Relocating
“Why don’t you come to the pool? It’s quite comfortable.”
“I’m not a pool person. How’s your boat?”
“I think you should hire me as your project manager when I retire.”
“You need to leave. You don’t like the work we do and now you tell me that you we don’t manage well. I think it’s time you need to leave.”
There was, of course, more. But that day, my grandkids and I were thrown out of the pool and I was told to leave the marina before 30 August, one month away.
Problem is, my boat is dismasted. As part of the plan to have all the major work done before I retire, I was having the rigging replace. So I not only had to move my boat, but I had to find a way to move the mast.
Phone calls started. Text messages started.
First I had to find a place for the mast. I wasn’t leaving the marina without it. I had work planned for the middle of August at another marina. So I called them first. They were able to move things around to be able to take my mast and store it until I showed up for the other work I had scheduled. They could also handle stepping my mast.
It was suggested that, like when one goes down the Great Loop, I put the mast on the boat with a framework.
This was the least expensive option. But it involved getting a frame constructed. And I didn’t want to, didn’t have the time to, do that.
See, part of the problem is that my daughter is getting married next weekend. I wanted to have this all taken care of before family started arriving. And I do have a real job that helps pay for my expensive habit. I didn’t want to take a lot of days off of work to take care of this.
A friend I texted suggested a moving company that handles unusual moves. I called them. They reconnaissanced at both the marina the mast was currently and the marina where the mast would be moving to. They said they could move it for $600, which I thought was quite reasonable. << shout out to Seaford Transfer!
I also had a text message going with friends I thought might be able to help me move the mast onto the trailer. See, the marina owner also told me that, not only could we not use the pool, they would not help me move the mast. Sigh!
I checked online to figure out what my mast would weigh. 600 lbs! But the friend who’d suggested the moving company also said that seemed a bit high. His estimate was 2-300 lbs.
I had 5 friends who said they could help with the move.
Two of them, Jodi and Steve, arrived early to help get some moving blankets wrapped around the mast and wrap the entire mast with rope to hold up the rigging.
We got it onto the truck and headed out.
I drove towards the new marina. On the way, I got a phone call from them. Because it was so hot (heat index > 100 degrees), they were going to try to let their crew off an hour early. No problem. We were on our way. Next issue: they took lunch between noon and 1 pm. I was arriving at the new marina at noon. The truck was behind me. So I called Seaford Transfer and told them to wait before heading over.
I went to Cobb’s Marina and filled out paperwork. I then went down the street for lunch, figuring to come back at 1 pm to watch the unloading and to grab my friend’s blankets.
When I got back to Cobb’s, the truck and trailer were there. The driver said he’d gone back to the yard and added more straps to the mast. With the traffic starting to back up, he ended up getting to Cobb’s just after 1 pm.
I watched them unload the mast. Much easier with a crane than when we did it by hand.
The mast was taken care of. Now to take care of the boat. I had 2 weeks between now and my appointment to bring it to Cobb’s. I could go the Dockwa route. But that was expensive for just 2 weeks. I check with the marinas near me. Seaford Yacht Club had a couple of transient slips. I could get into one of those for $5/night plus $5/day for power. Deal! So Sunday, barring the storms that look to be brewing, I will be taking the boat to Seaford Yacht Club.
Dead Stop
It’s cold outside. Real cold. Not cold enough that the water freezes – thank goodness! But cold enough that I don’t want to be on the water.
I had an anemometer installed by the marina 2 years ago (found the receipt – it had been that long ago!). But they never connected it to the gauges. I’d called in someone else to come take care of the final steps, but that person never showed up. So for another year, I waited for the marina to get around to it. They didn’t. So I found someone else to do it. This month. In winter. When it’s cold outside.
Well, we found a week when it wasn’t miserable.
