Hi y'all!
We're back from Kemah and our SECOND survey and sea trial. This one went much better than the last, though the weather was not nearly as nice. The majority of the survey was on Sunday. We got there about 8:30 and Lou, the surveyor, had been on the boat for more than an hour. It was not a pretty day. It was cold, rainy and windy. The high was 43 on Sunday. Fortunately we spent most of the day below deck checking out all the stuff there.
There were a few small things here and there that needed to be fixed but there were also a couple of major things that it was good we found before we own the boat. Issue #1 was the batteries wouldn't hold a charge so we weren't able to start either the engine or diesel generator until the starter battery was replaced. The owner had a representative / manager on the boat so he replaced the starter battery that day. The house batteries were to be replaced by 12/31 but a spare set was on board Monday morning so we could do the sea trial and test out all the electronics. Once we were able to get the engine and generator started we quickly discovered the raw (sea) water pump for the generator was leaking.
This boat has the "stateroom" forward. Aft there is a cabin with a bed and where another cabin would usually be is an office with desk and chair (and an apple computer!) In the office is also a clothes washer and dryer (one unit). From the looks of it, the washer / dryer has never been used. We weren't able to get it to work but it may have been user error.
The owner is paying to replace the batteries. We asked for a price concession in order to cover the cost of having the water pump replaced, though we'll probably do that work ourselves. We will cover the cost of the washer / dryer and a few small repairs like replacing one hose, a couple of hose clamps and a couple of lights.
Monday morning we left the marina at 8:30 to take the boat to the boat yard and have it hauled out so everything normally under water could be inspected. Same thing as last time, the boat looks BIG sitting in the water but it is ginormus when it is hanging up in the air. Not the same as last time, we didn't find much wrong. At this point it was pretty obvious we were going to buy this boat so while it was out of the water we had the zincs replaced. Time for a lesson.
I don't really understand this completely myself but here's my layman term explanation (with lots of help from Susan). To protect the propeller (expensive and important), pieces of zinc are attached to the propeller shaft. Here is a description I found online that may help.
A natural phenomenon is that two different metals immersed in sea water, or any electrolyte, develop voltage and current. The metal that is most active electrically (more positive) will deteriorate while protecting the metal that is less positive. If both of these metals are important to us, we can attach another metal, more positive than the other two, which will deteriorate first and protect the more important metals. This sacrificial metal (in this case zinc) will erode first, protecting the boat metal. The propeller on this boat is bronze and it is attached to a stainless steel shaft. Left "unprotected" the propeller will change from a pretty golden color to pink and then eventually red due to a loss of metal. At the stage where the propeller has turned red, it is brittle and very easily broken. The zinc will deteriorate over time. That time will be between one and several months, depending on other conditions. In the case of this boat there are "zincs" attached to the main propeller shaft as well as to the propeller shafts of the bow thruster. All that to say, we had the zincs replaced while the boat was out of the water. The recommendations I've seen say you should replace the zincs once they have deteriorated to 50% of their original size. In most cases it will be less expensive to pay a diver (Susan) to go underwater and replace your zincs for you but if the boat is already out of the water it makes sense to get it done then.
Once we were finished at the boat yard the boat was put back in the water and we took it out into Galveston Bay to sail it for a bit and make sure all the sails, running rigging, auto pilot, electronics and winches worked properly. Running rigging are the ropes that are used to move various things related to the sails. Those ropes, or lines, go by different names. Halyards are the lines that pull the sail up (mainsails up the mast, staysails up to the top of the forward stay), sheets are the lines that are used to trim the sails so they have the best position in relation to the wind in order to get the most speed.
Everything worked! And no sails fell down! Monday was a whopping 3 degrees warmer than Sunday with no rain and very little wind. We did not make great speed on our sea trial but it all worked well. I took the helm for a while but it doesn't take much effort to sail a boat in as light a wind as we had Monday. When we were satisfied that we had tested everything we headed back to the marina.
That pretty much covers the survey and sea trial. Once we finished up at the boat Susan and I went back to the bar and grill at the marina for a late lunch for the second day in a row. Though the food was good, that wasn't what brought us back. They have a fireplace and both days we sat as close as we could so we could put our feet in the fire and thaw them. Brrrr it was cold!
We've signed an offer with the few contingencies that need to be addressed for us to buy the boat, all of which we fully expect to be accepted by the owner. So in the next week or so we expect to close on this boat and start the next chapter of this adventure. I'm smiling at the thought of it. We're buying a sailboat!
