fetchinketch

I had alluded to the possibility of us needing to move the boat away from this marina due to infrastructure work that was coming up. For a lot of reasons, that would have been a pain in the butt. Well, we dodged that bullet.

Karen worked her network of friends here, masterfully, and managed to secure us one of the very few spots left for a boat of our size. Yesterday we moved the boat out of the way of the construction, and settled in to our new, temporary home on the other side of the marina.

Project Status

We continue to work hard on projects that are not immediately critical, but might just be lifestyle enhancing (like our air conditioners!), or cosmetic and/or value adding to the boat (like refinishing our saloon table). The big, and important, job left is replacing the standing rigging.

The wires that support Harmonie’s mast are now 14 years old. With one circumnavigation on them, they were on our schedule to retire next year, for their 15th birthday. Unfortunately, the need to find a new insurance company requires us to push that ahead to this year. We have pulled the trigger with the local rigger, the parts have been ordered, and assembly started. By the middle of this coming week, they will be going up and down the mast replacing wires.

In the past couple of days, we got our boat speed transducer up and running again, our space all prepped for our new air conditioner so it can just drop in when we pick it up on Monday, our flexible propane line to the stove replaced, the rudder shaft repacked, and a bunch more things done. Karen has been scrubbing her fingers to the bone getting weeks and weeks of boatyard dirt off the deck. For an older boat, she really sparkles.

Also coming up this week is the big Miami Boat Show. In the last few years this show has shrunk dramatically as a sailboat show, but it is still huge, and all of the major suppliers and manufacturers are there with their latest and greatest toys. We have a couple of things we need to look at there to evaluate for future projects, and a few things we’ll be shopping for–if we have any money left after this busy refit season!

Insurance Update

Insurance evaluation continues to take a lot of time. Over the past several years the marine insurance business has been roiled by higher than normal losses. Many companies have left the business, or greatly restricted the scope of policies they will write, so we are hardly unique in needing to re-shop something we thought we had sorted out.

We now have two policies in the running. They have different pros and cons, and quite different prices. Both touch down on the right side of most or all of our most significant issues. Once we get everything assembled we’ll post our thinking on this.

We are having had soooo much fun with boat insurance. We are learning a lot, and are rapidly weeding out policies based on what we are learning about insurance companies, their policies, and their brokers. Not a lot of what we are learning is pretty.

Most marine insurance policies are treated as “warranty” policies. Some of the warranties are explicit. For example, the person buying the insurance “warrantees” that all the information supplied on the application is true, and remains true for the duration of the policy. Other types of warranty are “implicit” and are not part of your policy or application, but have been found by the Federal Admiralty Courts to apply to marine insurance as a matter of law without being spelled out in words. For example the “Warranty of Seaworthiness” means the boat is maintained in a condition of seaworthiness suitable for the waters she normally sails in. If not, the policy is void for all losses.

Our most recent learning has been about the way your “home port” and your “cruising region” are treated. You would think that if your policy specified a “cruising region” from Georgia to Maine, and listed a home port of Annapolis, Maryland you would be covered anywhere from Maine to Georgia. Well… yes, and no.

The secret catch is that some parts of your policy are priced based on your home port. For example, the risk of hurricane damage. Although it is nowhere stated in the policy, the assumption is that you are covered for a “named storm” ONLY at the home port described in your storm plan. One of the things you implicitly warrantied was that you would be there during a storm. Did you know that? If not…Surprise! If you are in Maine, and the storm plan you filed with your insurance company lists Annapolis as your home port… you might NOT be covered in Maine for storm damage.

If you are in Maine and a storm approaches, you can call and update your storm plan, and have them reprice your policy for your new location. That’s an option. IF they approve your new storm plan and IF they give you a fair price as the storm approaches…

For 99.9% of all boats the concept of the “home port” isn’t a big deal or a serious limitation. Few boats ever travel far enough from their home dock that they risk getting “caught out” by a named storm, so it’s not an issue. For the tiny fraction of boats like us without a “fixed address” who can’t really predict where we will be when, the whole thing is highly problematic.

