Getting Our Feet Wet

A bad experience with Multihull Company, Inc.

2010-04-24T13:27:00.000-07:00

I'm reposting a blog that seems to have vanished into thin air. I'm going to put it here on this blog to see if it vanishes again, then I will try - once more - to publish it as its own blog. I don't want to seem paranoid, but perhaps someone (someone working for a particular company ;-) was able to remove it, or get Google to remove it, after I posted it.

Multihull Company, Inc. for buying a catamaran?
Maybe not.

This is the saga of my experiences buying and selling a 37’ sailing catamaran through a broker. I am writing this to try to spare other catamaran buyers some of the pain and anguish that we went through.

I began sailing as a child, as many others have, on tiny daysailers like the Sailfish and Sunfish, in the lakes, bays, harbors, and on the coast of Long Island, New York. Later, in my late twenties, I took lessons at the University of California, San Diego Sailing Center (for alumni) in Mission Bay, San Diego. There I learned to sail a sabot, Lightning, Omega, and J-24. In my late thirties through my forties I owned a 14’ O’Day Javelin, and a Catalina 24 on which I sailed the bays and lagoons on the coast of Northern California, as well as some of the larger lakes, including Klamath Lake, and the lakes and bays of Oregon when we lived there.

I loved - and still love - sailing. As anyone thinking of buying a large sailing catamaran already knows, the joys of sailing are boundless. The serenity of the passage through the water, the sound of the wind in the sails and rigging, the slap of water against the hull, the rocking and rise-and-fall of the boat, all contribute to a sense of peace that heals the ravaged edges of your soul, especially in these more troubled times. When I was a police officer in San Diego, living in a big city, dealing with horrible traffic, and the stresses of working the streets as a patrolman, and then plainclothes for the Crimes Against Persons Unit, sailing when off-duty was what kept my sanity.

My wife and I have wanted to live aboard a sailboat since we were each in our twenties. Over the many years in between then and now, we read everything we could about living aboard, cruising on a sailboat, other sailors’ experiences in America and different countries, and the vagaries of buying, outfitting, and cruising in boats. For the ten years before we actually purchased our one-and-only cruising sailboat, I researched the pros and cons of various types and brands of boats, the issues of monohull versus multihull, and how to buy and sell. I decided that a multihull boat was the way to go, preferring the catamaran design over the trimaran.

When I retired as an RN from the VA medical system (my last occupation :-), we were living in Southern Oregon. We sold our 11 acre property just before the bottom fell out of the housing market (thanks again, Dave and Holly!) and had a choice to make: buy another home somewhere or buy a boat. At this point in my search, I had just about decided on a monohull sailboat instead of a cat, due to the difference in cost. We could have purchased a longer and newer used monohull for less than a shorter catamaran, but a friend reminded me of some of the reasons catamarans seem superior to monohulls: sailing flatter with only a slight lean (better for cooking under sail, sleeping, etc.), two engines (on most cats), which allows a back-up if one engine develops a problem (came in handy several times for us - too many times, to tell the truth - although backing up with one engine can be difficult), slightly more living space and a great deal more deck space, great stability with a shallow draft - which allows access to harbors and coastline that many deep-draft monohulls can’t get to or anchor in. There are other pluses, as well as a few trade-offs where a monohull might be a better choice.

So, when we left Oregon, we contacted The Multihull Company, Inc., which can be viewed at multihullcompany.com on the Internet. It had been recommended by several catamaran owners whose blogs and e-mails I had read. They spoke of the personal service, attention to detail, and great deals they had received by using this brokerage. The owner, Philip Berman, has extensive experience with catamarans, has written several books, and generally seemed to be the best choice for a broker.

Well, let’s cut to the chase. Do you want to use this brokerage? You’ll have to decide for yourself, but you might want to be sure to explore some other options and actually contact some other brokers before you commit. I wish we had.

Phil Berman is a very bright and personable guy. He will take a great deal of time discussing pros and cons with you, why certain features on a boat are good and why some aren’t, why one model is a better choice than another. His wealth of experience is influenced by his own preferences, of course. I got the distinct impression from our various talks that he is more of a competitive sailor than a cruiser, although he has associate brokers who have lived-aboard and cruised quite a bit. He appears to have sailed or been on so many different boats that he is familiar with most of what is out there. He also is a dealer for several brands of catamarans, so there is a distinct lean in that direction for those clients who can afford those boats (we couldn’t).

Phil has some very pleasant office staff who try to be helpful as well, and usually are quite helpful. His office manager, Carol, was especially helpful on numerous occasions. His associate brokers are pleasant and personable as well, with a good depth of sailing and cruising experience among them. However, I learned that sometimes there is a difference between pleasant and capable, personable and effective.

My wife and I traveled from Florida to Maryland, New York, and Connecticut looking at boats, most of them suggested by Phil. He also had us look at several boats we really had no interest in, but which he felt would improve our understanding of catamarans and the difference in quality between makes of boat. After seeing them, we still had no interest in them. One did indeed appear to have been a quality boat at one time, but had been maintained so poorly that we wouldn’t have considered it at half of its listed price. So we wasted a fair amount of time and money looking at boats that weren’t appropriate for us.

Understand, now - we were at the bottom of the price range that Multihull Company bothers to broker. As purchasers, we were not responsible for the commission involved, which I understand was either 6% or 8% at the time. Even so, Phil took a lot of time to talk to us about boats, and based on what he said, it sounded like he actually did check quite a few boats listed on the Internet that were available in our price range. One model we had been interested in from the start was the Lagoon 37. It was a make and model that one of the people who recommended Multihull Company owned. They said that Phil had saved them about $20K, buying a boat listed for $160K for $140K, and that he was just an all-around great guy.

At the beginning of our search, Phil was discouraging about this particular boat model. He didn’t feel it was a good choice for us. When we (by ourselves) discovered one for sale in Daytona, Florida, after months of searching and looking at boats he suggested or we discovered, he appeared to change his mind, and extolled its virtues to us. (Maybe he despaired of finding one we liked, and just decided to “go with the flow”.)

I believe that may have been the beginning of the destruction of our dream of living aboard a boat.

The boat, named “Reference Point” listed for $165K. We didn’t get the $20K savings the other couple got on their Lagoon 37. We ended up paying $160K. $5K savings, not the screaming deal we were hoping for based on the other sale. Now, it is possible that this happened because Phil had stopped dealing with us at this point and had passed us on to an associate broker named Darrel McDaniel, but I don’t know for certain that Phil actually handled the purchase of the other Lagoon 37 that listed for $160K and sold for $140K. But we were tired of driving all over the Eastern Seaboard looking at boats, wanted a Lagoon 37, and agreed to buy it for that price.

The next problem - and probably the worst mistake we made, other than the initial mistake of choosing Multihull Company as a broker - was accepting the surveyor that Phil Berman hired to survey the boat. This fellow was described to us by Phil as a very skilled surveyor who would - if anything - be too picky and particular in what he listed as being wrong with the boats he surveyed. Unfortunately for us, he listed a number of small problems that actually weren’t problems at all (equipment he stated didn’t work but which actually did work), and missed a number of large problems where equipment didn’t work or need major repair.

Consequently, the boat needed major work from Day One. Instead of paying top dollar for what we thought was a reliable boat, we ended up paying top dollar for a boat requiring thousands of dollars in repairs. Now, we knew we would occasionally have to make repairs, and would definitely have to spend time and money doing maintenance. We had enough savings to maintain and cover occasional repairs on the boat, but we were under-capitalized - in money, emotional preparedness, and knowledge - in what would be required to fix and operate this boat.

We also knew we did not yet have the skills to operate a large sailboat for cruising. Our Catalina 24 was fun and had similar rigging, for example, but we had little knowledge of the various systems on this boat. We needed some instruction in how to use the heads (toilets for you land-lubbers), the water system, electrical system, the navigation system, how to fuel the boat, etc. Carol, the office manager, assured us that the Multihull Company would never just cut us loose without walking us through the various systems on the boat, but that is exactly what happened. This was not Carol’s fault. It happened because the associate broker, Darrel McDaniel, needed (or simply wanted) to return to Fort Lauderdale the day after the sale closed, and he left. No thanks to The Multihull Company, the seller’s broker there in Daytona came aboard and showed us a little bit about the boat. The rest we fumbled through on our own.

