fetchinketch

The weather has been moderating.  Which means here that it has gone from pleasant, all the way to delightful. So yesterday morning we sailed down from our anchorage at Chub Cay down to a new spot about three miles east of Nassau.  Near the city, but still quiet and peaceful. It was in most ways a delightful day’s sail.  Only a few small issues blemished the day.  First was we did not catch a fish.  Second was when we went to unfurl our mainsail, we found this…

It’s not quite as bad as it might look, it is just a torn seam.  We sailed all day making good time with just our mizzen and jib. We need to get the sail down for repairs, and before we can get it down, we need to get it unfurled.  The problem is with a tear in the sail like this, it will not unfurl without help.  “Help” in this case being someone going up the mast to pull the cloth out as the foil turns.  “Someone” in this case being, yours truly.

Each little bit of sail has to be pulled out by hand. This is one of the downsides of having a sail that rolls up inside the mast. It makes sailing very easy, but when things go wrong, it can get ugly…

All the way to the very top of the mast…

Once out, the sail was lowered without further incident.  We are close to a local resort who has a wifi hotspot, so a quick search turned up a sailmaker in Nassau who can do the repairs for us–once they come back from holiday on January 3. (Where does someone who lives in the Bahamas go on vacation?) There are worse places to be stuck for a week.  Like, just about anywhere!

In the meantime, we are enjoying our anchorage…

Time: 19:20 local
Lat: 25 25.2′ N
Log: 77 50.1′ W
At anchor, Chub Cay, Bahamas

Christmas Day we anchored up from Cat Cay with the objective of crossing the Great Bahamas Bank. The cruising guide describes it as the “longest, and most boring, passage” in the islands.

We sailed north, around Bimini, to cross the deeper part of the Bank at night, planning to take advantage of the lighter winds forecast for the overnight hours. The only problem was the winds didn’t listen to the forecast, so they kept blowing at 20 to 25 all night pretty much right on the nose. It made for a long, slow, wet slog, motorsailing almost all the way. The 57 miles took all night.

Since we cleared the bank later in the morning than we expected, our ultimate objective down near Nassau was out of reach before dark, so we elected to drop anchor midday near Chub Cay. Actually, we dropped the anchor about five times before we found a patch of sand deep enough to dig into and hold the boat. Here we are the only boat in sight, and the shores of the surrounding Cays are very sparsely lit at night.

Right now it is still windy, although it is (again) forecast to drop over night. If the early morning finds us with favorable winds, we’ll head off again, hopefully finding a place relax and enjoy for a few days.

Time: 16:20 local
Lat: 25 33.5′ N
Log: 79 16.6′ W
At anchor, Cat Cay, Bahamas

We left Hollywood, Florida yesterday afternoon, at about 4 PM. From Hollywood we motored up the Intercoastal Waterway to the inlet at Port Everglades. Just as we arrived there, it was time for the Cruise Ship Port to empty out. While we hovered in a holding pattern for half an hour three huge cruise ships set off with their holds full of Christmas vacationers primed for a week of gluttony and wallet thickness reduction.

Just as the sun was setting, the channel was finally clear for our own departure out into the ocean.

Our crossing was uneventful. The wind was brisk, and moved us along at good speed. The waves were choppy, but never scary. We regularly were moving at over 9 knots through the water, cut to 7 or less by the contrary current of the Gulf Stream.

We arrived on the western shore of Gun Cay at sunrise. We found a sandy patch to anchor in, and had a nap. Once we were more or less recovered from our “red-eye” sail, we weighed anchor, and uneventfully checked in with Bahamas customs and immigration at the marina on Cat Cay.

Every time I look out of the cabin I have to do a double take at the beautiful color of the water. The temperature is in the low 80’s, with a delightful tropical breeze blowing. The closest thing to snow is the white sand on the empty beach.

Merry Christmas to all.

We have been chaffing here, ready to go, but not quite completely ready… waiting for that ONE last thing… always that one last thing… and then one more…

It is really frustrating to have always ONE more thing.  A common theme with people who are sailing away is that there is ALWAYS one more thing.  Eventually you have to just pick a day and GO.