Not all polices work this way. Our old policy did not, and so far we have found ONE policy that is written in a way that seems to be about right for us. There is more coming. Hopefully we can sort all this out by the end of the month.

Evicted?

We did get a Surprise! of our own yesterday. At 4:59 PM (on Friday!) the office here at LMC sent an email telling us that they were going to be dredging the east basin of the yard (where we are docked) and we had to move by February 14th. Move as in, “Go away, we have no room for you–anywhere.” Karen has appealed, and gotten our case on the agenda for the Monday planning meeting. The primary issue here for us is that our rigging contractor has promised February 14th as our “done” date for that major project. The expectation that this happens 100% on time seems to be unduly optimistic. As much as we want to leave here, we had hoped that it would be on our choice of days…

In any event, we’ll figure it out…

We continue to make project progress, although it does seem that we add two new for every “Done” we cross off the list, but that’s a boat.

You haven’t seen a lot of postings here from us for the past several weeks. We have been BUSY. This has been the most intense (and expensive!) maintenance and project stopover we have yet had on Harmonie. She is getting older (like us) and needs more TLC (like us!) and some things were just unlucky timing with several big projects that needed doing at the same time.

There are almost no maintenance or repair projects we postpone while we are here in Fort Lauderdale. The supply and service infrastructure here is better than anywhere else we go, so it makes sense to fix EVERYTHING that needs fixing, or is showing signs of age. Most of these are things we had on our card before we arrived, but there are always extra things that come up when you start taking a boat apart. Then there are the “Surprise!” events–like needing to find a new insurance company–that just add to the fun.

Here for your reading pleasure(?) is what I am sure is an incomplete list of the projects we have been working on since we arrived here in Florida. Not all of these are finished (yet), but it will give you an idea how we have been spending the last 9 weeks. Projects with a (*) preceding them are ones we farmed out to local contractors. Everything else we have done ourselves. I am sure in the time left, we will add a few more. So… in no special order….

1. Change oil and seals in bow thruster.
2. Change oil and seals in “C-Drive”
3. Disassemble, and re-grease prop.
4. New rudder zincs
5. (*)New bottom paint
6. (*)Buff and wax topsides
7. (*)Rebuild turbocharger on drive engine
8. New exhaust elbow on drive engine
9. New transmission on drive engine
10. New exhaust elbow on generator
11. Fix raw water leak on generator
12. Install back up bilge pump.
13. Replace failing main saloon air conditioner
14. (*)Insurance survey
15. New fixed ports in all cabins, and repair sun damaged interior wood
16. New thermostats for both freezers
17. New level gauge for aft head holding tank
18. Replace packing on rudder shaft.
19. Replace battery in PLB EPRIB
20. New Main Epirb
21. Repair cockpit speaker for VHF radio
22. Change zincs on engine and generator
23. Update radio registrations and licenses
24. Renew HMS permit for offshore fishing
25. Replace thru-hull for aft holding tank vent
26. Rebed lens in forward cabin hatch
27. Realign door on fridge.
28. New hatch, screen and blinds for main saloon
29. New secondary anchor
30. Repair steaming light
31. Refinish forward head hatch frame
32. New main traveler control line
33. (*)Various sail repairs
34. Canvas repairs to dodger
35. New propane hose for stove
36. (*)New standing rigging
37. (*)Major deck repair
38. (*)Liferaft service.
39. Annual review of abandon ship ditch bag
40. New LED screen on autopilot
41. Replace various hoses and belts on engines.
42. Improvements to anchor chain lead to winch.
43. Repair/replace water speed transducer.
44. Repair mount of aft cabin space heater
45. Add CO/smoke alarms to each cabin

It is interesting what is NOT on the list. Almost no electrical repairs or upgrades. No significant repairs or upgrades to deck hardware. Almost nothing that we have upgraded or repaired before. It’s nice to see projects and upgrades we have done in the past are holding up and working as they should.

Pretty much as we expected, the survey in support of the new insurance came back with just a few trival recommendations, so that added nothing to our project backlog. Having that in hand means we can move ahead with the last of the insurance quotes and make a decision on that front.