With the assistance of another couple who owned a Lagoon 37 at a marina in Daytona that was a short distance north of where we were docked, we located a marine repair company, and hired the fellow to come align our engines, as the engine drive shafts were not properly aligned. He quoted us $700-800 to do the job. $1800 later, he was done. (We eventually got - somewhat - used to this. “BOAT” stands for “Break Out Another Thousand”.) While he was working, he discovered a lot of the things the surveyor that TMC (The Multihull Company) hired had missed. One was that the drive shaft on the port engine had a shaft seal (to keep sea water from entering the boat around the drive shaft) that was completely loose, almost disconnected. If it had come completely off, that hull could have flooded. The surveyor also recommended putting a “main output breaker” on the diesel generator the boat had installed in the starboard engine compartment. I wanted the marine repairman to install it for me, but - lo, and behold! - there was already one their, factory installed and in plain sight to anyone who knew what to look for (I certainly didn’t.)

Bottom line? I ended up making many repairs to major systems - bilge pumps, macerator pumps for the heads (toilets), wiring for the navigation system, etc. During the seven months we lived aboard the boat, there wasn’t one week when I didn’t have something major to fix. Three of those months were spent in the Bahamas where it was difficult and expensive to get needed parts.

This really soured me on the “joys” of living aboard a boat, but it was worse than this. We were adequately capitalized for living aboard and maintaining a boat, but were quickly running out of savings making all of the necessary repairs. Between the frustration of all the repairs and our fear that we might end up needing a repair we could no longer afford (like replacing an engine), we decided to sell the boat.

Now, in discussing this with Phil, he “determined” that we simply did not like sailing enough to stick with it. I explained that we were terrified we would end up with a boat that needed repairs we couldn’t afford, leaving us with a boat we couldn’t use and couldn’t sell, but in his wisdom and great experience, this translated to simply not wanting to sail badly enough to continue.

So. Our second biggest mistake was to trust TMC, The Multihull Company, Inc., to sell the boat. Now, instead of a 6% or 8% commission we were told it would be 10%. Believing it would be easier dealing with the devil we knew, rather than trying a different broker and potentially having even more problems, we signed a contract. We listed the boat at a very reasonable $159K at Phil’s suggestion. Please note that we had only owned the boat for seven months at this point. We had added a brand new custom dodger, bimini, and full enclosure of high quality fabric and isinglass that cost us $5000 in Daytona. We also added a $6700 new electrical system of AGM batteries (over 850 amp hours), a Freedom 2000 inverter, Balmar high-output alternator (for charging the huge battery bank), Link 1000 monitor, etc. Plus about $1500 of spare engine parts, new MOB equipment, $400 worth of charts and guides, $1000 improvements to the dinghy davits, and a number of other improvements. So the $160K we paid for the boat was up around $180K. $159K was a pretty reasonable price. Because of this, we had two offers almost immediately. Both were quite low, but one of the people making an offer came to look at the boat. He raised his bid to $140K in a written offer.

Now, you need to know that we wanted out, and we wanted out quickly. We had specifically told Phil Berman that we would be willing to take any offer that would net us $120K simply because we wanted to sell now (June 2009), without waiting around for months, paying dock fees, etc. This offer would have netted us $126K, so we were willing to accept the offer. Phil strongly advised us to pass on the offer. He said it was too early to sell the boat so cheaply, and he assured us he could get us another $5K. So, we countered with $145, which the buyer turned down.

It was January of 2010 before we got another offer. Darrel McDaniel, the associate broker assigned to help us sell the boat after Phil advised us to pass on the first offer, had a friend who had a slip available at a mere $500 a month (actually pretty good for the Fort Lauderdale area.) From the beginning of June 2009 to the middle of February 2010, when the sale closed, it cost us $4250 to dock the boat. It cost us another $250 to get her bottom cleaned twice during that time. We ended up selling her for $130K. Minus 10% in commission left $117. $126K minus $117K equals $9K. $9K plus $4250= $13250. Add in the $1000+ we would ave gotten back from the company that insured the boat if we had sold in June of 2009, and you get $14250.

That being the case, I emailed Phil Berman after the closing of the sale. I suggested that, having been the agent of costing us over $14000, perhaps he would see his way to reimbursing us just 10% (remember the commission rate?) of the money we lost due to his assurance that he could get us more money. [And that doesn’t include the time and money we lost waiting around for the boat to sell for over eight months, waiting to recoup the funds necessary to find another home.] I told Phil that I would feel he actually cared, that he accepted some responsibility for our eight months of suspension, if he would send us a check for a mere $1400. I fully expected him to refuse - as he did refuse - but wanted to see if he was man enough to step up to the plate. He wasn’t.

I’ve mentioned the fact that we were at the bottom of the monetary range Phil and The Multihull Company deals in. Phil buys and sells boats in the range from several hundred thousand to over a million dollars. He frequently flies to France to purchase catamarans and to transport them, or arrange their transportation, back to the United States. He is a dealer of the Dolphin line of catamarans (well-made, but expensive), and - even in these uncertain times - has significant income. I’m no socialist. I don’t believe Phil “owes” me money simply because he has more than I do. However, I do believe he could easily afford to reimburse me for a measly 10% of the loss he caused me. As I told him, if I had not insisted at the start that I was willing to settle for $120,000 net, I would take full responsibility for not accepting the first offer that came through. Since he assured me that he could get us another five thousand, and advised us to turn down that offer, I feel he needs to take some responsibility.

Might this have happened with another brokerage besides The Multihull Company? Of course. But do you want to take a chance of having the same bad experience we did with this company? Do you think we were dealt with fairly? Consider this: Darrel McDaniels is a very pleasant fellow who is also always willing to talk to you and discuss the issues involved in buying and selling a catamaran. But call you when he says he will? Often he didn’t. He was “busy” and just wasn’t able to do so. He promised to get a refund of the last slip fee (the boat sale closed February 12, 2010, so we got a prorated refund), but we had to call him ourselves - after the sale had closed. We were never called to be told that the sale had actually closed, and only knew it had because the funds were deposited in our bank. Not to mention taking off without showing us anything about the boat when we bought it in the first place.

So, our dream was destroyed. By being told the boat was in good condition by a surveyor who should have known better. By running through our savings making repairs we shouldn’t have needed to make. By experiencing frustration instead of fun for the seven months we spent in Florida and the Bahamas. Finally, the loss of money involved (approximately $80,000 when we add up all the costs and expenses involved in buying, owning for seven months, and selling the boat , not including living expenses) without having enjoyed much of that seven months.

Do yourself a favor. Research the various boat brokerages. Ask about commissions, what services are provided and which aren’t. Then take all of that with a large grain of salt, as some of those services they say they will provide may fall by the wayside, once the company has its money. Consider whether or not you want to risk having your dream derailed or destroyed by buying a boat that should have been rejected, and would have been if the company involved had provided the knowledge and experience you simply cannot bring to this process, that you trust them to provide. Maybe the Multihull Company, Inc. at multihullcompany.com shouldn’t be your first choice.

2009-05-18T14:51:00.000-07:00

5/17/2009

We’ve been here at Vero Beach for a week now. It is a fairly quiet anchorage, but we have discovered another myth that has been told about catamarans is bunk. We read - or were told, I don’t recall - that catamarans will “burble” once as a wave or a wake comes by, not rolling for several minutes “as a monohull will.” That is a load of manatee poop. Every time a boat comes by we roll for several minutes, even if it is one of the rare power boats that is considerate enough to keep their speed below 5 or 10 knots. It may be because we are on a mooring in a narrow part of the harbor, where the wakes reflect off the other side and come back to us quickly, but we have experienced this before in other locations, as well. It just seems worse here. But I now believe it woud happen anywhere we are anchored or moored.

Vero Beach is nice. The marina has bathrooms that are fairly clean, and showers are only $1 (plus tax) if you are on a mooring (free to those on the docks.) The town (county?) provides free public transportation, a shuttle bus system that covers most of the town and a bit of the outlying area of the county. We can get to a Publix supermarket on one bus from the marina, but have to transfer if we want to go to the Indian River Mall, Home Depot, Target, or to Walmart/Sam’s Club. The town has quite a bit to offer, and if we were more willing to explore, I am sure we could keep entertained.

As it is, we are basically in a holding pattern until our boat broker and his Fort Lauderdale agent return from business they are dealing with out of the country. The owner/broker is in France, and the agent who will be handing our boat is heading to Cancun to bring back a boat. We are trying to relax, but at the same time, we are trying to get the boat cleaned up and “ship-shape”. The agent has found us a slip behind a private home in Pomano Beach where we will be able to leave our boat while he is trying to sell it(for $500 a month, which he assures us is a good deal.) We simply do not want to be living on it while it is being shown and, hopefully, sold. Besides, we have so much of our stuff aboard that it would look cramped and small as it is right now. Even though $500 is cheap for that area, we are praying that it sells quickly, so that it doesn’t eat too deeply into what we net from the boat.