Brian
Wednesday, December 31, 2014
Sunday, December 21, 2014
Let's try this again
Hi All,
It's been a bit since I updated the blog so I thought I'd take a few minutes to let you know the latest. The owner of My Liberty did accept our offer so we have the survey scheduled for Sunday the 28th with the haul out and last part of the survey to be done on Monday the 29th.
Over the last week all the stuff we bought at the St Petersburg Boat Show showed up in the mail. We've bought a satellite phone and a data device to hook up to it, it'll act like a modem so we can connect a computer or a router to it if we need emergency internet or email access. We went with GlobalStar which does not have coverage everywhere in the world but does cover all around the US and Caribbean. We haven't signed up for the service yet as you buy a number of minutes per month or year, no need to start that yet.
We also bought two self inflating life jackets and PLB's. The life jackets are very light and comfortable to wear so you WILL wear them and if you end up in the water, they will automatically inflate. They also have a stainless steel D ring built into them in order to connect a jackline. Jackline: think of a tether that you hook from you to a line that runs from one end of the boat to the other. You can now move from the front of the boat to the back of the boat and can't fall overboard. At least when you're up on deck by yourself at night or in bad weather the life jacket and jackline will always be used. There may be other times as well. Then there is the PLB or Personal Locator Beacon. PLB's, when activated, send a distress signal through a satellite, to NOAA and then the Coast Guard. The ones we bought also have GPS so they will transmit the location of the personal that has activated it. Turn it on and help is on the way. Not to be overly dramatic but if someone falls overboard while everyone else is below deck, finding that person may be very difficult. Knowing that the coast guard is coming and they know exactly where that PLB is will keep the level of panic down. Some, anyway.
We're a week away from the survey and sea trial and I'm very anxious for the week to pass. I think we're going to end up with this boat and I'm excited to get it done.
Nothing more to add for now and I probably won't post again until we're in Kemah. We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. As someone famous once said, "Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night."
Brian
It's been a bit since I updated the blog so I thought I'd take a few minutes to let you know the latest. The owner of My Liberty did accept our offer so we have the survey scheduled for Sunday the 28th with the haul out and last part of the survey to be done on Monday the 29th.
Over the last week all the stuff we bought at the St Petersburg Boat Show showed up in the mail. We've bought a satellite phone and a data device to hook up to it, it'll act like a modem so we can connect a computer or a router to it if we need emergency internet or email access. We went with GlobalStar which does not have coverage everywhere in the world but does cover all around the US and Caribbean. We haven't signed up for the service yet as you buy a number of minutes per month or year, no need to start that yet.
We also bought two self inflating life jackets and PLB's. The life jackets are very light and comfortable to wear so you WILL wear them and if you end up in the water, they will automatically inflate. They also have a stainless steel D ring built into them in order to connect a jackline. Jackline: think of a tether that you hook from you to a line that runs from one end of the boat to the other. You can now move from the front of the boat to the back of the boat and can't fall overboard. At least when you're up on deck by yourself at night or in bad weather the life jacket and jackline will always be used. There may be other times as well. Then there is the PLB or Personal Locator Beacon. PLB's, when activated, send a distress signal through a satellite, to NOAA and then the Coast Guard. The ones we bought also have GPS so they will transmit the location of the personal that has activated it. Turn it on and help is on the way. Not to be overly dramatic but if someone falls overboard while everyone else is below deck, finding that person may be very difficult. Knowing that the coast guard is coming and they know exactly where that PLB is will keep the level of panic down. Some, anyway.
We're a week away from the survey and sea trial and I'm very anxious for the week to pass. I think we're going to end up with this boat and I'm excited to get it done.
Nothing more to add for now and I probably won't post again until we're in Kemah. We wish everyone a very Merry Christmas. As someone famous once said, "Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night."
Brian
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
On Second Thought...
After sleeping on it and doing more research we decided there was too much wrong with the boat in Florida. We are willing and even looking forward to doing some work on a boat but some things are just not reasonable to expect us to do ourselves. Having a professional replace the vast majority of electronics on the boat would be very expensive and it's not something I feel we could do without perhaps making some costly mistakes.
So now, plan B. Plan B is actually a return to a previous plan A. There is a boat in Kemah, just outside of Houston, that we've looked at and even made an offer on a month or so ago. The owner rejected our offer so we moved on to the boat in Florida. Now we're back. The boat in Houston costs more but when you add all the repairs and replacements that would need to be done on the boat in Florida, the boat in Houston actually comes out as a better deal.
So tonight I signed the paperwork making an official offer on "My Liberty" and sent it to our broker. My Liberty is the name of the boat now but as previously mentioned, we'll be changing her name to Good Morning Vietnam. We've had a little back channel communication so we're pretty sure the owner is going to accept this offer. Assuming they do, we'll be scheduling another survey and sea trial. Getting to Kemah will be a lot easier and less expensive than getting to St Petersburg. Keeping the boat in Kemah will be less expensive as well.