While being productive and improving our boat is a good and rewarding thing, we are very much itching to get out of here. While we do like the local area, the scenery at the boatyard is NOT what we want to be looking at from the deck of Harmonie. A remote and lonely anchorage in the islands is the much preferred choice. Soon. Very soon!

We have had the same insurance brand for as long as we have owned Harmonie. Up until a few days ago, all was well. We sent them money and they… well… they took it promptly and efficiently. If you have been following, you know that we recently spent more than a month sitting up out of the water. TWO DAYS after we launched again, we get a notice from our insurance company that the underwriters of our policy were getting out of the boat insurance business, and any new underwriters would need a new out-of-water survey to get the policy reissued. Argh…

The only thing less fun than shopping for insurance is… hold on… I’ll think of it…

We have already had one salesman tell us that we should lie on our application to get a better rate. He’ll not getting a call back.

With the advance statement that I am not a lawyer, and the following is NOT legal advice….

Marine insurance is minefield of special legal terms, and words that mean something different than you might think. “Consequential Damages,” “Inherent Defect,” “Agreed Value,” “Salvage,” “Warranty of Seaworthiness” Without understanding terms like these, some of which appear in your policy, and some of which are “implied” legal standards, you are more than likely not going to have coverage that you actually think you are paying for.

Just as an example, my favorite is the “Implicit Warranty of Seaworthiness.” It doesn’t have to appear in your policy at all. In USA case law Federal courts have found it is “implied” to be part of the policy contract. Here is how it can work: Your boat has a serious fire that starts while cooking in the galley. You file a claim, with a totally reasonable expectation that it will be paid. The inspection process reveals that there is a serious flaw in the installation of a bilge pump hose–completely unrelated to the fire. Your claim can be denied because the boat was not maintained in a “seaworthy” state. Seriously. Oh, and if your boat sinks without an obvious external cause, that can be considered prima facia evidence that it was unseaworthy, sometimes called the “Calm, Sunny, Day Rule.” It is up to you to prove otherwise. Good luck with that.

It does seem to me reasonable for a claim to be denied if a lack of normal maintenance or good practice CAUSES a claim, but something totally unrelated to the claim really has no part in the equation of the payout, in my opinion. There are a few (very few!) policies that do explicitly waive a general warranty of seaworthiness. They are very much worth looking for. The alternative is having your insurance company crawl all over your boat after a claim looking for ANYTHING wrong that they can use to deny your claim.

It really is a minefield that even that legal creation a “reasonable person” has no chance of following without special knowledge and help.

On a rainy morning the day before Christmas Eve, we got the Christmas present we were really wanting, and Harmonie was picked up and dropped back in the water.  We are not yet finished with the projects, by any means, but being in the water makes our lives a lot more comfortable.  Our air conditioners run, our sinks drain, our toilets flush, we can shower on board, we can cook.  Life is just way better…

We have been treated to visits from Bill’s sister and her family who coincidently are in Florida for a winter vacation. Also in town are our good friends from the Chesapeake area Aras and Vickers from the Amel Sharki, Fiasco. It has been great having breaks from the ongoing projects to have a socail life!

Our deck repairs came out beautifully. The mess of sanding and grinding and the hassle of outside workers crawling over our home is over.

We now have all the parts back in hand to finish the port light replacements. Everything is looking as good as we had hoped. Getting everything re-assembled is time consuming, but not nearly as difficult as the disassembly was.

The engine repairs are underway. In addition to replacing the transmission, it looks like we will also need to have the turbo charger rebuilt, but those aren’t huge time or dollar projects. Anything that improves the confidence we have in our old reliable drive engine is a good thing.

Harmonie (like the rest of us) is getting older.  As she ages, she takes more maintenance and care to keep in good shape (like the rest of us!)  We have ended up with three major repair projects this season.  We have been sitting “on the hard” for a couple weeks now, and it looks like a few more.  It’s a more than a bit of a pain living on the boat on land. Dust and dirt are everywhere! But it will be over soon!