We just got word from the agent that there is a fellow who would like to come look at the boat tomorrow afternoon. We’ll keep our fingers crossed.

After searching the Web for trailers, and reading about fifth wheels vs travel trailers, we have decided the extra stability and towing ease of the fifth wheel will work better for us. They tend to be heavier, though, so we have to look for an “ultralite” model that can be towed by our choice of truck, the Toyota Tundra. The double cab model with the long bed, four wheel drive, 5.7 liter V8 engine and the towing package with sway bar is supposed to be able to pull 10,000 pounds of trailer, so if we get an ultralight model of 6500 to 7000 pounds, we will be able to load our stuff in it and still stay below the 10,000 limit. I think.

I remember our last fifth wheel. It was a 33 foot Vacationeer, pulled by my one-ton crew-cab F350 4x4 with the 7.3 liter diesel engine. It pulled that trailer through the mountains like it wasn’t even there when it was empty, but I recall having to drop to third gear through the same mountain pass once I put everything in it that I thought we would need. I’ll try not to do that this time ;-) Shirley and I lived in that for almost six years, and now that we are retired, we should enjoy it even more than when we were still working as we traveled across the country. The only real blessing here is that we should be able to see more of you folks, and sooner, once we are back on terra firma. We are looking forward to that.

Since I haven't figured out how to label my photos, here's the story: a photo of a sunrise over the Gulf Stream as we crossed back to the States, a picture of Beasely truly enjoying some "personal" attention from Shirley, a photo of the bulging tubing on my "shade-tree" plumbing repair, a photo of the boardwalk in Ft Pierce, FL, and a sign indicating a "manatee zone" on the ICW (Intra-Coastal Waterway).

2009-05-03T07:16:00.000-07:00

We went to Green Turtle Cay. As my wife’s Okie father used to say, “Not much punkin’.” The town was fairly clean, it had a nice little library, with a very friendly and helpful librarian. However, most of the local folks would not look at you or respond to a friendly wave. Maybe it is a cultural thing, but it was the same no matter the race or the gender. We paid $9.95 for a gallon of milk, and both small grocery stores had prices that were much higher than even at Marsh Harbor or Man-O-War. The Post Office wasn’t open even when it was supposed to be. Warning for folks cruising the Bahamas - forget about getting anything by mail, especially needed parts or medications. Stick to FedEx.

The Atlantic side of the cay had a couple of nice beaches, but I don’t understand the way the guidebooks and Internet sites rave about Green Turtle. We stayed at a brand new marina being developed, in Black Sound, called “Leeward Yacht Club”. The bathrooms and showers had not been built yet, but they did have power and water. The young couple managing it were very nice, pleasant and warm and welcoming, far beyond what you would expect from folks just wanting to drum up business. The rates were low, probably at least partially due to the lack of on shore facilities, only $0.65 per foot a day. Water was $0.30 per gallon, and power a reasonable $.040 per KWH. Not bad for the Bahamas. We stayed for five days, waiting for the winds to die down a little before starting back along the northern Abacos chain of cays toward West End and the trip across the Gulf Stream to Florida. Our plan was to stop at Allans-Pensacola the first night, Great Sale the second night, then West End (very expensive, $3.30 per foot per night) for a partial night - leaving at 0500 - to cross.

We stayed at Crab Cay instead of Allans-Pensacola, as it had a more sheltered anchorage and better holding. That was good, as the winds did pipe up a bit during the night. Great Sale was OK, except that there were waves at 90 degrees to the wind all the way into the anchorage, rocking us during the night. So, we were protected from the wind, but kept awake by the almost constant rocking. At West End, we hoped to anchor instead of paying the high rates, but the holding was poor, and exposed to Atlantic waves, so we bit the bullet and got a slip on a face dock. The place was packed, with a couple of seventy-foot mega yachts tied to face docks, as we were.

It was wise to wait out the winds the way we had, as the crossing was a bit rough at the start, but smoothed out as we got further into the Gulf Stream. Not a bad crossing, almost as smooth as when we crossed into the Bahamas. We have made it back to the U.S. Arrived in Fort Pierce, Florida around 1700 hours on May 2, 2009. We chose to take a slip at the City Marina and, true to form, our timing was terrible. The marina was full, due to a huge fishing tournament that takes place this time every year (we learned from the dockmaster.) We bought fuel, and the marina graciously allowed us to remain tied up at the fuel dock (they have two, and this one is used less) accessing electricity from an adjacent slip.

Okay. Let’s look at what we know. We have already learned that the definition of cruising is “Fixing your boat in exotic places.” Well, that did not turn out to be entirely accurate in our case. For us, cruising consisted of constantly, continuously fixing our boat no matter where we were. Also true to form, not long before we left the Bahamas, another boat system developed problems. We thought that the starboard PSS shaft seal, sealing the hole in the hull where the propeller shaft travels from the transmission to the propeller, was leaking. Good news: the shaft seal is fine, no leak. Bad news: the pressurized fresh water system was leaking from one of the hot water lines. It was trickling back - along one of the 1/2” Qest-pex tubings - back to where the shaft seal is located, which is why the seal was mistakenly blamed. The real leak was from a “T” connection, and when it was tightened, the leak stopped. As usual, the very next day, it failed. The fitting cracked, and proceeded to pump a lot of our fresh water into the bilge.

Now, if this had occurred in the States - or, in all fairness, in Marsh Harbor, which has a great store called Standard Hardware, very well stocked - it would have been the work of a few minutes to fix. Other than the difficulty of getting to the store from the boat. However, with that being out of the question (we were sitting at a deserted cay called Cab Cay when it failed), I jerry-rigged a repair from three different sizes of vinyl tubing, each fitting snugly into the larger size, and the largest (1”) being the right size to attach to the Qwest T-fitting. Would have worked great on the cold water side, but the 1” tubing was not reinforced as the smaller sizes were, so the hot water caused it to soften and balloon, making it questionable under pressure. So until we can get a replacement fitting, it still is not safe to use.

We are fervently hoping that we can get the boat sold before we have replaced every part and fitting that exists on this boat. We dread the possibility that something even more costly will fail. Our remaining savings wouldn’t last long if an engine needed overhaul or the mast or standing rigging (recently replaced, thank goodness) were to go. And we’d sure like to avoid even the need to Break Out Another Thousand.

Our next move is already in play. We have called the broker and are making arrangements to list the boat. We may leave it in Ft Lauderdale to be sold by one of his associate brokers, and go up to CT to stay with my sister for a while. Hopefully only four to six weeks, as the broker thinks the boat will sell quickly. If the boat doesn’t look like it will sell quickly, we will look for a short-term rental, always difficult when you have a dog, even one as adorable as Beasely.

We found a car dealer in Peekskill, NY with a good price on a new 2009 Toyota Tundra, which is what we have decided to buy once we have sold the boat. Then we will look for the RV. We still have not settled the question of 5th wheel or bumper hitch. Both have their good and bad points. We are familiar with 5th wheels, from having lived in one for six years, but I would sure like to not have to mount a hitch in the bed of the truck. We will probably opt to buy a newer used trailer, unless we come across a dealer who simply needs to dump some inventory. There are so many different manufacturers and models that it will be quite a job figuring out what is a good deal, but I believe it can be done, with some research.

The next week or two will be spent somewhere in the vicinity of either Vero Beach or Cocoa Beach, visiting my stepmother. During this time, I will spend some time apologizing to friends and family who we offered to take sailing when we got to their part of the country. It doesn’t look like it will happen now, unless our broker tells us that we will be liable for the original sales tax should we leave the boat in Florida to sell. If that is the case (with our luck, it wouldn’t surprise me), we will most likely move the boat to Connecticut for the summer. Then, at least a few folks might get a chance to come aboard, and my sister won’t have to put up with having us as boarders. Although I actually think she might enjoy the company.

