Is there a boat contractor out there?

We are in the process of re-powering with a new engine (Yanmar - uncertain of model).  Our 35 year old Volvo Penta was just not going to do the trick.  So my dad has offered us the new engine as a wedding/ "get the hell off the dock and outta my hair so I can focus on my own boat" present.  Yeah, he's pretty awesome.  However, buying a new engine for a sailboat just isn't that easy.  First, there are engine mounts (where the engine bolts onto the bottom of the boat - everything on a boat needs to be secured TO the boat in the event of a knockdown) - each engine has its own "foot print" and adjusting these mounts for a new engine involves more than I care to get into in this post.  Then there is the exhaust; currently our exhaust is on the starboard side - but our new engine has a port side exhaust manifold. Then there's prop shaft rotation.  Ours is left, new engine is right.  There's more, but you get the point.  These "little" issues aren't impossible, they just make things more complicated.  Nothing (and I mean nothing) on a boat is turn key.  Nothing.  But, this is what makes it more fun.  Kindof like a rubix cube.  And boy are those fun! ;)

Numerous times, Scott and I have dreamed how nice it would be if there were a general "boat contractor" - someone you paid to execute the project at hand and put the right people in the right place.  We watch a lot of HGTV (home and garden television) and like to watch those shows where they flip houses.  Not to say that flipping a house is easy, but the fact that you can find people who can do whatever work you need through a simple Google search makes us a little jealous.  There are experts EVERYWHERE.  But then we realize that landlubbers will have those same people at their disposal if something goes wrong.  And herein lies the fundamental difference between those at sea, and those on land.  We will not.  If our plumbing fails - we're going to have to fix it.  If our engine dies, we're going to have to service it.  If our boat leaks, we're going to have to find it and plug it (*universe, please don't let our boat leak! Thanks!*) There is no 24 hour service in the middle of the ocean.  We will have to be self sufficient and, most importantly, we will have to be the experts on our boat.  On everything.

While this fact is sobering - it is exhilarating at the same time.  We are going to learn so much.  We are going to be challenged in SO MANY ways.  We are going to see what we're made of.  And, as an added bonus, we'll know exactly what our boat is made of. 

Love,

Brittany & Scott

Lather, Rinse and Repeat - The Beauty of Routine

I'm a pretty spontaneous person; every time - and I mean every time - I come back from vacation and am exiting the airport I get a sudden (and very strong) urge to run up to some ticket counter and book myself another flight to ANYWHERE and just take off and start anew.  I know this isn't the best example of my spontaneity because I've actually never DONE that (unless you count the times I compulsively booked my friend and I flights to Key West after calling him at 8am and saying "wanna go on vacation" to which he replied "what? sure." or decided, when I was traveling solo through South East Asia to skip Vietnam and just fly to Australia because I got a good deal).  However, right now - I feel my life is pretty dang regimented.  I wake up for work, work, go to the gym at lunch, work some more, go to yoga, come home, have dinner, go to bed and repeat.  Every. Single. Day.  Sure, there are fun dinners with friends, nights out, weekend getaways and other events peppered in between - but for the most part, I am pretty damn scheduled.

I called my dad this morning (as I do nearly every day - he is the best!) and lamented to him about the fact that I feel my life is so...so...predictable.  And my father, in his ever-wise (yet not pedantic) manner, pointed out that no matter where you are, no matter what you are doing - there is always a routine.  And you know what?  It's not a bad thing, at least according to this article it's not.  Routine is healthy, routine keeps you on task, routine keeps you motivated and, on a boat, routine keeps you safe.  

Cruising life isn't all tropical slushy rum drinks and pretty sunsets.  It's not all adventure and romance.  It's tough work.  Every day we will have a routine of checking rigging, doing dishes, collecting water, topping off engine fluids, cleaning, priming, checking, testing, maintaining and fixing (oh, the fixing!).  When we're at sea we will have a stringent routine in which we each spend 4 hours on watch, 4 hours off watch (or 2 hours, or 3...you get the picture) - potentially for WEEKS.  We'll check the sails, check the radar, re-position sails, make a log entry, make a pot of coffee, read, pass each other like ships in the night (pun intended), discuss what we've seen and how the boat's been sailing, change guard, sleep and repeat.  Every. Single. Day.

At sea - routine is likely the very factor that will save our lives if and when the *bleep* hits the fan.  It will be the preventative daily maintenance that we will do that will keep our boat safe, strong and "ship shape" as it were.  It is the (mundane) routine maintenance that will ensure her rigging doesn't snap (because we checked for chaffing), that her sails don't rip (because we checked for any weak spots) and her engine doesn't fail us when we need it most (because we maintained it).  The tender care we take of our little (but mighty!) boat BEFORE the storm will be the precise reason she weather it well. 

So, while I begrudge my "routine" and my (ho-hum) "predictability" - I'm thinking it is something to embrace (thanks Dad!).  Perhaps it keeps me running smoothly and prevents pandemonium in my life.  Perhaps it is actually preparing me for what lies ahead. That said - I'm not going to start making daily cruising spreadsheets.  As in everything in life - there must be a balance: while no routine is chaos, too much routine is a rut.  And we don't like ruts.  So I'll go ahead and stick with my rinse and repeat cycle for now - but I won't give up my dream of buying that last minute plane ticket to Bali just yet.

Love,
Brittany & Scott

Southern Cross

Lots of people don't understand mine and Scott's dream to give it all up, hop aboard a sailboat, put our lives in the hands of the universe and its elements and live like seagypsies.  I admit, it is hard to put into words.  So I'll let Crosby, Stills and Nash do the honors - because if ever there was a song that got the essence of "cruising" - it is Southern Cross:

Got out of town on a boat goin' to Southern islands.

