Our trip to Maine was a huge success.  We made it there and back, nobody got sick, nobody got (seriously) hurt, and everyone had a great time.

 

We didn’t play it up beforehand because of the disappointment we suffered when last year’s trip was cancelled at the last minute.  But now that it’s behind us, we aren’t able to stop thinking about it.  The gratitude we feel toward everyone who made it possible, makes me feel almost… effusive.  Almost.

 

The instigator of the plan, and major player in its execution, was Heather, Tanya’s best friend from college.  She once visited us on H-Dock, where she was known as “Heather from Maine”, and helped make stories that will never be forgotten.  She and her husband, Nathan, have a boy about Aaron's age and run a brewery in Portland.  Her parents split their time between a trawler and their condo at Sugarloaf Mountain.  They are all skiing fiends. 

 

We were welcomed to spend the first part of our trip to Maine at the Sugarloaf condo.  We didn’t let ourselves believe it was really going to happen until our plane was descending into Portland.  The kids’ excitement reached critical levels when we broke through the clouds and they could see the snow-covered landscape below.  The first snowball fight erupted on the sidewalk just outside Baggage Claim.  Another 2-hour drive, and after fourteen hours of travel we had arrived at Sugarloaf. 

 

 

 

Our first day on the mountain was spent just playing in the snow.  It was a day of testing unfamiliar gear, having snowball fights, sledding, and making snow forts.  Basically getting oriented and working out all that childish delight about the white fluffy stuff.  We received several comments from jaded Mainers telling us how nice it was to see kids enjoying the snow.  By the end of February, all the locals are pretty much sick of winter.

 

 

 

 

 

The serious work began on the second day, when we signed the kids up for lessons.  We consider it our job as parents to help them find their loves in life, and sometimes they need a little encouragement to try new things.  We did something similar with dinghy racing classes last summer, and the results were… meh.  They learned the basics, but didn’t really want to pursue it.  So we didn’t have huge expectations for skiing.  If they were done after a day, we would have been okay with that.  But that’s not how it turned out.

 

 

 

For three days Heather and her parents shepherded the kids as they progressed higher and higher up the mountain… and came down it faster and faster.  Eli and Sarah on skis, Aaron on a snowboard, and Sam on both.  Even Rachel got in on the action, wearing tiny skis and holding onto Heather.  Tanya and I enjoyed every minute of it… vicariously… from the lodge.

 

 

 

On our fifth and last day on the mountain, we traded downhill skiing for cross-country, and the kids reaction was less wholly positive.  Aaron and Sam asked how fast they could go and were not impressed with the answer, especially the part about going back up the hills, and decided they'd rather sit in the lodge and watch the fire.  But we had mercy and let them slide on inner tubes down an icy slope onto a frozen lake instead.  

 

In three days and countless wipeouts going downhill on skis and snowboards, nobody got hurt.  But after fifteen minutes of tubing, both Aaron and Sam had injuries.  Aaron flipped his tube over and landed on his head (no helmet) and Sam took a bad spill while dragging his tube back up the hill.  Neither was seriously hurt, and both felt much better after a couple hot chocolates, but that was it for the tubing.  

 

 

Sarah really enjoyed the cross-country skiiing.  Eli I think would have rather smacked his head on the ice.

 

We always try to quit while we’re still having fun, and we were totally successful this time.  Everybody wanted more.  We really didn’t know how well the kids would take to skiing, so we didn’t plan to spend more time on the mountain.  Next time we’ll know better.  Yes, there will be a next time.

 

 

 

See all the skiing pictures here. 

Leaving a place can be hard, like tearing out roots.  But the bonds most difficult to break are often the ones that make a place worth visiting.

 

We left Ft Pierce on January 19th.  We’d been prepared to leave since the day after Christmas, but with all the mooring balls in Marathon full, the timing never seemed right.  I had business travel on the calendar, and there was the ski trip at the end of February to consider.  We needed a secure place to put the boat, and bouncing around in the Keys was not appealing.