As usual, this post will be accompanied by some photos of where we were on our travels. A couple of snaps of the Atlantic side of Green Turtle Cay, a couple of Crab Cay (the one next to the eastern tip of Great Abacos Island), and one of Great Sale, where lots of cruisers stage their boats, going to and from the States. Plus one of Beasely :-)

2009-04-20T11:12:00.000-07:00

We moved the boat to Marsh Harbour Boatyard so that CJ’s Welding could repair the dinghy davits, and the boatyard could do a short haul and clean her bottom. While she was hauled, I put two new zincs on each prop shaft and also sealed the outside of both escape hatches with a heavy bead of silicone sealant. However, when we hooked up to shore power for our stay, the electrical panel still showed reverse polarity and 60+ volts at about 4+ amps. Pretty much what we had been seeing when we tried to use the generator.

We contacted Merlin’s Electronics in Marsh Harbour, and Pat McFaden, the owner, came out and checked the system. Turns out the generator was fine (sorry, Jerry), but our new Xantrex Freedom 20 (2000W inverter/charger) had a problem with its AC board. Pat thought it was a solenoid/switch on the board that had failed. When he replaced the board, everything worked fine. The part was covered by warranty, as the unit had been installed only two months prior, but due to the regulations on importing parts into the Bahamas, we had to pay $100 for Fedex shipping, a 45% duty fee, and labor on getting the unit off of the bulkhead to be worked on (the installer from SALT in Marathon, Dwight, had stripped two of the mounting screws and it took Pat and I an hour to get them drilled out so that we could remove it. Thanks once again, SALT!) So, what might have been a free repair Stateside ended up costing over $450. See why I love cruising?

The boatyard did a good job cleaning the bottom, for another $450, short haul included. When CJ’s finished their work, the job which had been estimated at $500-600 ended up costing $955. BOAT: Break Out Another Thousand. In this case, the visit to Marsh Harbour actually cost us $1855. At least everyone involved did a good job, as opposed to the folks we have paid for work that was substandard.

So, most everything on the boat is now fixed. Or, should I say, is fixed for now ;-) Engines work, Balmar alternator works, generator works, shore power works, inverter charger works. Whoever buys this boat will get a really great deal, and we will no longer lie awake at night wondering what might go wrong tomorrow, which will be a great deal for us.

Yes, we still intend to sell her when we return to the States. We plan on starting the trip back this Wednesday, moving north to Baker Bay at the north end of Great Guana Cay so that we can -hopefully- transit Whale Cay Passage Thursday morning, just prior to high tide. Then, depending on the weather, we will stop at either Green Turtle Cay for the day or continue on to Powell Cay if the winds are good for anchoring there overnight. Next we will work our way to Grand Cay in preparation for a run to West End (when the weather is settled enough for a smooth crossing of the Gulf Stream), followed by a sprint across the Stream to Ft Pierce, Florida and back into the ICW. Wish us luck.

2009-04-04T10:19:00.000-07:00

We made the trip to Marsh Harbour, but went to the Marsh Harbour Boatyard first, which meant a two-hour detour, as you can’t sail directly to one from the other. At the boatyard, CJ’s Welding looked at our damaged davits and said they could repair them for $500-$600. While we were there, we checked with the boatyard itself about getting a “short-haul”, where the boat is picked up out of the water and held suspended while work is done on her bottom, and then returned to the water. The haul will be $330, and pressure washing the bottom will be $90. As our bottom is fouled with barnacles and algae, it is slowing the boat down, costing us perhaps as much as one knot in speed. Cleaning it will save us money, and has to be done at some time anyway, especially if we sell the boat any time soon. While it is hauled, we intend to seal the escape hatches with silicone sealant and put some new zincs on the propeller shafts.

We then sailed around several cays that block a more direct path to Marsh Harbour proper. After anchoring, we went through the dog-and-pony show of getting the outboard (80 lbs.) back off its stern mount and back onto the dinghy, as we don’t feel safe towing the dinghy with the motor on it. It will be nice when we can once again simply lift the whole thing up in the davits without straining my bad lumbar discs every time. Then, as it was after 5 PM, we settled in for the night, planning our foray into town for the next morning.

The town isn’t really all that large, but certainly offers much more in the way of parts, supplies, and services. We discovered four different auto parts stores, and were able to get some spare belts for the Balmar alternator, including one Dayco Top Cog belt, which Balmar said will not shred like the Yanmar (Mitsubishi) belts. We’ll see. The Batelco (phone company) office didn’t have a wifi connection available as they have on several other cays, saying it was “down”. We were directed to a deli with a wifi connection - it was no longer in business. We gave up on that, but found a few items we needed besides the belts at a very well-stocked hardware store (Standard Hardware), did a little food shopping at the only remaining supermarket, and located a barber shop. Shirley had offered to cut my hair for me, but I was a bit nervous about that, as it has been many years since she used to cut her boys’ hair. I should have let her. For twelve bucks, the guy gave me a clipper cut that she could have easily done with our Oster clippers (bought for trimming my beard.) And maybe I wouldn’t now have this cowlick sticking up . . .

We had an uneventful trip back to Man-O-War Cay, running the port engine this time, since I had belts ready if one shredded. So far, so good. The next day, that evening actually, we ran our diesel generator, which is relatively new (around eight hundred hours) only to have it break down. The Kubota engine runs just fine, but the Phasor generator it runs stopped working, and wouldn’t put out the proper voltage or amperage. We found a fellow on Man-O-War who is supposed to be competent to repair boat electrical systems (he seemed fairly knowledgeable), and he believes the regulator is defunct. It is a solid-state device sealed in resin which appears to be in perfect condition - no obvious burned areas, melted resin or parts, etc. But, per this fellow it is the only thing that could be wrong to give the problems the generator displays. He says he spoke to the folks back at the factory, and they concur. Bad news: a replacement is $800-$900. I didn’t ask if that included the shipping costs and the tariff that the Bahamas government puts on boat repair parts that are “imported” into the islands. Jerry, the repairman, says he thinks it is possible that the unit might still be under warranty, but I doubt that. I told him that, if it turns out the company will not replace the regulator at their own cost, we just can’t afford it right now. We’ll have to get it repaired when we get back to the States.

Are you seeing a pattern here? Am I simply so incompetent that I cannot touch a boat system without breaking it, or is the boat jinxed? At this point Shirley and I have pretty much given up. If we could go back to last November, before we bought the boat, I would refuse the boat - even if it was offered to us for free. Even with a budget of $200,000 to spend on repairs and upgrades instead of purchasing, easily able to pay someone else to fix what needed to be fixed, I would turn it down. It would be like owning a nifty sports car that was in the shop all of the time. It just has not brought us enough joy or fun to be worth the headaches and hassles we have endured. Yes, I would still rather be here than working at the Roseburg VA, but I would much rather have bought a new truck and trailer and be touring the Southwest instead of struggling with a boat that keeps breaking.

We have pretty much decided that, when we get back to the States, we will contact our broker and see if he thinks we can sell this boat. We paid $160,000 for it, have put over $30,000 in new equipment and repairs into it, but we both feel that we would be happy to walk away with $120,000 if we could do it right away, and not have to live on the boat for months while trying to sell it. We’ll see what the broker says. This certainly is not the best economic climate to sell, and we might not be able to at this time, but perhaps if we “give it away” we can do it.

Sorry to sound full of “doom and gloom”, like a quitter, but we are too old to be suffering with these problems when we should be enjoying ourselves. Let some twenty- or thirty-year-olds buy themselves a cheap boat that they can work on and we’ll do the RV thing instead. This is a rather expensive lesson for us, but we can’t see continuing to struggle with this boat when we could be relaxing somewhere, even if it is just an RV park in St. George, Utah. We want off of this evil merry-go-round ride.

2009-03-16T14:10:00.000-07:00

Okay. We are now in Hope Town, Abacos, Bahamas. You might have seen photos of this place in magazines, travel brochures, or on the Internet. It has a candy-cane striped lighthouse sitting on a low hill above the harbor, as you can see from these photos :-) Cute little town, not a lot to offer, but definitely cleaner, neater, and less depressed-looking than Bimini or Great Harbour Cay.

When left Great Harbour Cay, in the Northern Berrys, we crossed over to Sandy Point, on the southwestern tip of Great Abaco Island. We spent one night at anchor there. We were going to buy fuel, but the water was too shallow at the one fuel dock, so we were unable to do so. We almost grounded trying to finesse our way to the dock. Consequently, we had less than a full tank when we started the open ocean part of the trip around the south end of Great Abaco. There were some fairly big rollers coming out of the Atlantic, but as the wind had been reasonably calm for a few days, that long fetch across the Atlantic had not turned into huge breaking waves, heavy chop, or anything else that would have been far too daunting to a couple of elderly novices at the art of cruising.

