While visions of warm weather danced in their heads!
Here we are in Chicagoland on our road trip and suffice it to say that we thought for sure that we would be in lower latitudes by now. But as they say, temporary inconvenience, permanent improvement.
Boat work continues as we are visiting with family in the tundra. This week the deck got compounded and waxed, the canvas was being finalized and the last electronic issues were being resolved. With any luck, we will be able to finally throw off the dock lines next week.
I've been building my almanacs and trip logs so that we can plan our daily events and begin to build our maintenance schedules. There is so much to do to be prepared for the conditions and ensure that our equipment is ready to do what we want when we want to do it.
It's hard to believe how much we've accomplished in such a short time. Many people take months and years to do what we've done in a few weeks. We are by no means ready to leave when we do but we will. This weekend when we get back we need to finish cleaning up our old boat and getting it ready for winter and next season. Once that is done we should be ready to go. Our adventure is not an event, it is a process and one that will be continuing to evolve. I don't think we will ever be in a state of readiness as we will always be continuing to improve our position. That is a fundamental characteristic I acquired early in my army days. No position, no plan is ever truly ready. One of the corollaries to Murphy's Laws is that no plan survives contact intact. Everything is a process of adapting, improvising and overcoming. Ce'st la vie.
When ready we will depart knowing that we have a boat that if competently crewed can handle any circumstance, the crew is determined to overcome every challenge and whatever happens we will get through it becoming better for the experience.
This evolution began with getting ready to move by cleaning out our possessions, preparing the house for sale and anticipating outcomes of many unknown events. We are almost there.
Wednesday, November 26, 2014
Saturday, November 22, 2014
Time is moving quickly and so is the weather. We really wanted to be south by now but it is more important that everything goes well. Tomorrow we plan to take her out across the Bay to get the rest of our stuff to complete the move from our 380 to the 420. Since both are named Amekaya we have to identify the boats by model.
For those not familiar with the IP 420 I discussed some design detail in the last post but did not get into the interior. We will eventually post some pix of the inside. She has 2 nice sized cabins with queen-sized beds. The forward cabin bed features the ability to walk around it. There are 2 heads (bathrooms) with showers. A very large main cabin with a fold-down dining table that will easily host 6 people. The settee on the starboard (right) side of the boat opens up to a full twin size bed. In the main cabin we also have the galley with 2 stainless steel sinks, a microwave, fridge-freezer, 3 burner stove with oven and a seagull filtered water dispenser.
One of the features we added was a deck wash. Many boats have deck washes but this one did not. The yard added the basic wash with the through-hull water intake and the deck mounted connection for the hose. The deck wash is used to rinse mud and such off the anchor or deck. I added a fresh water connection so that I could rinse off salt from the anchor, the teak and the cockpit surrounds. Salt water is great for lots of things but it is highly corrosive to many things on the boat.
Island Packet boats unlike many boats are equipped with substantial tankage.We have a 160 gallon fuel tank, 250 gal fresh water and a 60 gal holding tank. We could motor to Bermuda and not put up the sails. The water and holding tanks will give us the ability to avoid the need for frequent stops for water or pumping out.
We still have a few things to get completed including the cockpit enclosures but it is hard to believe that after months and years of planning we are now just days away from dropping the docklines and beginning our great adventure.
We spent tonight stowing things so that when we move on the rest of our stuff it can all be organized for the long term. I'm sure that we will reorganize no less than every other week but we need to start some where just to get everything on.
Well, enough for tonight and off to sleep.
For those not familiar with the IP 420 I discussed some design detail in the last post but did not get into the interior. We will eventually post some pix of the inside. She has 2 nice sized cabins with queen-sized beds. The forward cabin bed features the ability to walk around it. There are 2 heads (bathrooms) with showers. A very large main cabin with a fold-down dining table that will easily host 6 people. The settee on the starboard (right) side of the boat opens up to a full twin size bed. In the main cabin we also have the galley with 2 stainless steel sinks, a microwave, fridge-freezer, 3 burner stove with oven and a seagull filtered water dispenser.
One of the features we added was a deck wash. Many boats have deck washes but this one did not. The yard added the basic wash with the through-hull water intake and the deck mounted connection for the hose. The deck wash is used to rinse mud and such off the anchor or deck. I added a fresh water connection so that I could rinse off salt from the anchor, the teak and the cockpit surrounds. Salt water is great for lots of things but it is highly corrosive to many things on the boat.