 

Then while making Sunday breakfast a few weeks later, we suddenly realized it was time to go.   We had the right wind, the right waves, and the right moon.  We had a couple free weeks on the calendar.  Surely that would be enough time to get a ball in Marathon, right?  If all else failed, we could park the boat at a dock behind a friend’s house down there.  We left that afternoon.

 

The trip down was uneventful and our slowest to date.  We didn’t really have anywhere to be, so we took it easy.  We spent one night underway and made overnight stops in Biscayne Bay, at Rodriguez Key, and at Indian Key.  

 

Our last day was our only sailing day.  Reaching in 15-20, we were making about 8 knots.  A couple guys on a 30-something performance cat spent their morning trying to catch us.  Eventually they succeeded, but they paid dearly for the privilege.  The other boat was certainly faster, but what was a nice comfortable ride for us, looked cold, wet, and miserable for them.

 

 

Of course, no trip in Hawk Channel is complete without snagging a crab pot.  We hooked three, but could only clear two of them, and had to put Eli in the water to get the third.

 

Eventually, we arrived in Marathon and proceeded to re-establish our roots there.  We got on the list at number 6 waiting for one of 15 balls.

 

Over the course of the next week, we carved out a space for ourselves in the Boot Key Harbor anchorage.  As boats came and went, we gradually adjusted our position until we had established a comfortable buffer zone among longer-term boats.

 

We continue to be amazed by the difficultly some people have anchoring their boats.  We’ve seen several that have had to make multiple attempts to get settled, only to drag during a midnight squall.  We keep a wary eye on the boats we don't think are anchored well.

 

Our anchor has held just fine.  In fact, one of the times we went to reposition ourselves, we were unable to retrieve it.  The windlass couldn’t break it out and when we tried to motor over it, but the load on the chain actually caused our bow to dip.  Not a good thing in a catamaran.  We weren’t just dug in, we were hooked on some of the detritus littering the bottom of the harbor.  Old moorings, sunken boats, bicycles, engine blocks; you just never know what’s down there.  I was not looking forward to diving down to clear it.  After much tugging and pulling, we finally got our anchor back, including a very large piece of old mooring chain.

 

 

It was good to have Take Two firmly anchored, because four weeks later we still didn’t have a mooring ball assigned.

"…Every boat possesses an imaginary black box, a sort of bank account in which points are kept. In times of emergency, when there is nothing more to be done in the way of sensible seamanship, the points from your black box can buy your way out of trouble. You have no control over how the points are spent, of course; they withdraw themselves when the time is appropriate. You do have control over how the points get into the box: you earn them. For every seamanlike act you perform, you get a point in the black box. 

 

No matter how good your seamanship, there are times when there is nothing left to do but batten down the hatches and pray. If you have a credit balance of points in the box, you'll be all right. People will say you're lucky, of course. They'll say a benign fate let you get away with it. But we know better. That luck was earned, maybe over quite a long period."

John Vigor, Good Old Boat  

 

When we bought Take Two, one of the first things we did was go through all her gear.  It was an impressive array of mostly useless junk.  At the time we merely noted the existence of her emergency tillers.  These are intended to give direct control of the rudders in case the steering system fails, and are a must-have for any well-equipped offshore boat.

 

Eventually, at a much later date, we pulled those tillers out and test-fit them.  Our impression was that they were pretty much, um… pathetic.  They didn’t have the strength or leverage to apply adequate torque to the rudders.  Any situation that could knock out our hydraulic steering would eat those tillers for lunch.

 

Vigor’s Black Box Theory amounts to Karma.  Everyone knows that if you carry an umbrella it won’t rain.  With that in mind, we decided to build new emergency tillers.  

 

Take Two’s rudder posts are solid 1.5” round stainless rod with machined 1.25” square heads.  At OnlineMetals.com we got some 1.5” square tube to fit over the heads and extend the posts up to deck level.  Ben welded tees onto the top of these extensions, and we got a 48” piece of 1.25” square tube to slide into the tee for a tiller handle.  For added strength we cut some collars from 3” square tube and tack welded them over the bottom of the rudder post extensions to prevent the tube from splitting under load.

 

These are our new emergency tillers.  May we never need them.