We had a fairly smooth sail up to Little Harbor, on the southeast side of Great Abaco. Entering the harbor required sailing (motoring) through a cut in the reef, past some rather large breakers. It was a little hairy, as the following seas were picking up the boat and running it forward. Steering through and keeping centered between the breakers, we made it into calmer waters. There is a small protected harbor there with some moorings and a very small space for anchoring. We chose a mooring.

There is nothing much there. Just a foundry were a local artist produces some bronze castings. I’m not sure whether any of them are his or if they are actually reproductions of works his artist father, who founded the community, created years ago. I do know they were priced higher than I expected, based on the quality of the works. $4200 for a lamp made from a bronze casting of a Ridley’s sea turtle seemed a bit much to me. The turtle was attractive, but nothing special. Pete - the son - also owns a pub where you can buy a Bud or Corona or Heineken or Kalik (the local Bahamian brew) for $5 a bottle. All the same price. I think they serve lunch as well, but we ate on or boat.

We spent two days there, resting after our long run from the Berrys. We then headed north. We passed Lynyard Cay, where there were some good anchorages, and continued north until we got to Tilloo Cay. We tried to anchor north of Tavern Key, as small key on the west side of Tilloo, in an area the charts recommended for anchoring, but the water was too shallow, and the holding poor, so we turned around and anchored for two days just a little bit south of Tavern Cay. Then we left for Hope Town,which is where we are now. On the way to Hope Town, we lost another alternator belt. Not wanting to risk shredding our last spare, I put it on the alternator, but shut down the port engine, planning to use it only for docking and maneuvering. We used it when we got to Hope Town,to motor slowly into the harbor and to dock at the fuel dock, but by the time we picked up our mooring in the harbor, it was starting to smell like it was getting ready to go too. I have since realigned the Balmar alternator for what I hope is the last time.

There is wifi here, so I am going to try to sign up with Skype and then call Balmar tomorrow (Monday, March 16) to see what they might say. I have heard they are very helpful, with good customer service, and I hope they can solve the problem. I already de-rated the alternator output to try to put less strain on the belt, but as that didn’t work, I am currently at a loss for what else to try, beyond removing this $1000 addition to my boat and replacing it with the old Hitachi alternator that came with the Yanmar engine. That will mean losing the ability to charge my house bank of batteries while motoring, but I would rather have a reliable engine than charging output that stops when the belt shreds anyway.

Now. Have I mentioned that boats have holding tanks? These are polyethylene (or some similar plastic) tanks that hold the effluent that travels from the heads (toilets). Sort of like a septic tank. From there, in most places in America, it is pumped out through a fitting on the deck of the boat into either a pump-out boat’s tanks, or dockside at a fuel dock or in a marina. In the Bahamas, there are no pump-out facilities. Perhaps at the more exclusive club marinas there might be, but I don’t thin so. My guide books for the Bahamas don’t mention any. Consequently, mst boats have what are called “macerator pumps”, which are like water pumps except that they have special cutting blades inside to shred and macerate any solids that might be present (sorry to get crude here.)

Have I mentioned that neither of my two macerator pumps work? If I disconnect them from their holding tanks and try to pump out a bucket of sea water, they both seem to work just fine. Hook them back up to their respective holding tanks, and - nada. The hoses appear to be open, not plugged, the valves switching between the macerator and the pump-out fittings work (I had to reverse one that had been improperly installed), but they still won’t pump out the holding tanks. So, armed with one of two spare macerator pumps the previous owner was nice enough to leave on the boat, I rigged a portable pump-out device of my own. Armored with black nitrile gloves, Shirley and I were able to empty both tanks out at sea with this device, pumping through a hose draped out of a porthole. Since we didn’t have the proper size hoses and had to improvise, this device leaked a bit. Are we having fun yet?

I hope you folks that bother to read are getting the picture. At this point, if Reggie could wave a magic wand and return the $192,000 we have spent to our bank account, he would. Armed with the knowledge he now possesses, he would buy a new Toyota crew-cab pickup, a nice fifth-wheel or straight-pull trailer, a four wheeler that would seat two, and head for the Southwestern United States, pocketing the $80,000+ difference to use for staying at RV parks and dining out regularly. That would have made my sister, Paulette, extremely happy, as she feared for or lives on this adventure. If she only knew it wasn’t dangerous, simply dirty, disgusting, frustrating and disappointing, she would have been more accepting of our choice ;-)

As the economy sucks right now, we probably couldn’t sell this boat even if we were ready to do so, but as it is we plan on sticking with it until we get a chance to try New England in the summer. If things get worse before then, or when winter starts to loom again, we will more than likely put this boat up for sale and take our losses. Unless a miracle happens in the meantime, everything starts working reliably, and we stumble onto some gorgeous locations that make all the pain worthwhile. If it weren’t for some of the terrific people we have met, it would have been a total loss so far.

Which brings us to the owners of JilliQ, another Lagoon 37 here in Hope Town, David and Gillian Hough. Very nice people who spent several hours showing us their boat, the neat modifications they have made to it, and giving us pointers on how to make some of the cruising tasks easier. Delightful people who we hope to see more of while we are here. We just might stay a month at Hope Town, with local trips to Marsh Harbor and Man-O-War Cay while we are in the area. I hope to get to one of the Hope Town wifi spots to upload this tomorrow, along with some more photos of places along the way.

2009-03-05T13:16:00.000-08:00

Briefly, I want to mention one of my hot buttons:
courtesy and consideration from one human toward another. It seems sadly lacking so often in our current society. This was reinforced in the crossing of our paths with other boaters. On the ICW and elsewhere, powerboats most frequently ignore the presence of their slower sailboat brethren, passing them at high speeds with large wakes that make the sailboats pitch and roll, sometimes violently. Often, they do this even when they could easily pass to stern of a sailboat, preventing this disruption. This is well-known to folks who have been cruising for any length of time at all. Additionally, while most sailboats have a friendly wave for each other when coming into sight, it is common to be ignored by power boaters when you wave in an attempt to be polite and friendly. Not by all, certainly, but in my very limited experience on Florida’s ICW, it is well over 50%.

Surprisingly, this carried over in our contacts with other cruisers at Marathon. While most folks on sailboats (over 80% of those boats moored and anchored in the harbor) would wave back, there were quite a few who would disdain doing so. Hence my earlier comment about “snobs”. We had a close neighbor on a boat named “Living Well”, a brand-new 42’ or 46’ Hunter (IIRC) who would actually stare at us as we motored by in our dinghy, but would not respond to a wave or a pleasant greeting. I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that he received one final wave from me before we left Marathon, but I wasn’t using all of my fingers.

Back to our run from Bimini to Great Harbour Cay. We left last Friday morning, motoring into what was still somewhat heavy chop, although not as nasty as Thursday’s. It bounced us around, as well as slowing us to approximately 4 knots. When we got to the area of the Bahama Banks near Mackie Shoal, we anchored for the night in about 20 feet of water, dropping the hook at about 1800 hours. It took us almost thirty minutes before we were able to get the anchor to stop dragging,a new experience for us, as we had purchased a new anchor that had worked exceedingly well for us so far, a 35 lb. Manson Supreme, very similar to the Rocna. We had read numerous reports on both the Rocna and the Mason Supreme, with the Manson getting the slight edge. This Manson, on all chain rode, has always done well, but did drag for a while before we were able to reset it and get it to hold.

We were fairly exhausted, so we retired for the night almost immediately. About this time, the wind began piping up, going from the 10-15 knots we had been seeing most of the day to 15-20, with gusts occasionally higher. Both the boat and the dinghy we were pulling behind us at this time began pitching and slamming in this shallow water, also sailing around the anchor a bit. We endured this, unable to sleep, until about 0300, when I suggested to Shirley that we raise anchor and continue to motor on to Great Harbour. She agreed, so we raised the Manson and about 150’ of chain, and set out again. I fired up the radar, as visibility was good, but I wanted the assurance that we could see traffic that might not have lights visible (e.g., power outage, drug-running, or ?), and anything that might be sticking out of the water that didn’t show on our charts. We did observe several other vessels, including a long-line fishing vessel towing a couple of small powerboats behind it as it trolled.

As this was the first time Shirley and I had sailed/motored at night without either someone more experienced on board, or along with one or more other boats, we both felt much better when the sun came up and we could once again see clearly what was - or wasn’t - around us. The Banks are pretty well deserted both day and night, but remember that we had no prior experience of our own to give us reason to relax.

