked it on something. Its cousin is G-7. Its another compressed fiberglass thats available in a variety of sizes and shapes. So I ordered a 5 foot long piece of 4” wide G-7. I cut it in half and bolted it into place and we're now the proud owners of a squeaky clean, brandy new engine bed.

And now the real fun begins....

April 3, 2013.

Spring is here, no its not, yes it is, no its not, yes it is...... Last Monday we had the worst snowstorm of the winter with about 2 inches accumulating, this Monday it hit 63°.

Since then its been in the mid forties with 20 knots outta the northwest driving a chill straight though my bones. Every morning its in the low thirties and as the wind builds during the day it feels as if the thermostat is locked in at “too damn cold”.

But they colors of Spring are showing up around the yard so we'll  keep our eyes on the horizon and stay the course.

April 1, 2013.

The engine install is going swimmingly. Its moving along slower than I would like but it is going well so I'm encouraged. The folks we're renting the house from are due back by the first of May so we're scrambling to get things done.

With all this on our plate an opportunity has presented itself. Now that we've been here in the heart of Annapolis for a while we've learned an interesting fact. A surprising number of people can't afford their boats. As a result there’s a number of banks that are now unhappy boat owners.

Periodically there are notices in the newspaper about repossessed boat auctions. A lot of these boats are total pieces of shit but that's where the “being local” comes to our advantage. We've put in offers on a few sailboats that I thought we could repair and resell for a tidy profit. We always bid low and somebody has always outbid us.

This week I realized that I've been aboard one of the boats being auctioned and its actually in fabulous shape. We figured “what the hell” and put a low ball offer in. Color us shocked when our offer was accepted. So now the conundrum....

This boat is 15 years newer than our boat so we've decided to finish our refit and sell the Veranda. The difficult part of this decision is that the new boat is a Nordic Tug 39. Thats right, no sails. Bill the powerboater. I think I could pull it off although Christy has her doubts. We could still go to the Bahamas and frequent all the spots we love. Hell, its only got a 4 foot draft, we could get into places we've never dreamed of trying before.

The boats clean, needs minimal work, has a centerline Queen berth, a nice layout and Christy's personal favorite.....a big ass fridge.

I'd have to forget all the rules of the road but I'm getting older so thats bound to happen anyway. I could just plow along indifferent to the havoc left behind in our wake.

If all goes as planned we will be a 2 boat family by the end of the month. Only one boat has a name so we'd like a little help naming the other one. I'm leaning towards “Bullshitter”

March 20, 2013. Thats right. Happy Birthday to me. What could be more appropriate than our new engine showing up on my birthday. So at 1500 on Friday we revved up the crane and hoisted the engine high above the ground. Instead of lifting the engine from the lifting points we decided to lift it from the aft motor mount attachment points. This enabled us to slip the engine straight down the companionway with very little difficulty. It actually went in easier than the old engine had come out. By 1600 the engine was sitting in the salon and everyone was on their way home for the weekend. My weekend would be spent a little differently. After arriving at the boat on Saturday morning the first order of business was to pick some appropriate music. Since a good portion of the day would be spent lifting the engine over a 1 foot high wall and moving it 9 feet aft by myself some inspiration might be needed. Using a come-along, a lever, an inclined plane and brute force reminded me of the slaves in Egypt building the pyramids. So Matisyahu it was. I needed Christy's help for about an hour at the end as we coerced the 27 inch tall engine under the 27 ½ inch opening and into the engine room. I only own one Matisyahu album but listening to it over and over again passed the time quickly and the engine was hanging in the engine room in about 5 hours.

After getting the engine into the engine room I had to suspend it from the ceiling and get the planking out from underneath it. Once the wood was out of the way I attached the mounts and lowered the engine onto its bed. Unfortunately when I lowered the engine into place I hit a patch of bad luck. The engine bed was a hair too high. I knew that it was going to be close and it is but its on the wrong side of close. Crap.