If you'd like to look at My Liberty, click on this link or copy and paste it if it isn't a live link.
http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/2001/Hunter-460-2729013/Houston/TX/United-States#.VIe8TTHF9t1
I like the blue hull and have all along but I'm not much of a fan of the arrow. Whenever the hull needs to be repainted, the arrow will be history.
I'll digress for a minute, back to last weekend. While the trip didn't result in us buying the boat, we did actually learn quite a bit. The St Petersburg Boat Show was last weekend and we spent all four days, Thursday through Sunday there. All day, every day. We probably went on no more than four or five boats the entire time. All day long there were hour long seminars on all sorts of topics. We attended three seminars pretty much every day. We attended two seminars on weather, sailors need to know how to read weather maps and have some ability to predict whats going to happen with the weather. Lots more to learn here. The last seminar we went to was a guy showing the 25 things you need to take with you when you go cruising. From a yard or so of tulle (the fabric used to make wedding veils but very handy for mosquito / no-see-um netting) to using a feed bucket hung over the side of the boat to catch rain water. Lots of neat and inexpensive ideas. All this to say, there are lots of things going on at a boat show besides just looking at new boats.
I'll leave you with a couple of definitions that as we looked at what it was going to take to get the boat in Florida up to snuff we realized were dead on.
BOAT = Break Out Another Thousand
which then relates to...
Boat Unit = $1,000.
Brian
So now, plan B. Plan B is actually a return to a previous plan A. There is a boat in Kemah, just outside of Houston, that we've looked at and even made an offer on a month or so ago. The owner rejected our offer so we moved on to the boat in Florida. Now we're back. The boat in Houston costs more but when you add all the repairs and replacements that would need to be done on the boat in Florida, the boat in Houston actually comes out as a better deal.
So tonight I signed the paperwork making an official offer on "My Liberty" and sent it to our broker. My Liberty is the name of the boat now but as previously mentioned, we'll be changing her name to Good Morning Vietnam. We've had a little back channel communication so we're pretty sure the owner is going to accept this offer. Assuming they do, we'll be scheduling another survey and sea trial. Getting to Kemah will be a lot easier and less expensive than getting to St Petersburg. Keeping the boat in Kemah will be less expensive as well.
If you'd like to look at My Liberty, click on this link or copy and paste it if it isn't a live link.
http://www.yachtworld.com/boats/2001/Hunter-460-2729013/Houston/TX/United-States#.VIe8TTHF9t1
I like the blue hull and have all along but I'm not much of a fan of the arrow. Whenever the hull needs to be repainted, the arrow will be history.
I'll digress for a minute, back to last weekend. While the trip didn't result in us buying the boat, we did actually learn quite a bit. The St Petersburg Boat Show was last weekend and we spent all four days, Thursday through Sunday there. All day, every day. We probably went on no more than four or five boats the entire time. All day long there were hour long seminars on all sorts of topics. We attended three seminars pretty much every day. We attended two seminars on weather, sailors need to know how to read weather maps and have some ability to predict whats going to happen with the weather. Lots more to learn here. The last seminar we went to was a guy showing the 25 things you need to take with you when you go cruising. From a yard or so of tulle (the fabric used to make wedding veils but very handy for mosquito / no-see-um netting) to using a feed bucket hung over the side of the boat to catch rain water. Lots of neat and inexpensive ideas. All this to say, there are lots of things going on at a boat show besides just looking at new boats.
I'll leave you with a couple of definitions that as we looked at what it was going to take to get the boat in Florida up to snuff we realized were dead on.
BOAT = Break Out Another Thousand
which then relates to...
Boat Unit = $1,000.
Brian
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Survey and Sea Trial
The day for survey and sea trial final got here. We met our broker, surveyor and the seller's broker at the marina just before 9:00. The surveyor ended up being a team rather than just the one person I had contracted with. If I had my choice I would have preferred to have just one person. It didn't take as long with two but Susan and I had to split up, each following one of them around to learn what we could about what they found as well as the various systems on the boat.
Besides the electronics (which most of the components didn't work, not a complete surprise) and a/c, an important aspect of learning the boat has to do with electricity. When you're at the dock the boat is plugged into shore power, in our case, two 30 amp lines. Once away from the dock, there are several options. There are basically three different batteries on this boat, one to start the engine and generator, a second battery or set of batteries to power the various electrical needs of the boat, electronics, refrigerator / freezer, microwave and lights called the "house batteries". There is a second set of "house batteries" as backup to the first. Some things on the boat run on DC power and some run on AC power so there is an inverter to convert the DC to AC. When the generator is running it produces AC to power the AC appliances and to power a battery charger that charges the batteries. Confused? So are we. But hopefully after helping the surveyor do the tests, we have a better idea of how it all works. It's a bit more complicated than a house.
