Archive for March, 2009

Worth the Wait

Despite the many obstacles that we have had to overcome in getting our boat seaworthy, recent events indicate that we are in fact going to leave the dock soon.. For starters, Wes and Tiffany officially joined us late last week, so we have a full crew! This has provided us with much-needed rejuvenation as we are completing final tasks (provisioning, making repairs, planning routes, etc.).

Tiffany's self-portrait

Tiffany's self-portrait

Today was a banner day in terms of our preparation. We got up early and motored for an hour to another marina in order to have patches welded onto our water tanks by the local expert. This was the last major repair for sailing vessel Pura Vida, and it went quite well, taking only a few hours. Since we had some unanticipated free time in the afternoon, we decided to take Pura Vida out sailing for the first time.

We were very fortunate to have our friend Ken Liddiard on board, a Rhodesian whom we met a couple of weeks prior as he was making the rounds at the marina. Ken is extremely knowledgeable about sailing, having sailed around the world in a boat without an engine back in the 1960’s. Ken also seems to have boundless energy, so thanks in no small part to him, our first sail was both fun and productive.  For example, when he wasn’t telling us stories about his time in the Seychelles, Ken made his way about the boat making suggestions about running rigging, stowage, etc. Also, since we had around 10 knots of wind, he encouraged us to try out our two beautiful spinnakers, both of which seem to be in great shape. All of us took a turn at the helm and got a feel for various points of sail. We even got to see some wildlife as several schools of sting rays went by!

Ken hauling on the topping lift

Ken hauling on the topping lift

 

  

Wes setting the spinnaker

Wes setting the spinnaker

 

 

 

Upon our return to Fernandina Beach, we picked up a mooring buoy, and Tiffany and I cooked a mean lasagna. Over dinner, Ken talked with us about our options for getting down to Panama. While we had initially planned to take the windward passage from the Bahamas, stopping in Jamaica, Ken encouraged us to consider the passage around the west coast of Cuba or even staying with the easterly coasts of Florida down to Latin America with stops in Cancun and Belize. Either sounds pretty good to me, but from a sailing perspective it sounds as though the latter is better (less beating into the wind). Ken also encouraged us to invest in a windsurfer in order to have a means of recreation, exercise, and fishing (whoever is surfing trawls a line and returns with dinner!) while at anchor. Despite that we have little to no extra room on the boat, I think I’m sold.
Sunset at Fernandina Beach, FL

Sunset at Fernandina Beach, FL

So with one whole day of sailing under our belt, we are just about ready to go! All that remains to be done is to finish the water tank repair, make final trips to the stores, get rid of two vehicles (one on ebay, the other to the local mechanic), get immunizations, and get our dive tanks inspected. Minor details, right? We’re hoping to be ready to go by Sunday, although a front is expected to blow in, so we’ll see…it won’t be long now!  

The Iron Jibs

It’s been nearly 5 months since we first moved aboard the boat last October.  About six of those weeks have been spent away from the boat on trips to Bermuda (to see friends and ask Lauren to marry me), San Diego (for work), and Kansas (for Christmas and then later to get married).  The remaining time has largely been spent working on the boat.  It seems like a long time, but the daily log of repairs and upgrades has close to 250 items on it now, and that doesn’t include any of the time spent shopping online, provisioning, and researching the seemingly endless list of gear, supplies, and reference material that’s needed for this sort of undertaking.  Five months was definitely longer than we’d planned, but there’s a big difference between getting a boat ready to go out for a day sail and being ready to shove off for a couple of years.

Early multihull designer Dick Newick said that “You can have two of three factors in a multihull – speed, comfort, and economy,” but you can’t have all three in the same boat.  An 18-year old Privilege 39 was a good compromise for us in terms of these three.  Performance was definitely moderate, but the age provided low cost for the amount of boat we were getting, and she was definitely about as comfortable as could be expected for an ocean-going sailboat in the 40-foot range.  As our surveyor noted, she had seen a high use-to-maintenance ratio for at least a couple years, if not more; she was a well-equipped, seaworthy platform in need of numerous small repairs and a port engine rebuild.