We got within about 10 nm of Great Harbour Cay when the port engine alarm went off. Have I mentioned losing several alternator belts since we had the Balmar high-output alternator installed by SALT Engineering in Marathon? (I’ll correct that omission in a moment.) I shut the engine down,and checked it out. The belt was shredded. It had been running continuously for about twenty hours since I last changed it, so I thought it was good to go, but that obviously was not the case. When we got about a mile out from Bullock’s Harbor, I slowed the boat until she just had steerage, and had Shirley take the helm while I went below and put a new belt on. (I was glad I had had the foresight to purchase four spares before leaving Marathon. Knowledgeable friends had suggested carrying a couple of spares, but I decided a couple for each engine would be better. If I had known that the Balmar was going to be a problem, I would have bought ten or twelve of the buggers.) Good thing. When we got to the marina, and had to use reverse to maneuver the boat in tight quarters, I ran over the dinghy painter (we normally have the dinghy up on davits) , immediately jamming the starboard prop and stopping that engine. With the wind and current, it was difficult docking on one engine, but not as difficult as it would have been if the port engine hadn’t had a belt on it and was unusable!

Great Harbour is a disappointment. The marina is run down, the bathrooms marginal and not very clean. One washer and dryer, but they do work. We walked a good ways toward town, but although we ran into three small stores and a police station, I’m not sure we actually got to “town”. There is a Batelco (Bahamas Telephone Company) office about a twenty minute walk (ten minute bike ride) from the marina that has free wifi access. The only thing that can really be said for it is that there is excellent protection from wind in this harbor. We sat out a squall with 40+ knot winds here, and only saw about 15-20 knots with 25 knot gusts in the marina during its passage.

OK. SALT Engineering of Marathon, FL. A sad story indicating another lapse of good judgment on my part. One day while in Marathon, having noticed that we were having to run our diesel generator for several hours every day to keep our refrigerator cool (not cold), I realized that a prior owner of this boat had removed the engine-powered compressor system that would have run our Sea Frost refrigerator in an efficient (fairly) fashion. This probably occurred when the engines were changed from Perkins 18 HP diesels to the larger Yanmar 27 HP diesels. Possibly due to a lack of space for the engine-powered compressor, or for some other reason, said prior owner had installed an optional 110 volt “Shore-Assist” system, which ran a small compressor off of shore power, or the generator if shore power was not available. Unfortunately, if you are not hooked up to shore power and running the reefer almost continuously, it will not keep the contents cold, only cool, definitely warmer than desired.

Walking in town, I noticed a business that dealt in alternative energy equipment - solar, wind, etc. They also sold refrigeration equipment. I stopped and asked if they might be able it install the engine-powered compression equipment that was usual for the Sea Frost system. They said that, for $98 an hour, a technician would come to our boat, survey the system, and make a recommendation. A very nice fellow named Dwight, a Canadian who said he had seventeen years experience living aboard sailboats, came the next day. He observed that it would be difficult to reinstall the engine-powered compressor, piping and wiring. He said the boat’s electrical system needed to be corrected (both engine batteries, he said, had been wired directly to their respective engine’s alternators, bypassing their battery switches), and that a larger bank of house batteries (six 105 amp hour AGMs), along with an inverter (Heart 2000) , would supply enough energy to keep the reefer cold without having to run the diesel generator every day. He also suggested a higher output (Balmar, remember? ;-) alternator, which would charge the battery bank while the boat was motoring (at least while the port engine was running.) Later, when we could afford to add some solar panels and a wind generator, we would be able to power the boat without spending money on diesel fuel for the generator, especially when we were at anchor, which is how we were hoping to operate most of the time.

Having long been a fan of solar/wind/hydro alternative energy, I was a sucker for this. So, when I was given a written quote of $6100 for parts ($4800) and labor ($1300), I cringed, and almost passed on it, but - with Shirley trusting my judgment - finally agreed to have the work done. Dwight said it could be done in about three or four days. Two and a half weeks later - not due to our slowing the process, except for one day when we had an appointment - it was finished. We were presented with a bill for $8100. Seems Dwight had not listed all the parts he needed, and the labor was more than double what was quoted. I went -twice - to their shop to explain that a quote was a quote, not an estimate. Dwight and the owner of the business spent over an hour explaining why I should pay for the extra labor and parts. As Dwight had indeed done two hours extra work that was not listed on the quote, I agreed to pay an extra $200. The owner argued that he could only cut the bill so far, and insisted that we had to pay an extra $750 above the quote. Finally, as we were due to leave Marathon the next day (the first decent weather window in almost a month), and I was afraid the owner would tie up our boat with a mechanic’s lien while we sorted this out in court, I agreed to pay for the $200 extra work Dwight did, plus an additional $400. So the system cost $6700 instead of the $6100 quoted.

Have you fallen asleep yet? Well, here was the bad news: we still had to run the generator every _other_ day, as the reefer was such a power hog that it ran the battery bank down by almost thirty percent over a two day period. To make your batteries last, it is best not to let them get depleted more than 30-40%, or you end up having to replace them frequently, instead of them lasting for a few years, and they are expensive. So, until we can spare the money to buy some solar panels, we basically spent $6700 to save about two gallons of diesel a day. At $4.00 a gallon, it will only take about 4.6 years to pay back the system ;-) Worse news: thanks to the Balmar alternator, the port engine began shredding belts. The alternator was misaligned, and after running for about eight hours, it ate a belt. We found this out as we were enroute to Rodriguez Key (FL) on our way to Bimini. I replaced the belt with a spare, but fifteen minutes after starting out the next morning, it ate the spare. As we were in convoy with several buddy boats for crossing the Gulf Stream while conditions were mild, we just ran on one engine.

Now, the monohull sailboats we traveled with were worried abut keeping up with our fast multi hull catamaran. Cats have a reputation for speed. Well, with all the provisions we brought (three months worth of food, dog food, full water tanks, extra tools, spare parts, etc. ), a month’s growth of algae and barnacles on the twin hulls, and only one engine, we were passed by every boat in the group, becoming the last to reach Bimini that day. The wind was light, so even with our jib out, we only averaged about 4 knots. (We might have picked up an extra knot if we had raised the main sail, as one other boat did, but Shirley and I have not had much experience with the sails up on this boat yet, and did not want the added complexity in case conditions worsened during the crossing. Most of the boats only flew their jib or genoa, as we did.)

Back to the belts. After we got to Bimini, I had one of our new friends, David Nutt from the UK, look at the engine. He said that the alternator was misaligned. I tried shimming the mount, and believed I got the Balmar’s pulley in parallel with the pulley on the engine. However, as I mentioned earlier, on the last part of the trip to Great Harbour, it shredded again. Today, sitting in the marina, I tried to decide if I would attempt to re-align the Balmar or put the original Yanmar alternator back on. Looking at the face of the Balmar, it appeared that a washer or shim behind the pulley might bring it out to where it would indeed be parallel. I located a larger washer that just exactly fit (a miracle in itself) over the large pulley shaft, yet was small enough to fit the back side of the pulley without rubbing on the alternator housing anywhere. I ran the engine at various rpm for a while, and it seemed to work properly. I won’t know for certain until it runs under load for a while , but I’ve got my fingers crossed. As the next leg of our journey is a 30 nm run across some deep water, followed by a 50 nm stretch across water exposed to the full fetch of the Atlantic Ocean with a lee shore, I’d _really, really_ like to have two engines to motor with, and two engines to maneuver with when we get to where we will anchor or dock. Those of you who have read this far, thanks for hanging in there. More to follow.

2009-03-03T08:18:00.001-08:00

Boot Key Harbor Marina (aka City Marina) in Marathon, Florida is a popular spot. During the month we were there,the mooring field was completely full at times. There were some areas were you could anchor for free, and there was some dock space, but as the mooring was only $260 a month, we opted for that. This required a reliable dinghy, and we immediately had problems with that, as our outboard, a 1990 Johnson 9.9 hp two-stroke, would frequently stall out. Knowing we were going to need a completely reliable motor, especially when we got to the Bahamas, we decided to buy a new one.