We inspected the deck, all the stuff under the sole (floor below deck), all the rigging of the mast and the operation of pretty much everything on the boat. We found more things wrong than we anticipated.
Around 11:00 we left the dock and motored over to the boat yard to have the boat "hauled" so the hull could be inspected. This boat weighs 29,000 pounds. It is no small task to get it out of the water. The boat yard has a rather large piece of machinery to accomplish this. I'll tell you, the boat looks a lot bigger when it's out of the water. Here's a picture of what it looks like. To give you an idea of scale, that's Susan standing next to and mostly under the boat.
We found a few more things that needed to be fixed with the boat out of the water, the hull will need to be repainted soon and the lower rudder post bearing needs to be replaced. But structurally it looked very good.
An hour later, the boat was back in the water and we sailed it for the sea trial. The boat sails very nice. With just the mainsail up and trimmed properly the boat would sail straight with no hand on the wheel and without the autopilot engaged. We put the Genoa (the head sail or the sail in front of the mast) up and Susan took the helm for a bit. We were sailing along nicely and I grabbed some lines to coil them and then everyone started looking at me and telling me I had grabbed the wrong line. The Genoa was falling down. It wasn't me. Where the sail attaches to the halyard (rope that holds the sail up) came apart. It was exciting for a few minutes but then we got the Genoa folded up and stored away. No other excitement for the day. We sailed back towards the marina and then dropped the mainsail and motored into the slip.
There were some things we knew needed to be replaced on the boat but we found more during the survey. That's what it is for. Through the day both Susan and my emotions ran from "what have we got ourselves into" to "it's not really bad and we are getting a good boat for a great price". We went back and forth and didn't have a more settled position until the next day.
Are there a lot of things to do and repair? Yes, but after adding the cost of the needed repairs, it still looks like a good deal. Also, we plan to do most if not all of the repairs ourselves. This will mean we'll have some brand new items of our picking and we'll learn how it all fits together by getting our hands dirty. It will for sure raise the confidence in our own ability to handle issues that come up in the future.
We haven't made a final decision on the boat and there are a few things we're going to ask the owner to fix but at the moment we're leaning towards going forward with buying this boat. Stay tuned.
Brian
Besides the electronics (which most of the components didn't work, not a complete surprise) and a/c, an important aspect of learning the boat has to do with electricity. When you're at the dock the boat is plugged into shore power, in our case, two 30 amp lines. Once away from the dock, there are several options. There are basically three different batteries on this boat, one to start the engine and generator, a second battery or set of batteries to power the various electrical needs of the boat, electronics, refrigerator / freezer, microwave and lights called the "house batteries". There is a second set of "house batteries" as backup to the first. Some things on the boat run on DC power and some run on AC power so there is an inverter to convert the DC to AC. When the generator is running it produces AC to power the AC appliances and to power a battery charger that charges the batteries. Confused? So are we. But hopefully after helping the surveyor do the tests, we have a better idea of how it all works. It's a bit more complicated than a house.
We inspected the deck, all the stuff under the sole (floor below deck), all the rigging of the mast and the operation of pretty much everything on the boat. We found more things wrong than we anticipated.
Around 11:00 we left the dock and motored over to the boat yard to have the boat "hauled" so the hull could be inspected. This boat weighs 29,000 pounds. It is no small task to get it out of the water. The boat yard has a rather large piece of machinery to accomplish this. I'll tell you, the boat looks a lot bigger when it's out of the water. Here's a picture of what it looks like. To give you an idea of scale, that's Susan standing next to and mostly under the boat.
We found a few more things that needed to be fixed with the boat out of the water, the hull will need to be repainted soon and the lower rudder post bearing needs to be replaced. But structurally it looked very good.
An hour later, the boat was back in the water and we sailed it for the sea trial. The boat sails very nice. With just the mainsail up and trimmed properly the boat would sail straight with no hand on the wheel and without the autopilot engaged. We put the Genoa (the head sail or the sail in front of the mast) up and Susan took the helm for a bit. We were sailing along nicely and I grabbed some lines to coil them and then everyone started looking at me and telling me I had grabbed the wrong line. The Genoa was falling down. It wasn't me. Where the sail attaches to the halyard (rope that holds the sail up) came apart. It was exciting for a few minutes but then we got the Genoa folded up and stored away. No other excitement for the day. We sailed back towards the marina and then dropped the mainsail and motored into the slip.
