Ready to go

After a month in Oxford we are finally ready to move on. Our immediate plans are to leave Saturday and go further up the Choptank River to Cambridge, MD to meet with friends from our sailing club and then Sunday head south down the Bay. We had planned to stop going down the Bay but we now plan to go straight through and out next stop will be Coinjock, NC on Monday.

One of the exciting things about living on a boat is there are always things to do. We came into the Boatyard with a few relatively minor tasks to do but are leaving with several significant improvements.

The largest item is that we raised the waterline meaning that the bottom paint now comes further up the hull to protect more of the hull from sea growth. The normal waterline established by the manufacturer is based on their calculation from the design plans but reality of adding cruising equipment and provisions puts the boat lower in the water so to protect the hull we raised the level of bottom paint. With everything on board it appears we still have bottom paint above the waterline.

The next major item we did was replace the onboard AC battery charger. The OEM charger was only rated at 40 amps and as we found it after we replaced it it was nearly burned out. We replaced it with a 100 amp charger that significantly increases the power going into the battery when connected to shore power or charging from the generator. We found when we were up north that our wind and solar failed to charge the batteries and required running the generator for hours to get sufficient charge to the batteries. As we get back south we should improve the reliability of our wind and solar but when that doesn't work we should get better charging from the generator. As part of the installation we had to use larger cables to carry the higher load to the batteries.

We also took the opportunity to replace a number of the original hoses including the engine exhaust hose, the engine vented loop hoses, the refrigerator drain hose, the scupper hoses and the cockpit cold locker hose.

While we were here I found the U brace on the underdeck toggle was broken. While replacing it I suggested that we remove the deck bracket and rebed it. After we took the bracket off we found that the brace had rusted out from water leaking through the bracket because the holes were drilled larger than the bolts for the bracket. So we filled the holes with epoxy, redrilled them and rebedded the bracket. As a result we had to retune the rigging. I'm not sure we have it right but we'll see how it does and maybe we need to retune it later.

We also did a number of maintenance items and gelcoat repairs. We also used the time to reprovision with nonperishable items for a long cruise. With all the work completed and everything stowed we're ready to head out. But with all the stuff we've added we still have room for more stuff. There are probably some more tools and equipment we need that we will add over the next year to decrease our need for technical support.

Hard to believe we've been here for a month but lots has happened including a lot of travel, the boat show, a hurricane and reuniting with lots of friends. So now we're ready to go with lots to look forward to in our travels.