We love Honda engines, and would probably have sprung for a Honda outboard (hundreds more than most other makes), but they weren’t available locally, so we settled for a Nissan. Supposedly Nissan and Tohatsu are basically the same engine,and the Tohatsu’s were a hundred or so cheaper, but the Nissan was more highly recommended. We got an 8 hp, instead of the 9.9, believing it to have plenty of power to push our 11’ AB dinghy, and it has proven to be sufficient, even in choppy waters. We had the guy who we bought the Nissan from at Inflatable Boats, Inc. to check out our old Johnson, so that we would have a spare. Reggie was not smart enough to ask what it would cost, believing it would only be $50-$100. When it was returned to us, it cost over $300, possibly more than the motor was worth. While it is nice to know the carburetor has been rebuilt, I try desperately to avoid wondering if it had just been an old batch of fuel in the fuel tank that was the problem in the first place ;-)

The staff at the City Marina were all very nice, and very helpful. The facilities themselves, however, were quite run-down. There were only two showers available, so there were usually long lines waiting to use them. There was only one bathroom - again usually a line. The dinghy dock was almost always so full t was difficult to find a place to squeeze in your dinghy. Water was only a nickel a gallon, but you had to move your boat to the dock to get it, of course. Pump-outs of your holding tanks were free, but were only done once a week, which was a stretch even with two heads (bathrooms). Mail was receivable through the marina, as well as packages, so we were able to order engine parts, supplies, and our medicines and have them shipped there. This worked well and was a godsend.

There were several other marinas at Marathon, but we didn’t bother to price them, as it was our understanding that the municipal marina was the cheapest. Fuel was not available there, but there were two fuel docks at the entrance to the harbor, both within a penny of each other on their prices. The City Marina also had wifi available at their office/community room, but we opted to purchase a month’s service from a local provider called Maricomm. What a mistake! Their bandwidth was so small that it almost always took several minutes for a page to download! I don’t know if that was because a lot of folks were using Skype (an incredible bandwidth hog) or if Maricomm simply subscribed too many people, but it was incredibly frustrating. If we ever return to Marathon, I will access wifi at the marina community room, even though it means a dinghy ride every time you want to get online.

The City Marina had a brand-new building with about ten showers/bathrooms, but it had not opened yet, in spite of having been completed sometime last year. We were told the issue was sewer line connection/access. You’d think the city would have their permits and all their ducks in a row before building the darn thing, but evidently that wasn’t the case. We were assured it would be open within a month or two. That remains to be seen, but hopefully it will be done before we go back next winter, if we do. There was talk that they were going to expand their dinghy dock as well, which would be nice.

There were several stores within (LONG) walking distance. A Publix and a Winn-Dixie supermarket, a KMart (with somewhat bare shelves), a West Marine and a Boater’s World (both quite expensive) and a Home Depot (the closest of all the stores.) We earned the hard way to shop at Home Depot first, as they had diesel jerry cans for almost ten bucks less than the two I bought at West Marine. If you had a bike, everything was a bit more accessible, but still a bit of a workout for an old codger like me. Especially on the warmer days.

In winter, getting a “weather window” - a period of time when the weather had been good long enough to calm the Gulf Stream down and that would remain good long enough for a safe crossing of the Stream - is frequently difficult to come by. Fortunately for us, we got one just as our months rent on the mooring was up. One of the neat things about the marina was the camaraderie amongst the boaters, and this was evidenced by a board upon which people listed their boat, it’s cruising speed, and it’s destination. Groups of boats would get together to discuss when and where they were going, and make plans to travel together. We ended up leaving in a group of about eight boats, and crossed the Gulf Stream over to the Bahamas in a convoy. It was a good feeling, for all of us, to know help was near if needed.

Finally, we made new friends while we were there. One of the nicest couples we met, and whom we hope to remain in contact with in the future, were Dave and Joanne Bakale, from Michigan. They own a beautiful Maxim 38 catamaran named Tropical Breeze, and we had a lot of fun socializing with them. As I’ve mentioned before, due to PTSD and my reclusive nature, I don’t socialize much, but Dave and Joanne were so nice and so easy to be with that Shirley and I just think the world of them. We met other nice folks as well: Bill and Bette Neumyer from Massachusetts, Butch, Gretchen and Reese Evans, and Rich Coffman from Delaware, along with his crew, David Nutt from the UK.

Rich and David traveled with us to Bimini on Rich’s Baba 30 monohull, and stayed there for two weeks with us while we waited for favorable weather to continue our journey. We explored the small islands of North and South Bimini, visited the Shark Research Center, and went out for beer and food together while we were there. We met another great couple, Jim and Marlene Jackson from Montana on their Hunter 46 (IIRC), and the three of us left Bimini together, Shirley and I enroute to the Abacos, and the others to Nassau.

We hit really nasty wind-driven chop shortly after we started, and just north of the tip of North Bimini, our dinghy davits collapsed, due to the up and down slamming we encountered from the closely set waves and confused seas. There was nothing the other boats could do to help us, so they continued on, while we turned back in order to save our dinghy and brand-new ($1900) outboard motor before we lost them. We motored to the shore into slightly calmer water, where we struggled with removing the 90 pound motor from the dinghy and bringing it aboard the boat, then securing the dinghy so that we could tow it behind. What a nightmare! We returned to the Bimini Sands Marina on South Bimini, and stayed for another night before starting out again. Next time we’ll describe the nasty passage to Great Harbour Cay, and our brief night anchored out on the Bahamas Bank, as well as our stay (unimpressive) on Great Harbour Cay.

2009-02-25T06:31:00.000-08:00

Beasely has been an absolute gem as a boat dog so far. He is both the best and the worst of choices for a boat. Worst, because he is heavy, with short legs, and can't stay afloat for more than a minute or two. He has his own PFD, but we haven't actually tried it out yet to see if it will support his head above water. When we get to a cay with nice, warm water on a shallow beach, we'll test it. In the meantime, we keep him on a short leash on board the boat, in case he sees a bird or dolphin and decides to join them for play.

He excels as a boat dog because he is calm, quiet, not bothered by being confined to relatively small quarters, and basically just happy to be anywhere with us. He doesn't require a lot of exercise, in fact he disdains it :-) We were very concerned about the elimination issue, but our catamaran has a trampoline up front, and we added a piece of "astroturf" that we had him "christen" before we put it on the boat. (Photo shows it just past him and Shirley.) Like the good boy that he is, he used it the morning of the second day he was on the boat, and has ever since. Even when we are underway, and the boat is rockin' and rollin', he will use it as needed. Beasely is now a member of the "I Peed In The Gulf Stream" club. (Here's a photo of him enjoying the breeze as we crossed the Stream.)

Beasely has been ashore twice while we were at the marina in Marathon, by dinghy. It's a bit tricky, because the sterns have steps but they are too steep and deep for him to use, so we basically have to carry him down the steps and into the dinghy. He is fine once he gets inside the dinghy, although he doesn't wear his PFD often enough to get comfortable with it. We took him to Coral Gables when we took Shirley to the Miami Breast Institute for a stereotactic biopsy (negative,thank goodness) and when we went to Key West to sign up with Customs/Border Patrol for the "local boater option" I mentioned in an earlier post.

So, back to the travel news. We left Daytona Beach on the 3rd of January 2009. We would have left on the 31st of December, but had repairs that had not been completed, so had to extend. We moved south on the Intra-Coastal Waterway (ICW), anchoring out the first night, then spending a night on a mooring in Vero Beach, then anchoring for another night further south. Then we "went outside", leaving the ICW at Lake Worth Inlet, entering the Atlantic Ocean. We motor sailed through the night (nice full moon), ending up re-entering the ICW at Government Cut in Miami (see photos). From there we motor-sailed south down Biscayne Bay to Angelfish Cut, were we moved into Hawk Channel, between the Keys and the reefs that separate the channel from the Atlantic Ocean.

We sent a night anchored at Rodriguez Key, and fueled the next morning at a dock in Key Largo that is accessed by a canal that was extremely narrow. The canal makes a more than ninety degree turn at a place called, appropriately, "Crash Corner" or "Suicide Corner". Thank goodness the catamaran has an engine in the rear of each hull, as that wide spacing provides for excellent manueverability. By putting one engine in forward gear and the other in reverse, I was able to spin the boat 180 degrees in its own length. We made it back out without mishap, and got all the way down to Boot Key (Marathon) that night. As it was dark when we arrived, we elected to anchor outside for the night. The Boot Key Harbor bridge doesn't open at night anyway, so we would have had to motor up Sister's Creek to enter, and that is shallow and narrow, not something I would want to try in the dark if I didn't have to for some reason.

As I obviously run off at the keyboard every time I post, I'll wait until the next post to give the low-down on Marathon, the City Marina, and some of the great people (and snobs) we met there.