This leaves me with having to cut out a good portion of the engine bed and rebuilding it to allow the engine to mate up with the transmission at the proper height. Now this leaves me with 2 choices. I can reverse the process and get the engine completely out of the way or I can suspend the engine as high as I can and work beneath it. While I’m not a big fan of option number 2 thats where I'm going to start.

January 27, 2013.

No matter where you are there’s always potential in every sunset. A beautiful sunset can almost make you forget just how cold it is. That is until you take your eyes off the horizon....

Its cold, progress is slow but there is progress and as long as there’s a few sunbeams things will all work out.

January 9, 2013. Oh hell no. I know its not much but it is snow and its freakin' me out. Is it Winter getting it out of its system or could it be a harbinger of whats to come. Either way, I don't like it.

In the middle of winter work is slow enough that we've had to lay a couple of people off. Less work means we need less parts so yes, this week I had to lay my wife, the parts queen off. Crap. It should only be for a few weeks so things could be worse. Since we're here for the winter I decided to catch up on my dental care. Ughh, I'm halfway through $4000 in repairs. In spite of the weather, layoffs and dental issues things aren't really too bad. The engine room walls have been reinsulated, the new engine is ordered and will arrive on schedule, the new mainsail is being built and the crew seems to enjoy our winter digs.

December 19, 2012. Happy Birthday Allyson.

So I was inside one of the new Bavarias the other day when I encountered this odd little pillow thing. Instead of the traditional armrests one might typically find there was this table pillow.

The armrest continued up and around the small table at the end of the settee. What the purpose is, I don't have a clue although it would be handy if you spilled your beer. Now that we're here for the winter we're going to have to deal with the cold. Its been pretty decent here so far but on the few days that its gotten cold, I thought there was a good chance I might die. When I talk about the cold we've seen I’m talking 40 degrees. 20 degrees just might prove fatal. The engine has also been removed from the boat and sits on a pallet beneath the boat, so progress is being made. Oh, and its almost Christmas, so from our crew to yours click here for our own holiday special.... MERRY CHRISTMAS

December 5, 2012.

Sometimes all you need is a warm place in the sun.....

December 1, 2012.

I could say I've been out of touch, unable to log in, too busy or have some type of writers block but I'd be lying. I've just been in a shitty mood and I'm not sure why. I was having a hard time seeing the humorous side of anything, why, I dunno. Its not like I was rooting for Romney. I sat down and started to write a dozen times but I was unimpressed with my efforts. I think I might be pouting. I've been watching through Facebook as friends and acquaintances head south for the season. I'm happy for them but I'm dying a bit as well. I checked our log and by this day last year we had already bagged a dozen bugs. Uggh. But I'll get over it. Anyway....

Things at work are going really well. We fixed a record amount of broken boat shit this year and broken cruisers have been fixed and have gone south. The yard is 85% full with winter storage boats and it looks like everyone we've committed to will fit. There’s even a reasonable amount of work to keep everyone busy for the winter.

The Veranda is on the hard and disassembly has begun in earnest. First thing on the list was the pulling of the mast. It went pretty well and the mast now lies beside the boat rather than protruding upwards towards the sky. After removing the mast the next thing was the removal of the hard bimini and dodger to allow access for the engines removal. It was a lot more difficult than I had envisioned but the obstructions are gone.

Before being able to remove the engine the generator had to come out. Anyone familiar with my personal piece of shit Fisher Panda generator knows that getting this abomination out of the boat was to be my highlight for autumn. It might have been the sight of the generator lying on a pallet under the boat that broke my personal funk. Ding dong the witch is dead.

The engine has been stripped in an effort to shed some of its reported 500 pounds. Everything has been disconnected and enough levers, fulcrums, inclined planes and block and tackles have been used to make an ancient Egyptian green with envy. One last bit o' finagling on Monday and the mighty Westerbeke will leave the boat after a 27 year stay.

After that there will be a few months of painting, rewiring and re-plumbing before the new engine (hopefully) slips into place. It feels good to be back on the horse....

November 3, 2012.

We've just finished up a very busy week. We ended up pulling 35 boats from the water last weekend. Then on Monday and Tuesday we monitored everything as Sandy swept through. The rest of the week was spent putting boats back in the water and getting the boat winterization ball rolling for the boats that stayed on the hard.