 

 

 

Update 1/24/14

 

In the aftermath of the abandonment of the Alpha 42 "Be Good Too", and the ensuing questions about sizing for catamaran rudder posts, I feel compelled to add a bit more information about ours.  I stated above that our rudder posts are 1.5" rod, which is what I see at the top of the tube, and to which are attached the steering quadrant and tiller arms for the hydraulic cylinders.  What didn't seem important to mention at the time is that where the posts exit the bottom of the tubes and enter the rudders, they are 60mm (or 2-3/8").  

 

I feel that the 1.5" at the top is more than sufficient for the torque loads that the steering system can reasonably supply (or endure).  I could perhaps wish for more than 60mm diameter where the posts span between the rudder and the hull, and where any bending force would be felt, but the rudders are not thick enough to support anything larger.  We do have heavy rudder stops to prevent the rudders from deflecting more than 30 degrees, which should keep them from developing excessive side loads.

 

We dropped the rudders several years ago during a steering system refurb, but the boat wasn't blocked high enough to get them out completely, so I've never seen what the joint between these two diameters looks like.  If I had to guess, I'd bet that the 1.5" runs the entire length from the top of the tube to the bottom of the rudder, and the 60mm section I see betwen the hull and the rudder is a sleeve to reinforce it at that point. 

 

Of course, you never know the condition of the welds inside the rudder.  The strongest post in the world isn't going to help if the rudder itself just spins around it or falls off.  As in most things, we take comfort that we have another one.

 

I’ve been struggling to learn guitar for a long time.  

 

I had the regular boyhood daydreams of electric guitars, leather pants, and bleached blonde women.  Then later in life I imagined myself swinging in a hammock, sipping an umbrella drink, and strumming Jimmy Buffet songs.  The only difference between these two unrealities being that the second time around I had a wife who thought I was in desperate need of a hobby.  Tanya bought me a very nice acoustic guitar for a birthday gift, and it has been a source of mutual frustration ever since.

 

Aaron was bit by the guitar bug early.  We raise our kids on the classics, and Aaron has developed a real appreciation for classic rock.  He wanted to play guitar, electric of course, before he knew anything about bleached pants and leather women.  Stubborn purists that we are, we bought him an acoustic instead and signed him up for lessons, promising that if he stuck to his lessons, the electric would come.  You can probably guess what happened.  The lessons were boring and tedious, interest waned, and then we had two acoustic guitars and three intensely frustrated people.

 

Years pass and I bump into a colleague in the Atlanta airport.  He has an electric guitar on his back and a discussion ensues.  He always wanted to play guitar, and now his kid wants to play guitar, but it’s so hard.  Have I heard of Rocksmith?  No?  Rocksmith is fundamentally a game, but with a real guitar and the intention that you actually learn to play.  It works because it’s fun.

 

I was intrigued and so picked up a copy of Rocksmith and a red Stratocaster.  Oh man, is that ever fun.  And the kids are into it.  For the last three days, that red Strat has hardly had a break.  Such a workout, in fact, that we’ve already worn out a set of strings.

 

I’ve realized that electric is better than acoustic for learning.  It’s smaller and less prone to damage.  The strings don’t have to be pressed as hard, so it’s not as painful.  It’s quieter when unamplified, and even amplified can be plugged into headphones.  And it’s more fun.  Rocksmith can work with an acoustic, but really, why would you want to?

 

Why are we talking about learning guitar?  Isn’t this a sailing blog?  Not really, but I’ll give you a sailing analogy anyway:  

• To be great at either, and I mean truly excellent, it must be learned as a child.  A late-learner is never going to sail like Jimmy Spithill or wail like Jimi Hendrix.  
• The fundamentals are not that important.  Jimi played a right-handed guitar upside-down after all, and there have been well-documented cases of compete newbies sailing all the way around the world.  
• Modern tools go a long way toward replacing ancient knowledge.  Learning to read sheet music is akin to learning proper navigation.  While I would never suggest that either is unimportant, they do create a barrier to entry that isn’t really necessary for basic recreational enjoyment.  Rocksmith is for guitar what GPS is for boating.

Only time will tell how well the whole thing works out, but it’s looking good so far.  Rock on.