The last five months of repairs would be too much for one blog, so I though I’d start off with a description of the work we’ve done on the engines as part of the preparation for cruising.  Both hulls are fitted with 3-cylinder fresh-water cooled Yanmar diesel engines (3GM30F).  The starboard engine was new in 1999 and the port engine had undergone minor reconditioning in 1999.  Low compression on the port engine during the survey indicated that a rebuild would be prudent, so we pulled the engine in the summer of 2008 on a weekend trip to the boat and left it with Wayne York and Robert at Tradewinds for a rebuild.  Wayne and Robert were recommended by several people at the Yacht Basin, and we would heartily recommend them as well.  They did great work and were very helpful in answering questions and teaching us several important things about our engines. 

Starboard engine & engine room before rebuild

Starboard engine & engine room before rebuild

Pulling the engine ourselves could be the topic of a blog or two, but it basically involved disconnecting all the hoses, wiring, and prop shaft, draining the fluids, and then manually working the engine (roughly 350 lbs) up onto blocks of wood and dragging it back to the rear of the engine room, which is like a small L-shaped cave with a vertical entrance.  Once the engine was near the rear of the engine room, we rigged a sling through the motor mount brackets and connected the sling to a hoist we’d rigged using the boom and mainsheet blocks.  Hoisting the engine was a four-person job, with one person guiding the engine from below, one guiding from above, one person holding the boom in place, and one person slowly winching the engine through the engine room hatch up to the deck.  By hoisting the engine up by its aft end, we were able to fit it through the hatch with only inches to spare.  Once on deck, we re-rigged the hoist to use the proper engine lift points and swung the engine, hanging from the boom, over to the dock beside the boat where it was lowered into a dock cart and wheeled to the truck.  Since our makeshift engine hoist was actually part of the boat’s rigging, we had to lift the engine up into the truck by hand, which is quite a job for two people, but wasn’t too bad once we had some help from a fellow boat owner on the dock.  After the engine was rebuilt, we reversed this process until the engine was resting on its mounts again. 

Dragging & rocking the engine between the mounts & the aft end of the engine room.  Wes's back is against the ceiling of the engine room.
Dragging & rocking the engine between the mounts & the aft end of the engine room. Wes’s back is against the ceiling of the engine room.

 

Working the engine trough the engine room hatch.

Working the engine trough the engine room hatch.

 

Lowering the engine into the dock cart.

Lowering the engine into the dock cart.

 

First attempt to lift the engine into the truck.  The successfull combo was was on one end and me and our friend on the other.

First attempt to lift the engine into the truck. The successfull combo was Wes on one end and me and our friend on the other.

This process was also repeated for the starboard engine which, unknown to us, had been seized by the previous owner on the delivery trip prior to completing the sale of the boat.  I wasn’t able to be present at the final sale, and I definitely wouldn’t make that mistake again.  The root cause for the seizing of the starboard engine was corrosion in the exhaust mixing elbow, which led to water in the cylinders, especially the #1 cylinder, which Robert spent the better part of a day with a sledge hammer to removing.

In addition to rebuilding both engines, we made several other engine-related upgrades and repairs, including re-building and re-installing both instrument panels — one was inoperable and the other had been after-market installed inside the engine room.  We also added temperature sensors to the temperature alarms already present on the panels to give us better feedback on the coolant temperature.  Both engines were re-fitted with new A1 fuel line and new Racor 500FG top-loading fuel filters with vacuum pressure gauges to indicate filter status.  Intake water hoses were replaced with high-quality intake hose, both mufflers were replaced, and new water strainers were added.  For good measure, the port engine was also fitted with a new exhaust mixing elbow.  The failed starboard engine starter was replaced, a failed port water pump was replaced, and several wiring improvements were made.  To ensure good fuel quality for the trip, both tanks were drained, and the port tank, which seemed to be in worse shape, was cleaned.  This was a week or so task that involved cutting access panels into the baffled, stainless tank, cleaning the tank, and then installing custom plates to cover the new access holes.

A fair portion of our preparation time has been spent rebuilding and re-fitting the engines and cleaning the port tank, but we’re hopeful that it will result in reliable engine operation for the duration of the trip.  There’s nothing worse than not being able to trust your engine to get you out of a tough situation or tight spot.  Hopefully the up-front prep work and the reasonable set of spares we’re taking will keep at least one of them running reliably throughout the trip.