Cruising: fixing your boat in exotic places

2009-02-22T22:43:00.001-08:00

It occurred to me, upon reflection, that my title and content might be a bit over the top for some family members, although most folks who are willing to call me "friend" know how irreverent and sometimes crude I can be. Being that the first post is indeed accurate in its depiction of the chain of events that led us to our boat and its name, I can only say, "Mea culpa".

Having found and named our boat last November, we stayed on her at the Daytona Marina and Boatyard for the balance of the month, then moved to Loggerhead Club and Marina, still in Daytona Beach. We met a lovely couple, Lee and Laura Walker, who owned another Lagoon 37. They helped us immensely with advice and assistance, including helping us move Hot Chatte to Loggerhead. They are attempting to sell their home in order to take up cruising full-time, and are planning on a trip to the Abacos (in the Bahamas) in April, so we hope to meet them there again, as well as when we return to Daytona (briefly) in May.

I should mention at this point that there is a loose association of Lagoon 37 owners on a web list, and a number of them have been extremely helpful to us. None more so than the gentleman who has been my role model as a cruiser for a number of years now, named Denny Deranek. A picture of Denny and his wife Diane on their Lagoon 37 graced the desktop of my computer as wallpaper for several years before we were able to buy our own boat. He as given unstintingly of his help and advice over the phone and by email, and we hope to be able to meet him in person this April or May in the Abacos, or later at his home marina in Johns Island, SC.

The month of December at Loggerhead was a time of much frustration, as we discovered that the surveyor had missed a number of very important issues, requiring more repairs and upgrades than we had been advised of or had planned for in our budget of time and money. Repairs were completed, only to require being done again, as wiring had corroded and the repairs to the devices connected to it would not hold. Engine mounts were loose, shafts out of alignment, valves out of adjustment, shaft seals loose and leaking. Bilge pumps would not run, the bimini required rebuilding, etc, etc., ad nauseum. I did as much of the repairs (bilge pumps, "head" [toilet] valves, wiring, lighting, replacing old running rigging, etc.) as I could, but some repairs were beyond my current ability.

The engine work was done by an individual who is a truly nice human being, but who proved the definition of "BOAT": Break Out Another Thousand. His estimate was $700-800, but the work ended up costing $1800. And some of it had to be redone when we got further south.

While this was going on, we commissioned a lady who does exquisite canvas work to build an enclosure for the cockpit, as we knew we would be using the boat in cold climates during part of the year. That is when we discovered the sorry state of the bimini frame, as well as the dodger that came with the boat. We ended up spending a lot more than we had planned, but her work was so good we were glad to have done it. Martha Ogburn of Kustom Kovers, and her husband Dennis (I understand he does almost any marine work that can be done on a boat. Wish I had known that before I hired the other guy) did the job, and they are really nice folks.

Well, this brings us to another serious issue we had to deal with: the State of Florida, in its infinite wisdom and greed, has legislated that the purchase of a boat inside the state requires either the payment of sales tax (7.5% in our case, or $10400.00) or the removal of the boat from Florida waters within ten days. You can purchase a ninety day waiver for $25, but then you really have to get out. Penalties for not getting out can be as much as three times the sales tax that would have been owed as well as the possibility of jail time. Since we come from a state without a sales tax and do not wish to reside in Florida, we saw no reason to pay this tax. However, this meant vacating Florida by the 15th of February.

It gets darned cold north of Florida this time of year. We had planned on spending the winter in the Keys, staying reasonably warm, but since we could not do that, we opted for the Bahamas instead. So, at the end of December, we moved the boat to Marathon, Florida, the middle key of the chain. As we did not feel we had enough knowledge or experience to do that on our own, we asked some friends about hiring someone to help us move the boat. Another person from the Lagoon list who was very helpful gave us the name of an experienced captain who could help us move the boat and provide some training enroute. I called this captain, and based on what he told me, I thought he would be fine for the job, so I hired him (sight unseen) for $100 a day. Most sailing school instructors charge $400-500 per day, so I felt we were getting a bargain.

This fellow is from Massachusetts, and is a very nice guy. Unfortunately, he was unfamiliar with catamarans, wasn't quite clear on how to use our electronics, and didn't spend much time trying to train us on the way down. The real fly in the ointment, however, was that he suffered from verbal diarrhea. And most of what he talked about were personal reminiscences of famous people he worked for, met while sailing, etc. He talked so much, and said so little of value, that I finally had to come right out and ask him to try to curtail his conversation. He did try to comply, and was reasonably quiet for about a day, but the rest of the eleven days together seemed like an eternity. I am not really a social person, so this was my idea of what Hell must be like. Fortunately, his wife (or girlfriend) was able to meet us in Marathon, as we needed to go to Marathon (Boot Key Harbor), and he needed to get to Key West, so we parted a couple of days sooner than if we had had to transport him all the way to Key West ourselves. I cannot even begin to describe our relief at having him off the boat. Not a bad person, just an "oil and water" situation.

Going to the Bahamas meant even more complications, as neither of us has a passport, we had a dog with us, we needed to purchase a decal for the boat from Customs/Border Patrol, and also chose to sign up for C/BP's "local boater option", which meant a car rental and trip to Key West to process the paperwork. The local boater option allows you (hopefully) to simply call an 800 number to clear with Customs when you return to the U.S., rather than having to show up in person at the nearest port of entry. They can still require your physical presence, but I am told that almost never happens. Let's hope that will be the case for us. As you can still enter the Bahamas and return to the U.S. with a birth certificate and photo I.D. (until June 1st, 2009), we had to defer getting passports until we return, as they take your birth certificate while they are processing your passport, and we needed ours in hand to enter the Bahamas.

The Bahamas was good about getting us the permit for "importing" Beasely, our English bulldog, into their country. The local veterinarians in Marathon were not good about doing his health certificate, at least in a timely fashion, so we opted to travel with his vaccination papers from our vet in Oregon, which showed them to be current, along with a copy of all his other medical records. Customs in the Bahamas never even asked to look at that, just the permit we were mailed.

Next time, I'll talk about how well Beasely has adapted to boat life (you certainly must have heard that ships have poop decks ;-) , and we'll describe the city marina in Marathon, as well as the trip to the Bahamas. Bear with us, folks. My keyboard logorrhea will end soon. Or maybe not.

A Single Step

2009-02-21T21:32:00.000-08:00

Hopefully, our journey will consist of more than a thousand miles, but for the purposes of this blog, this is the first step.

In June of 2008, I quit my job as a staff nurse in the Mental Health Services of the Roseburg, Oregon VA Medical Center. Five more months of employment would have seen me retired with a small pension, but work conditions, and the conditions of care for our veterans, had (IMHO) deteriorated to the point where I could no longer stomach the job. My wife Shirley had retired over a year earlier, so we put our property on the market and in June it sold. As we had pounded large chunks of disposable income into the mortgage, we ended up with enough equity to do something we had both dreamed about - to buy a sailboat to live aboard full-time.

After we left Roseburg, Oregon, we traveled east. We had been searching the Internet for some years to develop an idea of what sort of boat we would like, and had decided a catamaran would be our choice of sailing vessel. Our arrival on the East Coast signaled the start f our search for the boat we would purchase. We looked at boats with the help of a broker (Phil Berman, the owner of Multihull Company) from the Florida Keys to the Chesapeake Bay to Long Island Sound and New England. In November f 2008, we found a TPI Lagoon 37 in Daytona Beach, FL that we liked, and we purchased her.

She was built in 1995 by TPI in Rhode Island, reputedly a better manufacturer of the Lagoon 37 model than the French-built Lagoons. The boat had originally been named "Gwahir", but the fellow who owned her prior to our purchase had renamed her "Reference Point". Shirley and I wanted a name that would reflect the fact that she was a catamaran, and we batted some ideas around along with my stepmother Carolyn, during a visit with her. As my family comes from French-Canadian stock on both sides, and being a lover of puns and other wordplay, I decided that "chat", French for cat, would be fun as part of the name. "Chat" is pronounced "sha", but the feminine "chatte" - French for "she-cat" - is pronounced "shot". Carolyn suggested "Hot Chatte" (pronounced Hot Shot), and that is what we named her. A French-Canadian fellow we met just after we bought her advised us that in French, "chatte" was slang for another word, beginning with "p", used when speaking of cats (and other things.) So, when we had the graphics put on her stern as part of her documentation, we included a brush-stroke drawing of a cat "presenting" herself. What can I say?