 

 

 

If any other kid had dared Eli and Aaron to jump off the dock I might have intervened.  But coming from Preston on Jalapeño it was somehow okay.

 

 

 

 

 

Go Jalapeño!

We’re back in the water.  Third time was the charm.  New seals were ordered on Day 25, installed Day 26, and we were launched at 10am on Day 27.  This time without any leaks.  Looking back, Day 27 was the end of our last painfully long haulout.

 

With the seals replaced we can say without exception that everything in the engine rooms is new.  That feels good.  I could have saved myself a bunch of time, money, and stress if I’d just planned to replace the seals from the beginning.

 

But now that’s over and the engines feel fantastic.  Four cylinders, freshly straightened shafts, new motor mounts, and a good alignment make such a big difference over the old engines.  Ben wouldn’t let me run them hard, but I did talk him into a quick sprint to the turning basin and back.  He wants the boat to settle for a few days so he can fine-tune the alignment before we really break them in.  But I was dying to know two things:  can we get the full RPMs, and can we get hull speed?  

 

The initial answer to both questions is “no”, which has me a little bit miffed.  Being able to get full RPMs is the primary measure that engine manufacturers use to determine if an installation is “healthy”.   But there’s still hope.  The new cutless bearings will loosen up over time and allow the shafts to spin more freely, and maybe the break-in process will help.  We’re only about 500 RPM short.  There’s also a chance that our throttle cable is just a tad too long and we’re not actually getting to full throttle.

 

For speed, I think we’re about a knot-and-a-half below where the calculators say we should be.  We were hoping for 9, but are only getting about 7.5.  The difference is probably some combination of the RPM issue, the down-angle of our shafts, and the fact that Max-Props are more about sailing efficiency than motoring performance.  Taking all that into account, we’re probably faster than we should be, maybe because of our sweet underwater shape or because the scale on Billy’s Travel Lift says we’re heavier than we really are.

 

In any event, its way better than it used to be, and we’re happy to be back in the water.

There comes a point in every haulout when we just want it to be over.  We hoped for Day 21.  We planned for Day 22.  We stretched for Day 23.  We prayed for Day 24.  But none of it was meant to be.  Now it’s looking like Day 26 or 27.

 

I thought we were ready on Day 23.  I paid the overtime to launch on a Saturday, but when Billy put the boat in the water, we had bad leaks from the shaft seals.  

 

Most boats seal their shafts with a stuffing box that drips a little all the time.  We prefer a dry bilge and have Lasdrop “dripless” seals.  The irony of a “dripless” seal is that if it leaks at all, you’re completely screwed because it probably can’t be fixed in the water.

 

Billy pulled the boat back out and I spent Saturday evening communicating with Lasdrop and trying short-term remedies.  You gotta love a company when you can get the president on the phone at 8:30 on a Saturday night.

 

My short-term solution was to polish the surfaces of the seal with some 400 grit sandpaper.  I had high hopes for this and called Billy at 10am Sunday morning to give launching another try.  

 

No dice.  Billy put the boat in the water, but the seals still leaked and we had to pull her back out again.  

 

Now we need to go for the long-term solution and replace the seals entirely.  The company has more remedies, but I’m not messing around.

 

Why we didn’t do this from the get-go is a very good question.  We replaced everything else in the engine rooms.  Why not the shaft seals?  I don’t really know.  Because they didn’t seem to need it?  The cost is insignificant to the overall project and certainly to the expense of our sanity at this point.

 

The new seals won't arrive until Day 26 and it will be a stretch get them installed and the boat launched all in one day. 

 

The good news is that the engines run like tractors.  We did little more than start them and put them in gear, but they’re ready to plow a field.  We had to crank for about half a second before they fired for the first time.  Very encouraging.

 

The detritus of the project has begun to disperse into the trash, man van, or recesses of the boat as appropriate.  Spice has rediscovered the rug.

Day 21.  On which we learn that the Suburban does not have a low fuel light, and that 1/8 of a tank on the gauge is dead-flat-won’t start-empty.  It took 2 hours of troubleshooting to figure out, but the solution was satisfactory.  No faith was lost in the Suburban, and no egos were damaged.  How a vehicle that gets 13 MPG and has silly features like heated electric memory leather seats doesn’t have a low fuel warning light is beyond me.  So we blame GM for that one.