Island Packet boats unlike many boats are equipped with substantial tankage.We have a 160 gallon fuel tank, 250 gal fresh water and a 60 gal holding tank. We could motor to Bermuda and not put up the sails. The water and holding tanks will give us the ability to avoid the need for frequent stops for water or pumping out.
We still have a few things to get completed including the cockpit enclosures but it is hard to believe that after months and years of planning we are now just days away from dropping the docklines and beginning our great adventure.
We spent tonight stowing things so that when we move on the rest of our stuff it can all be organized for the long term. I'm sure that we will reorganize no less than every other week but we need to start some where just to get everything on.
Well, enough for tonight and off to sleep.
We enjoyed our long awaited sea trial by sailing (actually) motoring from our work site in Oxford, MD on the Eastern Shore back to our home marina on the Western Shore. We got a late start going over as we had to make a few adjustments and then we started our return late as well as we tried to get as much done as possible on our old boat. Because of that we returned into darkness and cold as the sun sank further to the south and to the west.
But it was great to finally get out on the water and see how this new boat handles. She did well and in spite of the cold, wind, low water and darkness was able to get in and out of 2 relatively unknown slips without leaving paint on the pilings.
Now, we're packing for our road trip and when we return with any luck we will be headed toward the sun.
More to follow
Monday, November 17, 2014
Prequel
Since we've been remiss over the past few months in updating we will from time to time flash back to the events that got us to where we are.
The star of our story is our boat. For the past 2 months plus we have been working toward this time when we could move onto our boat. When we sold out in June we moved onto our previous boat an Island Packet 380 and now we are moving onto our Island Packet 420. Island Packet Yachts are made in Largo, Florida (between St Pete and Clearwater) by very skilled American craftsmen. In boats there are many classes, but Island Packets (IPs) are Class A Ocean rated boats that are designed to sail anywhere in the world. They aren't boats that you would take out to race around the buoys but if you want to race across an ocean they would do well.
We bought our IP420 back in August from a seller in Wisconsin. For most of its life it lived in fresh water in Lake Michigan so it doesn't have the corrosion experienced by boats in say Florida. The 420 is just under 45' at 44'7" with a beam (width) of 14'3" and weighs about 33,000 lbs. All Island Packets have 3 sails; a mainsail, a jib (head) sail and a staysail (second head sail). One of the features of IP's unlike many other modern boats is that the interior is mostly teak like classic yachts. On the outside it has a teak rail around the edge of the deck and on the top of the coaming that surrounds the cockpit.
When we bought our current boat it had few features so as it was going to be our home for hopefully many years we added many upgrades, did repairs and enhanced existing features.
The boat had an HVAC system that provides heat and AC but it works like a heat pump using raw water instead of air for the heat exchange. However, since it requires about 20amps to function, it could only be used when connected to shore power at a dock. Since we are looking to reduce dependence on shore support we added a Northern Lights 5k diesel generator that can provide power to run the HVAC when not connected to shore. In addition to the diesel generator we added a D400 Wind Generator and 340 watts of solar power. With our wind and solar we should be able to keep our battery bank fully charged to more than meet our power needs every day without running our engine. While some folks would see this as being "green" it's an economic decision. Without the wind and solar we would probably need to run our engine at least 2 hrs/day. At 2hrs/day that's 60hrs/mo or about 500hrs/yr. At about $4/gal for diesel we have a 100% ROI in about 3 yrs. Not to mention the reduced inconvenience of running the engine. We also expanded the battery bank for 400 Amps to 600 Amps.
Additionally we added cabin fans, USB/DC chargers, TV, stereo, LED lights and an updated Garmin suite of navigation electronics. The boat also had no cockpit canvas so we added a spray shield, bimini top and full enclosures to keep the cockpit dry and more temperate regardless of the weather.
We also upgraded the sails with a new head sail, a new spinnaker and made repairs to the staysail and old oversized headsail.
It's getting late and the wind is howling outside as the temp is to drop into the 20's so time to wrap for tonight. More to follow.
The star of our story is our boat. For the past 2 months plus we have been working toward this time when we could move onto our boat. When we sold out in June we moved onto our previous boat an Island Packet 380 and now we are moving onto our Island Packet 420. Island Packet Yachts are made in Largo, Florida (between St Pete and Clearwater) by very skilled American craftsmen. In boats there are many classes, but Island Packets (IPs) are Class A Ocean rated boats that are designed to sail anywhere in the world. They aren't boats that you would take out to race around the buoys but if you want to race across an ocean they would do well.