I motored the boat to their location, not far off the marina property, docked it and left it for the repair. Then I came the next day, when the repair was done, to return the boat to its slip. As I started to pull away, the engine died, so I pulled back over and tied up again with just one line. I got the engine going and backed up again. The line fell in the water and I thought, “I need to go take care of that.” But at that point, I was drifting towards another boat, felt that was more important, and forgot about the line in the water.
I proceeded to my slip, everything going fine now, until I turned a corner. Then the engine died. At this point I’ve forgotten about the line in the water, so I think it’s engine problems and I try to restart. I do find it odd that I can’t move the throttle back to the neutral position.
Engine won’t start, and I’m too far away from my slip to pull myself in. I’m starting to drift to the other side. So I grab a line and the boat hook and a line, hoping to catch a cleat on the other side. I get the line on the boat hook, move it to the cleat, but can’t catch it before I drift again, this time to the seawall. I pull myself along the seawall until I reach the slips again. I can’t see how I can pull myself to my own slip, so I work on maneuvering the boat into the closest slip, one that’s a bit too small for the boat.
I leave the boat.
I return a few days later to see how things are doing. I haven’t been plugged into power, so the bilge pump has stopped working. It’s rained over the days I’ve been gone, and I have a leaky porthole. I don’t think that much water can get in, though.
I was wrong. There are about 3″ of water over the floorboards.
I grab the hand pump and start pumping out water. It goes way too slowly. I go over to the marina office and explain the situation, asking if they can bring over their portable bilge pump to pump out the boat. They do. They also bring an extension cord so we can get the boat plugged into power. After discussion, however, we just plug me into the neighbor’s box. He hasn’t used power in awhile and I just say that I’ll pay his power bill for that month.
Two months later, and we finally pull the boat out of the water. The line has wrapped around the prop shaft and the strut tightly. Ryan from the marina unwraps it and the shaft goes back into the boat 2″. He tries to put the boat back in the water and the shaft seal is leaking. So he pulls it back out again.
And that’s where we are today, waiting for a new shaft seal to be installed. Waiting for my engine mechanic to give the thumbs up that I didn’t damage anything on the engine. And waiting for weather warm enough to fix the gelcoat from the last adventure.
Boat Bucks and Boat Days
Boat projects are not measured in standard time or cost. Like third world country with volatile currencies and unstable governments, boat projects have their own scales. Cost overruns are a given. Time overruns are just to be expected. One boat buck approximates to $1000. One boat day (for a project) approximates to 5-7 days.
Why does this happen? Well, as sailors, we can chart the weather and waves to our heart’s content. But the tides are the only periodic constant in our calculations. Throw in the human factor (ourselves, others, life in general), and you just have to accept that the boat repair equation has more variables than we have equations to solve.
Take the story of CT, a friend who had his boat hauled out during my ‘on the hard’ period. He was just going to paint his bottom. He’d order the paint, had the boat taken out of the water, had his time set up for painting and expected to have his boat back in the water within a week.
What happened? Well, he ordered his paint. It didn’t arrive. He called the supplier who swore that he’d mailed the paint, but he would put another gallon in the mail that day. Surprise, surprise, only one gallon arrived – several days later.
Take my own situation, which I have alluded to. It has taken 6 weeks to get 4 coats of paint on the hull and deck, because I seem to have picked a very rainy period in which to do this painting.
I haven’t looked at the total cost for my project thus far. But I take consolation in the fact that it costs 5 – 8 boat bucks to paint the topside and deck and I know I haven’t spent that much out of pocket. I just received an estimate for unplugging the prop shaft, installing the batteries for the electric engine (4 – 100# AGMs), and mounting the engine: 5 boat bucks. So that one I’ll do myself, meaning I’ve just added boat days to the project.
Ah well! I now understand why the definition of a boat is a hole in the water in which you pour money. Or, in my case, time. Sigh!
[Top]Hard Times
Every relationship has them. And right now, the boat and I are having ours.
We put the lifelines back on yesterday. Realized afterwards that one set was put on backwards. Problem with that? The connection at the bow is meant to stay connected. The one at the stern is made to be removed, to make it easier to get on and off. Now, that isn’t possible.