Well… we have finally made arrangements for that ONE last thing…

If the weather is supportive, tomorrow we are off in the evening for a morning arrival in the Bahamas.  I am excited…

Of course, there is always a story to tell:

Tuesday morning we are quietly at anchor, minding our own business.  A line of showers blows through, with a bit of breeze.  Fifteen knots, maybe twenty for a minute or two.  Nothing of any consequence–I thought.  Karen is on deck on the phone. She suddenly alerts me that a boat is drifting across the harbor towards us.  A large ketch we had noticed the day before while underway.  We noted them as the kind of cruising boat we hope to never be, junk piled high on deck, looking just this side of derelict.

Here they come… anchor broken loose, drifting free, hatches open (remember, it has been raining!), generator running, but nobody home.  In a few minutes they have drifted right up alongside us.

Fenders out, we tie them up alongside and call the Coast Guard on the radio.  Fifteen minutes later, the local police boat responds, and manages to contact the owner who, eventually, shows up to reclaim his boat and move it back to anchor again on the other side of the harbor with an anchor rather unsuited to the size of the boat…

Anchoring is a combination of having good gear, and good technique.  The boat we interacted with had neither.  When anchored around other boats you have to also be aware of how those other boats are anchored.  They can be the most dangerous things around.

We have done all we can do at the Lauderdale Marine Center, and it is time to head out closer to the ocean.  Kevan is with us as crew for a bit, and he brought along his video camera.  Strapped to the boat, it made a great record of our trip down the New River.

Fortunately, our trip down the river was a lot less stressful than the trip up.  Careful timing had us going into the current, which makes it much easier to control the boat, and there was a minimal amount of big boat traffic to contend with. I sped up the video so you can see the whole trip in just a few minutes.

I got lucky… the camera ran out of battery power before it recorded me driving the boat aground while looking for a place to anchor…  We got off in a few minutes, no harm, no foul!

We filled our tank with diesel fuel, and right now we are anchored in Hollywood, Florida.  We’ll be doing some sailing and fishing over the next few days until the last of our boat bits arrive. Then it will be off to the Bahamas.

Some businesses are reliable and understand good communication with their customers, and some don’t.  It might not surprise you that the last bits of material we are waiting for are from those who just don’t get it.  As an example, consider this conversation:

“We are really in a rush, do you have it in stock and can you ship that with a Next Day delivery?”
“Yes, we have it in stock and yes we can ship it ‘Next Day’.”

Now you might expect after that conversation that you would have the item in question in one day or two at the most.  WRONG!  To be fair, they did exactly what they said they would do, they shipped it “Next Day Air”. The problem is it took them three days to actually get the shipment out the door.  Our fault, we should have been sure to ask, “Can you ship today?”

The other vendor kind of doesn’t understand that we won’t bother them with phone calls and emails if they would just TELL us what to expect.  But that is too much trouble.  Sigh.

On the bright side of things, Amel has been a delight with their shipments to us.  I am sure that their current production of new boats has to take priority, but their customer service department has really done everything they can to get us what we need when we need it, all from another continent and in a foreign (to them!) language.

Oh well, while we wait, I thought at least some of my loyal readers might be interested to see what Harmonie looks like under the water.  So, here is a guided tour to her neither regions…

Here we are looking from bow to stern (front to back for you landlubbers). The shape of the hull is deep and round.  A traditional and conservative style for a cruising boat.  It gives her a very comfortable and predictable motion when at sea.  The modern style of boat tends to a very flat bottom.  A flat bottom maximizes interior volume given a fixed width and length, and it is arguably a bit faster in some conditions, but it results in a very uncomfortable ride when that flat expanse of hull hits a wave and then the next wave, and the next, and so on…  I have sailed boats like that, and I wouldn’t have one.

A prominent feature in this photo is the keel.  The weighted part of the keel is over 12,000 pounds of cast iron. Much of the keel is actually hollow, and holds the 264 gallons of freshwater that we carry.  It is always a good thing to keep that extra 2000 lbs of weight as low as possible.

Unusually positioned on the back of the keel is the propeller.  No traditional propeller shaft, the drive train consists of a Amel built unit that puts the propeller deep in the water, and gives it maximum protection from debris by putting it right behind the keel.