My Mom lives at the Jersey shore, pretty much right at ground zero as far as Sandy is concerned. Her house is 13 feet above sea level so her only damage was the loss of a few roofing shingles. People living a short walk away had their houses destroyed so she was very lucky. Unfortunately shes got no electric and it looks as if it could be a while before power is restored.

I was talking to her on Thursday evening and asked her what she did that day. She told me that she spent the day sitting in the car. Excuse me? It was 50 degrees in the house so she spent the day reading the newspaper sitting in the car with the windows rolled up depending on the sun beating down to stay warm. Crap. There’s some really cold weather in the immediate future so I talked Mom into coming to stay with us.

Shes not up for a drive like that so on Saturday morning I drove up to Jersey to pick her up. Fortuitously, I have a customer 70 miles up the road thats had a battery failure and I can swing by and hook em' up with a new one. So I was on the road before 0600, met the owner and had the battery in before 0800 and was sitting Moms driveway by 1100. Nice.

Now my Mom is staying with us in Annapolis until power is restored in her part of New Jersey. So what I’m getting from this turn of events is that maybe there might be a higher being in charge of everything after all. I mean, what are the chances that we go south for 6 years in a row and when we opt to stay here Mom needs us.

Higher being, dumb luck or just plain ol' Karma, I dunno but for us, things are working out just fine.

October 28, 2012.

Lets talk about the weather. I don't really want to but if I don't I’ll be the only one on the east coast not talking about the weather. Sandy is being a bit of a bitch. Early in the week she looked as if she was going to stay well offshore. Then in midweek there were predictions of an abrupt turn to the west. Damn.

Last year during hurricane Irene we kept the Veranda in her slip and dutifully checked her lines all night. The wind blowing the water out of the Chesapeake was canceled by the higher than normal tides. So we sat in our protected slip with no ill effects. Was there some risk? Yeah. Did we dodge a bullet? Maybe.

So, faced with our second relevant hurricane in 2 years we decided we were living on borrowed time and pulled the boat. A couple of dozen boaters called up asking to be pulled before Sandy's Monday arrival. So we spent Friday moving boats around on the hard in an effort to make space for the sudden influx of new boats.

Then we spent Saturday and Sunday pulling and blocking about 30 boats. We worked for a bit on Monday finishing up last minute details and we're as ready as we're gonna be. So we sent everyone home and now we'll play it by ear.

We're safely tucked away in our rental home. The wind is in the 20's, the tide is normal and for now, things look good.

October 16, 2012.

Yeah, its official. We're dirt dwellers, albeit temporarily. Because of the stayin' up north due to the whole tearing the boat apart for the refit thing we needed a place to live. Hopefully a place warm enough that I would not have to write a blog post where the words icicles and testicles appear in the same sentence.

We have friends that are heading south for the winter on their sailboat. Fortunately for us they have a lovely home here in Annapolis that they've agreed to rent to us for the winter. So we're moving to Beverly..... Hills that is, swimmin' pools, movie stars. Yeah, yada yada...are there anymore words to that song? I dunno. Yeah, anyway, for the time being we're now officially CLODS (Cruisers living on Dirt).

We thought we'd move in over the course of a few days but the plan accelerated itself a little bit. All my clothes filled 3 cardboard boxes and Christys only filled 4 (not counting shoes of course). Since we were ahead of the curve we grabbed all of our food and headed over to the house. When I say “grabbed our food” I’m talking 2 truckloards.

The townhouse is laid out very much like the townhouse we left behind in New Jersey including a large closet style pantry. Christy started filling the pantry as I lugged boxes of food upstairs and a funny thing happened. Before we knew it every shelf was packed and the pantry was officially full. And we still had a shitload of food in boxes. I guess this is what happens when you stow food in every nook and cranny on the boat; you end up carrying a lot more food than you imagined. Storing can goods under the seating in the living room like we do on the boat would be a little awkward so we'll have to work something else out.