First Project, is our transmission. If you have been following closely, you might remember that we have been nursing along a small leak from the rear seal. Not surprisingly, it hasn’t gotten any better on its own.

\We have a standard ZF25M transmission (Not to be confused with a ZF25, which is a very different beast!) We found an excellent marine transmission shop here in Fort Lauderdale.  They confirmed my understanding that on this transmission replacing the rear seal requires virtually the entire unit to be disassembled.  As a matter of course, they replace all seals and bearings (as a minimum) when they have a unit apart.  

It would take about $1600 in mechanics time alone to get the unit apart and reassembled, plus a significant investment in parts. A new ZF25 is $2100.  That seems like an easy choice.  Replacing the transmission is not a technically difficult job, but there is the matter of removing old bolts, and physically moving the engine a few inches to get the coupling apart, and then getting everything aligned again. The coupling between the transmission and prop drive also has a reputation of being EXTREMELY difficult to remove.  That will keep me busy and out of trouble for a few days!  Buried in the bell housing between the flywheel and the transmission is the damping plate. Until the transmission is removed, we will not know exactly which part is there, and what it’s delivery time will be. The good news from this, is if we ever need a new engine, the new transmission can go along for the ride! We just got the news that the transmission is in stock locally, and can be delivered in a matter of days.

The big decision here is should we pull things apart while we are still high and dry?  or do we wait until we are back in the water?  If we run into a delay while things are apart, it would mean delaying our launch since we need the transmission to maneuver the boat to the dock….

Job Two has been the replacement of the ten fixed port lights in the cabin trunk.  Twenty-five years of tropical sun exposure left the acrylic lenses and the wood frames quite a bit worse for wear. 

We are having new acrylic windows made at a local shop, and the wood refinished.  Although the appearance of the plastic in the windows was the initiating symptom for this project, it is being done “just in time” to save the wood from replacement. We we referred to a local refinisher who will be doing the interior varnish.  I don’t usually think of wood as suffering serious damage from sunlight, but it does! 

The new windows, the refinished wood, and repainted trim on the exterior will have Harmonie looking better than the day we bought her  I am really hoping that the removal of the interior wood trim panels was the toughest part of this job!

Our last major project is a significant repair to the deck. Lots of cutting, grinding, and new fiberglass work outside, and a new hatch and interior trim. Our good buddies at P&S Yacht Services have been doing a great job with this, and we’ll have a lot more to write up about it when it is finished.

And all those things are in addition to the routine maintenance of bottom painting, bow thruster, and prop drive maintenance, and other routine stuff that needs doing on a regular basis.  

Just to refresh… we have been looking for a part for Harmonie’s generator. This is a 25 year old Onan generator, and the manufacturer’s support for the model has effectively ended. In all of the USA there is ONE piece of the part we need, and at a price of about $2000 it might as well have been cast of solid gold. We have been pursing several other options for how and where to find one.

A local vendor we have used for various electrical motor services recommended that we talk to “Yachts and Diesels”. After several back and forth phone calls, they said they thought they might have one. Today we decided to pay them a visit and see.

The only word for this place is… No. There is no word for it.

We were told to talk to Tommy, he’d know. We tracked down Tommy, and described the part we wanted. Not only did he know exactly the part we wanted, for a generator which hasn’t been made for 20 years, but he knew exactly what it looked like. He said, “Follow me” and lead us off wandering the warehouse aisles looking for the generator that he could pull the part off. He was sure they had more than one. Somewhere.

Words can not describe this place. Racks 40 feet high full of engines, generators, miscellaneous boat parts, and unknown stuff. The only light comes from a few widely scattered skylights. The aisles are so clogged with stuff you have to turn sideways to squeeze through. Engines from tiny single cylinder putt-putts to huge 1000 horsepower 10 cylinder monsters that weigh more than a large SUV.

Finally, there it is! Right there! That’s the one!

Tommy disappeared for a while to get some tools, and 20 minutes later we had our part in hand, in almost like new condition. “That will be $75.”

If you are looking for an obsolete part for an engine or generator, these are the guys to call. If you are in Fort Lauderdale and you are any kind of gearhead, they are an entertaining place to see.