The propeller itself has blades that rotate to align themselves with the water flow while we are sailing to minimize drag.

Under the stern is the rudder.  Every other sailboat rudder I have seen goes to great lengths to seal water out to avoid corrosion of the metal parts inside.  Amel built the rudder of metal that doesn’t corrode in seawater, so the rudder is hollow and water is free to enter and leave as it wishes.

It is not a huge rudder for the size of the boat, but it does a fine job controlling the boat while sailing.  At slow speeds and in close quarters, I find the boat a bit sluggish and slow to come about. Fortunately, we have a bow thruster to handle close-quarter maneuvers.  Not just any bow thruster, but an Amel specially designed and manufactured bow thruster.

More powerful than most, it also fully retracts to eliminate drag while sailing. It is a cleaver and robust system that really lets us spin the boat around in circles when we need to.

One last thing about the underside of our boat that I can’t show you a picture of because it is something that is NOT there.  Compared to other similar boats, there are very, very few holes in the boat.

Wait a minute… a hole in the boat?  Isn’t that a really bad idea? Who takes a perfectly good boat hull and puts holes in it?

In the modern boat building world, every time you need to get water into the boat or drain water out of it, you put another hole in the boat. For example, for the typical bathroom, you might have one hole for the toilet’s saltwater intake.  Another for the toilet’s discharge.  Another for the sink drain, and yet another for the shower drain.  You get the idea.  Holes add up quickly!  On a boat of similar size and design to ours here in the yard, I counted 19 holes below the water line. Harmonie has… three.

How did they do that?  Careful planning and design. Putting what holes they can above the waterline, and using a central sump to collect drain water, and a sea chest to distribute saltwater to multiple places from a single source.

There are any number of stories about boats that were lost when water was coming into the hull quickly, and filled the boat before the source could be identified. Not at all likely to happen on an Amel design!

Well, actually, we are waiting for delivery of just two boxes!  Tomorrow, we are supposed to get a part we need for a brace for our solar arch.  And then some pieces from France for the watermaker.  The arch is my fault, one piece we needed I neglected to include int he order last week.  The water make parts are to fix ones that leaked when I replaced the membranes.

So we are still here, up the New River, in Fort Lauderdale.  The weather is warm and muggy (sorry for all of you in the Northern half of the USA today where it is cold and getting colder!)

Right now the question mark is the delivery date for the watermaker parts.  They will hopefully ship tomorrow…  Maybe here by Monday?  We might take the boat down the river  to the coast so we can get out sailing and fishing while we wait.

Back in the water again.  All the underwater work is now for sure done, since the boat has been launched.  All the major things are working just fine. Everything left to do is not critical for our departure, but would be nice to get done while we are here with an extensive marine supply infrastructure.

The little tiny electric motor that raises and lowers the bow thruster is the most frustrating piece.  When the motor was being disassembled at the repair shop, a tiny little copper brush holder broke. The motor shop has been trying to sort out how to get it replaced/rebuilt.  Hopefully they can figure it out within a few days. Right now we have a manual lifting system rigged up, so everything works, after a fashion.  Just a good deal less convenient than pushing a button! This is really the only thing left we have to do here.  The worst case is that the motor is not fixable.  In which case we live with the manual deployment until we can find a replacement.  Not a disaster.

The weather looks good for a crossing over to the Bahamas in the middle of next week.

Our project list is starting to look better and better. Only a few things left!

1. # Bow thruster maintenance, including electric motor inspection.  Still waiting for the jack screw motor.  In the meantime it works, manually.
2. * Raw water manifold disassembly and inspection.
3. * New zincs on the rudder.
4. * Grease the feathering propeller.
5. * Install new speed and water temperature sensor thru-hull fitting. 
6. * Improve installation of in-hull depth transducer.
7. * Install new instrument display.
8. Delrin plate to protect deck from anchor chain. Probably not getting to this one…
9. * Mark both anchor rodes for length.
10. * Lubricate seacocks.
11. # Install second water pump.
12. Install upgraded anchor wash pump.
13. * Tighten middle hatch support spring.
14. * Wash and wax hull
15. * Paint transom bumper.  Changed to install NEW transom bumper.  
16. * Straighten bent rail.
17. * Install arch and solar panels. 
18. # Install new water maker membranes.
19. Install new switches for deck winches.