There were some things we knew needed to be replaced on the boat but we found more during the survey. That's what it is for. Through the day both Susan and my emotions ran from "what have we got ourselves into" to "it's not really bad and we are getting a good boat for a great price". We went back and forth and didn't have a more settled position until the next day.
Are there a lot of things to do and repair? Yes, but after adding the cost of the needed repairs, it still looks like a good deal. Also, we plan to do most if not all of the repairs ourselves. This will mean we'll have some brand new items of our picking and we'll learn how it all fits together by getting our hands dirty. It will for sure raise the confidence in our own ability to handle issues that come up in the future.
We haven't made a final decision on the boat and there are a few things we're going to ask the owner to fix but at the moment we're leaning towards going forward with buying this boat. Stay tuned.
Brian
Sunday, November 30, 2014
Day 1
Hello everyone,
This isn't really day 1 unless we're talking about the first day of this blog. As far as the adventure goes it might be day -180 or +180, depending on what you consider part of the adventure.
Please forgive my writing. I tend to write run on sentences and put commas where they don't belong, hopefully this won't be too distracting.
This blog is to keep our family and friends up to date with what we're doing and where we are and at the same time be educational for others that may consider a similar adventure to ours. We hope the education is along the lines of what to do but in many cases it is likely to be what not to do. We're certain to make some mistakes, hopefully not catastrophic ones.
So for those that only know one or neither of us, "we" are Susan and Brian. We met on a tour of Vietnam and Cambodia in October 2013, hence the name of our yet to be purchased boat, Good Morning Vietnam. Though it is often said to be bad luck to change the name of a boat, it seems to actually be done quite regularly. So rather than live with a name that means nothing to us, we're going to change the name.
So today, Sunday, November 30 2014 we are three days away from having a boat we've made an offer on surveyed (inspected by a professional) and taking her on a sea trial (test drive). We've looked at several boats over the last couple of months and have settled on a 46 foot Hunter as the boat that will meet our needs. It's larger than we were originally looking at but to get the headroom I need and the cabin layout we wanted, this seems to be the best boat. A couple weeks back we made an offer on a 2003 Hunter 466 that is currently in Palmetto, Florida. The offer was accepted by the current owner so now we're in the process of finalizing the deal. Tuesday night Susan and I will meet at the Tampa airport and then be at the dock Wednesday morning, along with our broker and the surveyor, for the survey and sea trial.
I could go on and on about what we've done up to now (let's just say we've done a lot of reading and studying) and what our plans are, but I'm going to leave all that for later installments.
Being as this is my first blog and my first post I don't know how this works but I hope you are able to comment, or at least send emails to me if you'd like. Perhaps more on that later.
Brian
This isn't really day 1 unless we're talking about the first day of this blog. As far as the adventure goes it might be day -180 or +180, depending on what you consider part of the adventure.
Please forgive my writing. I tend to write run on sentences and put commas where they don't belong, hopefully this won't be too distracting.
This blog is to keep our family and friends up to date with what we're doing and where we are and at the same time be educational for others that may consider a similar adventure to ours. We hope the education is along the lines of what to do but in many cases it is likely to be what not to do. We're certain to make some mistakes, hopefully not catastrophic ones.
So for those that only know one or neither of us, "we" are Susan and Brian. We met on a tour of Vietnam and Cambodia in October 2013, hence the name of our yet to be purchased boat, Good Morning Vietnam. Though it is often said to be bad luck to change the name of a boat, it seems to actually be done quite regularly. So rather than live with a name that means nothing to us, we're going to change the name.
So today, Sunday, November 30 2014 we are three days away from having a boat we've made an offer on surveyed (inspected by a professional) and taking her on a sea trial (test drive). We've looked at several boats over the last couple of months and have settled on a 46 foot Hunter as the boat that will meet our needs. It's larger than we were originally looking at but to get the headroom I need and the cabin layout we wanted, this seems to be the best boat. A couple weeks back we made an offer on a 2003 Hunter 466 that is currently in Palmetto, Florida. The offer was accepted by the current owner so now we're in the process of finalizing the deal. Tuesday night Susan and I will meet at the Tampa airport and then be at the dock Wednesday morning, along with our broker and the surveyor, for the survey and sea trial.
I could go on and on about what we've done up to now (let's just say we've done a lot of reading and studying) and what our plans are, but I'm going to leave all that for later installments.
Being as this is my first blog and my first post I don't know how this works but I hope you are able to comment, or at least send emails to me if you'd like. Perhaps more on that later.
Brian
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