We bought our IP420 back in August from a seller in Wisconsin. For most of its life it lived in fresh water in Lake Michigan so it doesn't have the corrosion experienced by boats in say Florida. The 420 is just under 45' at 44'7" with a beam (width) of 14'3" and weighs about 33,000 lbs. All Island Packets have 3 sails; a mainsail, a jib (head) sail and a staysail (second head sail). One of the features of IP's unlike many other modern boats is that the interior is mostly teak like classic yachts. On the outside it has a teak rail around the edge of the deck and on the top of the coaming that surrounds the cockpit.
When we bought our current boat it had few features so as it was going to be our home for hopefully many years we added many upgrades, did repairs and enhanced existing features.
The boat had an HVAC system that provides heat and AC but it works like a heat pump using raw water instead of air for the heat exchange. However, since it requires about 20amps to function, it could only be used when connected to shore power at a dock. Since we are looking to reduce dependence on shore support we added a Northern Lights 5k diesel generator that can provide power to run the HVAC when not connected to shore. In addition to the diesel generator we added a D400 Wind Generator and 340 watts of solar power. With our wind and solar we should be able to keep our battery bank fully charged to more than meet our power needs every day without running our engine. While some folks would see this as being "green" it's an economic decision. Without the wind and solar we would probably need to run our engine at least 2 hrs/day. At 2hrs/day that's 60hrs/mo or about 500hrs/yr. At about $4/gal for diesel we have a 100% ROI in about 3 yrs. Not to mention the reduced inconvenience of running the engine. We also expanded the battery bank for 400 Amps to 600 Amps.
Additionally we added cabin fans, USB/DC chargers, TV, stereo, LED lights and an updated Garmin suite of navigation electronics. The boat also had no cockpit canvas so we added a spray shield, bimini top and full enclosures to keep the cockpit dry and more temperate regardless of the weather.
We also upgraded the sails with a new head sail, a new spinnaker and made repairs to the staysail and old oversized headsail.
It's getting late and the wind is howling outside as the temp is to drop into the 20's so time to wrap for tonight. More to follow.
Monday, November 10, 2014
Okay, so fast forward a few months to November. So much has been happening we haven't had a chance to update our blog. In a nutshell, we sold our house in Ashburn in July. After searching the country and the BVI for a desirable Island Packet 420 we decided on a freshwater boat located in Racine Wi. and had her trucked to Oxford Boat Yard where she arrived just after Labor Day. This is where Maris redid our new Amekaya's bottom and refinished the teak with the help of his son Justin. After many, many hours of hard labor she looks gorgeous! This boat came with standard IP furnishings plus bow thruster, an AC unit with reverse cycle heat, a folding prop, a chart plotter and sonar. She also had a hard dodger with one solar panel. Wind and depth instruments, auto helm, canvas and even a deck wash were non-existent. We had our work cut out. We added a generator, auto helm, all new electronics, new replacement batteries plus added 2 new batteries, 4 more solar panels, wind generator, Kato arch, dinghy and motor, LED lights among many other goodies and creature comforts to help make Amekaya a safe and comfortable home. And all this done in two and half months! Er, not quite done yet. Our mast was set today but the rigging is not completed. Electrical work is still wrapping up. Engine needs 1000 mile service. Then we'll take her on a sea trial and calibrate her instruments. Here's a link to see general information about our Island Packet 420 http://iphomeport.com/forum/model_info.php?ip_model=IP420
There is still so much work to do before we can head South! Oh did I mention we are racing against the cold weather we know will settle in soon. When she is ready we'll move in; hopefully this weekend. That may be optimistic. Once we move in then we can winterize our IP380 that we're currently living in. Our 380 will be put on the hard where soon some good sailor will buy her and take as good care of her as we have. Then we'll need to take care of some loose ends, provision and we'll be out of here!
There is still so much work to do before we can head South! Oh did I mention we are racing against the cold weather we know will settle in soon. When she is ready we'll move in; hopefully this weekend. That may be optimistic. Once we move in then we can winterize our IP380 that we're currently living in. Our 380 will be put on the hard where soon some good sailor will buy her and take as good care of her as we have. Then we'll need to take care of some loose ends, provision and we'll be out of here!
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