The wiring of the solar panels is done, and they are making power!  Happy day!  The controller from Victron is a small blue box with just a light or two one the front, but it talks to a program that runs on a phone, tablet or computer to give me all the performance details. Very cool.

We are still scheduled to be back in the water on Wednesday.  The only hold up right now are the electric motors for the bow thruster. They have been re-built as needed, and are awaiting testing.  As told to me on the phone today, the relay on the shop’s test bed had failed.  Knowing they had promised delivery today, they tried bypassing the relay with a direct connection to the battery with a clamp.  I guess they weren’t thinking ahead…

The main motor for the bowthruster is a beast at 7.5 kilowatt, about 10 horsepower.  They apparently had way more excitement than they wanted when they struck a 24 volt, 300 Amp DC arc connecting the clamp to the battery post. Imagine an arc welder.  Imagine a baby lightening bolt. Imagine molten metal spraying around. Imagine very loud zapping noises.  Imagine much shouting and yelling. I’m sure it would have made a great youtube video…

They have a proper high amperage relay coming for their test bed tomorrow so they can finish testing.

More and more projects get checked off the list.  The big one for the last few days is the installation of the arch that will support our new solar panels.  That was completed yesterday.  Today’s work was to fabricate the aluminum structure that will attach the panels to the arch.  Tomorrow the first order of business will be to lift the panels up to their new home. We are hopeful that the 630 watts of solar generating capacity will supply all of our electrical needs without resorting to the diesel powered generator.

Karen’s efforts on the hull have really paid off.  It is hard to believe that the boat is 20 years old with the shine on the topsides.  Most boats of this age are on at least the first paint job.  Although she has a few dings and dents indicative of a life well lived, it’s truly amazing how good she looks.  Amel did a spectacular job in construction quality and the previous owners did an equally spectacular job of maintaining her “like new” look.

The only catch in our schedule has been the delay in getting the bow thruster motors back from their overhaul.  Originally scheduled for today, they are not available until Monday.  While it is technically possible to launch the boat without these being installed, it will be much better if we wait.  Fortunately the yard has flexibility to let us stay here in our parking spot for a few days.  We are now scheduled to be back in the water on Wednesday morning.

Once the solar panels are up, almost all of the rest of the work will wiring and minor plumbing upgrades inside the boat. For the past few days the weather has been typical of Florida, hot and HUMID.  Getting work done inside will be much nicer once we are back in the water and can turn the AC on.

Here is the status list. Not a lot of new stars marking finished projects, but lots of progress on big pieces of the puzzle.

1. # Bow thruster maintenance, including electric motor inspection. The mechanical maintenance to the thruster drive train is done, and the unit is ready to put back in the boat as soon as the motors come back. Both the main drive motor and the much smaller jack screw motor needed significant rebuild.  The big motor is ready, the jack screw motor will be ready Monday.
2. * Raw water manifold disassembly and inspection.
3. * New zincs on the rudder.
4. * Grease the feathering propeller.
5. # Install new speed and water temperature sensor thru-hull fitting. Physical installation is done, wiring not yet started.
6. * Improve installation of in-hull depth transducer.
7. * Install new instrument display.
8. Delrin plate to protect deck from anchor chain.
9. * Mark both anchor rodes for length.
10. * Lubricate seacocks.
11. Install second water pump.
12. Install upgraded anchor wash pump.
13. * Tighten middle hatch support spring.
14. * Wash and wax hull
15. Paint transom bumper.  Changed to install NEW transom bumper.  Shipping from La Rochelle France on Monday.
16. * Straighten bent rail.
17. Install arch and solar panels. The arch is installed.  The structure for the solar panels has been fabricated, and hopefully they will be lifted in place and bolted to their permanent home tomorrow.

The contractors have finished their work.  The bottom is painted, and the saloon settee cushions have new foam.  Very, very comfy.