I even found a few surprises. I gave up milk chocolate last year but we took some dark chocolate with us to the Bahamas. I had some every once in a while but was under impression that we had run out so imagine my surprise when I uncovered this little stash. Since it won't fit in the pantry I'm gonna have to take one for the team and eat it all as quickly as possible.

Autumn is happening around us, we're firmly entrenched on land, the boat comes out in a week or so and then the real work begins....

October 13, 2012. So its boat show time again. Every year its pretty much the same ole’ same ole’. The same boat manufacturers showing this seasons latest and the greatest.  Every once in a while there’s something new that makes you stop and say WOW.  Sometimes it’s “Wow”, how cool or why didn’t I think of that but a surprising amount of the time its more like “Wow, What the hell were they thinking”.  A new trend I saw this year was the deck mounted winches on the new generation of catamarans. In the past the winches were mounted on the cabin top somewhat in the helmsman’s line of vision.  So to get rid of this possible safety issue the trend seems to be to mount the winches down on an angled panel adjacent to the instrument panel.  The way the lines are now led up and over a stainless plate mounted on the corner of the cabin top just seems kinda wrong to me.

Years ago lines had to be led “clean”.  Now it seems that with stainless plates, electric winches and fancy schmancy high strength line anything goes. I do enjoy looking through the vendor booths in search of something new and cool.   Since we’re starting our refit I did spend some quality time with the people at Garmin and Beta Marine.   But on a whole I’ve become a little boat show cynical.  One thing that hasn’t changed for me is using the boat show as an opportunity to meet people.  I interact with a lot of people on the internet by either reading their blog or by them following ours.  I said it before but it always freaks me out a bit meeting people who’ve been following our blog and know so much about us before we’ve met. This year we met 3 new to us couples.   Just before the boat show we were able to spend a few hours with Paul & Deb of s/v Kelly Nicole.  We took the skiff out to their boat and picked them up for a little river cruise followed by dinner at Davis’ Pub.  We’ve been following each other’s blog for more than a year so the playing field was a little more level.  They’ve been sailing in Lake Ontario for years and their plan for warm latitude sailing has been suddenly accelerated.  It was good to finally meet them as they headed down to Florida to start another chapter in their sailing life. Then there was a guy I met through work.  Mike was in the yard to sea trial and ultimately buy a beautiful Baba 40.  He recognized me from the blog and we did get to spend some time during the work day talking about boats. Finally while we were walking through the show we ran into Walt & Sally.  We’ve chatted through the blog so they knew we had alcohol in common so we immediately headed over to Armadillos for a couple of cocktails.  We talked about all things boating and were enjoying each others company when the phone rang.  It seems there was a problem at the marina. A customer had left earlier in the day in his sailboat and was reporting an issue.  He said he sailed away earlier in the day and now out in the middle of the bay the boat wouldn’t start.  He said he was going to sail back to the dock and could I be there to help them in docking.  I assured him that with the crowded harbor and the current wind direction sailing onto our docks was not an option.  I advised him to sail close to town and to call TowBoat US to aid him in getting onto the dock.  He agreed but imagine my surprise an hour later when he called and said that he had gotten the engine started and was now safely tied up at our dock BUT now the engine won’t shut down.  Won’t shut down?  He swears the engine won’t shut off.  Crap. He seems to be pretty unfamiliar with his boat so we’ve got to get up and head back to the marina. So we said a quick goodbye and headed back through the boat show. We pushed our way through the crowd with a sense of urgency. We made it back to the water taxi and after a short wait we were whisked back across the river. We double timed the short walk back to the marina and headed down to the waterfront. Sure enough, when we walked up to the boat it was still running. The owner started going through his theories on what was going on or whose fault it might be. I stepped into the cockpit and glanced at the engine panel. He had the key off and the engine was still running. Imagine his surprise when I explained to him that when you shut the key off you were shutting off the power to the panel which includes the kill button. It turned out that he was trying to start the boat by pressing the large red button clearly marked “Off”. But conversely he was trying to kill the thing by just turning the key rather than pressing the big red button. Once I was sure that Captain Alzheimer was all straightened out we headed home to the boat to start packing. Thats right we're moving....