The other set of lifelines was twisted.
In both cases, it can be fixed. It’s just one more thing on the long list of things still to be done.
There’s the rest of the non-skid that needs to be applied but hasn’t arrived yet.
There’s the stripes on the hull that need to be put on.
There’s the layer of bottom paint to put on.
And there’s the engine.
My plan with the engine was to ask the marina to remove the plug that was put in when they pulled the prop off, put in the battery box for the new 400 lbs of batteries, and mount the engine. The estimate I got back? $4900, give or take. And that estimate included a fabricated platform for the engine that I kept telling them I didn’t need.
Since the piggy bank doesn’t have that kind of money around, I’ll be doing it myself. Well, I’ll be doing it with the help of friends. I made a desperate call to Dave A., who said he’d be happy to help. If there’s anyone who knows anything about engines, it’s him.
But it brings up the other frustrating part. I’m leaving town next Wednesday for a week and it doesn’t look, at this rate, like everything will be done before I leave.
<sigh!>
This has been one hell of a spring. I thought I’d allowed myself plenty of time to get all the projects done. And what has made it most difficult is the long hours at the job that lets me keep this expensive hobby also does not allow me to work on the boat very easily during the week. The weekends have given me so much rain that it’s made it difficult to get the painting done.
And, on top of all of that, I now have wasp nests in the boat. I’ve counted three so far: two in the vberth and one aft, near the cockpit locker. I don’t like wasps. I’ve picked up some spray that I hope will work fast enough that I won’t get stung when I use it on them.
Enough venting.
Now this is a post that won’t get alot of hits.
[Top]Serendipidy
Sometimes life throws you lemons. Sometimes you get to make lemonade! :yes:
So the rain has stopped, enough for the wind to blow 30+ MPH. A bit hard to paint in that. But I have perservered. There are two coats of primer on the deck, and the topside is completely sanded so the first coat of primer can be added to that. The first coat of polyurethane has been put on the locker and cabin covers. All is (almost) right with the world.
What about serendipity? Well, this weekend, on Saturday, it was raining. After it finished, Erik and I headed out to do some sanding. I had purchased wet/dry sandpaper. But, naive as I was, I assumed that meant you could sand something that was wet. Duh! What it means is that you can keep the sandpaper wet, you can keep the surface wet, and the job goes much more quickly. I’m guessing it’s because the sandpaper doesn’t get gummed up as quickly, since you can keep washing it off. Nevertheless, I don’t hate sanding as much as I did now that I’ve made this discovery. The serendipity came in because I probably wouldn’t have discovered this if it hadn’t been raining so much.
Okay, so I went back to Don Casey’s book and he said to use wet sandpaper. He also suggested having a spray bottle to keep the surface moist. I actually found it more helpful to keep the sandpaper moist.
Second bit of knowledge gained was more of a thankful oops! When I finished putting the primer on the covers, I neglected to put the cover back on the paint can. Half a quart of $30 primer sat uncovered for two days. When I came back to it, there was no film on the paint, and it didn’t look like it had evaporated too much. Sigh of relief!
Funny thing is that the primer does dry fairly quickly when it’s applied to a surface. Interesting chemistry. I wonder what the mechanism is.
I talked with Mike at Wormley Creek. When I showed him the engine compartment and told him I was thinking the best place to put the battery bank (400 lbs of AGM batteries) would be aft, where the diesel tank had been. He suggested it might actually be better to put them as far forward as possible. He explained that you actually want your weight to be as close to the keel as possible. Besides, he said, that way it was easier to get the batteries in and out. Made sense. We’ll wait until the batteries and engine actually get here to put it all together.
I’d already heard about boat bucks. They’re about $1000 apiece, and it’s how one measures boat projects. Recently, I also heard about boat days. They equal one week. At this point, it looks like my ‘projects’ on this boat are going to be extended about one boat day.
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