 

On the boat front, we got the cutless bearings out, but then were immediately reminded that the struts and stern tubes are metric, 40 and 43mm respectively, while the shafts are imperial — well, almost imperial, 1.245” to be exact.  So we need to buy new bearings with inside diameters that match the shafts, and then have them turned down so the outside diameters match the boat.  More fun at the machine shop!

 

But no, because this is Ft Pierce, Florida and there aren’t four inch-and-a-quarter cutless bearings in this town.  That little lack of foresight will cost us a day, and without a miracle puts a Day 22 launch out of reach.  Day 23 is a Saturday, and getting Billy to run the lift on a Saturday is going to cost me several cases of Miller Lite.

 

We're on the homestretch.  I'm sleeping on the boat in the yard now and Tanya is imposing on my mom in Clearwater.  Thanks Mom! 

 

 

We finally got the shafts back this afternoon, but too late to do anything with them.  What was only supposed to take two days, took nearly a week.  The whole project has been like that, but I’m still hoping to get back in the water on Day 22.  If we don’t make that, then I’ll have to bribe Billy to run the Travel Lift on a weekend.  We can’t be without our home any longer.

 

Machining the collar for the starboard stern tube didn’t go so well – the fiberglass kept breaking.  So instead we’ll use a piece of 2” heat shrink tubing.  It’s probably only slightly better than the layer of hose that was there before, but it’s what we’ve got.

 

Another problem has raised its head.  When the new shafts go in, it will be with new cutless bearings.  Of course, we wait until the day before to try and get the old bearings out, and I can’t get them out for anything.  The next step will be to use the reciprocating saw (yeah!) to cut through the bearing WITHOUT cutting into the stern tube.  I can’t wait.

 

The boat has to be moved tomorrow.  There’s a boat behind us that is going back in the water and we’re in the way.  Moving the boats around the yard is like a puzzle game sometimes.

 

The starboard engine is caught up to the port one now.  The raw water plumbing is finished and the start battery is installed.

 

We started hooking up the starboard engine today.  Fuel filter and fuel lines are done.  Raw water strainer is done.  Still need to insert a vented loop between the heat exchanger and the exhaust elbow.  Still need to install the battery, cables, and switch.

 

The port engine only needs a shaft, alignment, exhaust, and controls connected.  Oh, and I almost forgot — a bilge pump.  I'm not counting the secondary alternators as part of the engine installation.  They need bigger cables run to the batteries and connection to the regulators.  But you can see the space cut out for it in the image below.

 

 

 

The shafts should be ready in the morning.  Hopefully we’ll have the shafts in, engines aligned and bolted down tomorrow.   But there is a small additional complication.  The shaft seals are sized for a 2” stern tube, but the stern tubes are more like 1.9”, probably something metric.  On the port side they made a collar of some phenolic material to go over the stern tube and size it up to 2”.  On the starboard side, there was a very thin piece of hose.  That hose is not going to fly.  Instead we’re going to take a piece of 2” OD fiberglass tube, mill it out to about 1.9”, and epoxy it onto the starboard stern tube. That has to be done before the starboard shaft can go in.

 

Another complication is that one of the bolts on the front right motor mount is completely obscured by the secondary alternator bracket.  We should have drilled an access hole through the bracket before we put it on the engine.  Actually, Beta should have done it before even sending it to me.  This is definitely a double-jointed 8-year-old scenario.  I’m not sure how were going to resolve it yet.  Taking it off the engine and putting it in a drill press would be a delay at this point.

 

Fabrication of the exhaust surge chamber/gooseneck is ongoing.  I think Ben is a welder trapped in a man’s body.  Or something like that.

 

The highlight of my day was drilling a 1.125” hole through the bottom for the new generator thru-hull/seacock/strainer.  The hull here at the leading edge of the keel is 7/8” thick.  Our information about Take Two is that her hulls are made with strip planked red cedar, and the plug we drilled out smelled distinctly of cedar, which was cool.