October 2, 2012. I'm noticing a disturbing trend. On my Monday morning jaunt to work I used to catch the sunrise during the trip. Now I leave in the dark and if I’m lucky I catch a predawn display.....Ugh, the days are getting shorter.

October 1, 2012. So what do you mean that even though I didn't open my thru hull but yet continued to pump furiously and the hose blew off and drenched my Electro San's circuit boards in fecal matter that I didn't bother to clean off and the thing failed that its not a warranty issue? Yes, that was one sentence.

I mean, if you drench sensitive electronics in fecal fluid and don't bother to clean it up are you really surprised that it fails? And then when you show up to have it repaired you're surprised that its not a warranty item? Seriously? I thinking that people like this flush the most intelligent part of their body down the commode in the morning. And hey look its Boat Show.....

September 21, 2012.

Lets talk about something we all have in common.  Thats right, death.  The big D, the final D.

Two years ago a dockmate, Tom, passed away.  He was a full time liveaboard and one day he just didn't make it topside.  While thats sad enough, the fact that his boat is still sitting there unattended after 2 years makes things just a bit more gloomy.

A leaking thru hull allowed the water to rise above the engine.  As a result the boats interior is pretty well shot and the engine may never run again.  The problem was addressed but the boat still just sits, slowly falling into disrepair.  Even the poor dink is starting to fade away as it grows weeds.

The impetus for this topic is driven by a recent death that struck a little closer to home.  Davey, the longtime travel lift operator at the Annapolis Harbor Boat Yard passed away this week.  He had been a fixture on the waterfront here in Eastport for more than 30 years.  He was soft spoken and kinda gruff in a monosyllabic sorta way.  He was good at his job and didn't suffer fools...at all.  Whether it was regular tasks on a normal day or in a middle of the night emergency,  Davey was a cornerstone here at the boatyard.

His passing deeply hurt those who knew him best.  My boss, Johan decided to write a farewell tribute of sorts, when I read his thoughts on Daveys passing I was truly touched by the sentiment he put forth.

“Few times in life can any single person affect so many. This was the case with David Sells. During the week Davey, as his coworkers and friends called him worked diligently in the boatyard between First and Second streets in Eastport. He was the last lift operator for Trumpy Yachts, the first for Annapolis Harbor Boat Yard, the first for Steve’s Yacht Repairs and he retired a bit over a year ago much to the disappointment of many that had the privilege of working alongside him. His work ethic, dedication and timeliness have never been matched by anyone before or since. When the travel lift that Davey ran for nearly 30 years was sold and being disassembled Davey was the last to say good-bye, even signing the support  just before the last piece was pulled apart.

Friday night through Saturday the other side of Davey came out and there was an entirely new character to be introduced as “Budweiser Dave.” Bud-Dave was always the life of the party! The first one to be on the dance floor, the last one off the dance floor and always with a Budweiser in his hands. At times he was like the energizer bunny… never stopping except for a fresh beer or a quick pit stop. Then just as quickly he was back on the dance floor. He shared his passion and enjoyment of life with anyone that would listen and more than likely a few that wouldn’t. A gentle man that took his job seriously and his playtime just as seriously.

This morning on September 13, 2012 David Sells passed away. He is survived by a loving family and more friends than any person could wish for in a lifetime.

In memory of Davey and Budweiser Dave please join us for a beer lifting this evening from your location of choice. The only requirements are your beer must be a Budweiser and close friends should be nearby. Davey, you will be missed by many and always in our hearts with memories of the great times we had together. “


So on Friday evening after work all of the employees stayed to hoist a Bud in Daveys honor.  What was even more touching was the fact that we weren't alone.  More than a hundred locals had heard the news of Daveys passing and joined us in tribute.  Customers, boat brokers (apparently they do have hearts), competitors, friends and even the barkeep from Daveys favorite watering hole all showed up to pay tribute.

Once again Johan stepped up and gave a moving speech as he epoxied a huge plastic Budweiser bottle to the top of one of our pilings in remembrance of a good man.  Godspeed Davey.