Sailing a reach before a followin' sea.

She was makin' for the trades on the outside,

And the downhill run to Papeete.

Off the wind on this heading lie the Marquesas.

We got eighty feet of'a waterline.

Nicely making way.

In a noisy bar in Avalon I tried to call you.

But on a midnight watch I realized

Why twice you ran away.

Think about how many times I have fallen

Spirits are using me larger voices callin'.

What heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten.

I have been around the world,

Lookin' for that woman/girl,

Who knows love can endure.

And you know it will.

When you see the Southern Cross for the first time

You understand now why you came this way.

'Cause the truth you might be runnin' from is so small.

But it's as big as the promise - The promise of a comin' day.

So I'm sailing for tomorrow - My dreams are a dyin'.

And my love is an anchor tied to you - Tied with a silver chain.

I have my ship and all her flags are a flyin'

She is all that I have left - And music is her name.

Think about how many times I have fallen

Spirits are using me larger voices callin'.

What heaven brought you and me cannot be forgotten.

I have been around the world,

lookin' for that woman/girl

Who knows love can endure.

And you know it will.

And you know it will.

So we cheated and we lied and we tested.

And we never failed to fail; it was the easiest thing to do.

You will survive being bested.

Somebody fine will come along make me forget about loving you

in the Southern Cross.

Sortof makes me want to name our boat "Music".

Lots of love,

Brittany & Scott

Hi hose, hi hose it's off to work we go!

The inside of a boat is not entirely unlike the inside of the human body.  There are systems, pipes, hoses and pumps all over the place - and, just like in the human body, they all work together.  Sort of like that old song: "the knee bone's connected to the thigh bone, the thigh bone's connected to the hip bone, the hip bone's connected to the back bone"...you get the picture.  Except in a boat it's more like: "the water intake hose is connected to the accumulator, the accumulator's connected to the water pump, the water pump's connected to the faucet" or "the through-hull's connected to the engine, the engine's connected to the fresh water heater, the fresh water heater's connected to the accumulator, the accumulator's connected to the faucet" and VOILA! You have hot water (in theory). 

Neither of these examples really do "taking hose inventory" justice (which was what we called this weekend's big project) but, if you'd like to learn a thing or two about your boat, it's systems, and (*literally*) how they are all connected - I'd suggest spending an afternoon with some calipers, some measuring tape, a flashlight and follow those hoses from beginning to end.  It's amazing how clear things become (but not before they become very confusing - don't forget to take very clear and descriptive notes!).

Please note:  The "fun quotient" of this rather "un-fun" job is greatly amplified when your sister and brother show up with beer and laughter and you all go out for Chinese food in Chinatown afterward.  Just sayin'.

Love,

Brittany & Scott

Diesel Engines for Dummies!

Yesterday, thanks to my nearest and dearest Uncle Bob (love you Bobby!!), Scott and I attended a Mack Boring "Diesel Training for the Boat Owner" seminar in Wauconda, IL.  Everyone keeps telling us that diesel engines are "really quite simple" and relatively "straightforward" pieces of machinery and after tinkering around with one I beg to differ.  However, the class - from 8am to 5pm - was incredibly dense and full of great information that we are both still processing.  The first half of class we learned about combustion, engine cooling mechanisms, troubleshooting techniques, oil and diesel additives and all sorts of good stuff.  The second half we got to actually tinker around with an engine; bleed the air out of the system, check the air filter, check the transmission oil (often neglected by boat owners) and see where everything we learned about in the first half of class actually lived on the real life engine.

It was super cool and we met some great fellow boat owners who we are sure to either meet up with again here in Chicago or cross paths with on our journey out to sea!

We definitely learned a great deal and even came home smelling of diesel exhaust - just like REAL engine mechanics.  That's gotta give us some street cred, right?

Love,

Brittany and Scott

Time is Money and Money is Time my Friends...

What in the heck have we been doing you ask?  Well, the answer is: Not much (save a lot of internet research).  BUT our lack of progress on our list has taught me a lesson (and who doesn't love a good lesson?): I should have paid the extra dough and stored the boat INSIDE.  Gotta love hindsight.  The bastard.  But really, we are at a standstill. 

Our boat is frozen all over the place (even all our cleaning supplies that we didn't have the foresight to take off the boat are bloated and frozen solid), we *may* have burst some sort of 'reserve' water tank we didn't know we had (the guy who winterized the boat distinctly remembers doing our 'main' water tank), and we can only *hope* our shrink wrapping has withstood the foot or so of heavy, wet snow that pummeled the Midwest over the past 24 hours.  So - yeah, thinking that we were actually going to get any "real" work done in the smack-dab-middle-of-winter while our boat was outside in the elements (in Chicago, no less) was stupid wishful thinking. 

Being an incredibly "efficient" person by nature - I am DEFINITELY of the mindset that time is money, and visa versa.  The money we would have spent storing our little frozen beauty in nice and toasty heated storage unit would have been worth all the time we'd have been able to spend working on her.  That and we wouldn't have an ice rink in her bilge and a bunch of worthless frozen cleaning products. 

Awesome!

I'm going to remember this one for the future.

Love,

Brittany & Scott

This CANNOT be Good...

Scott and I went to the boat to check her out on Saturday morning and this is what we found in her belly:

I suppose it's better than our boat being "on the rocks" the OTHER way...but we have a feeling, come spring, we're not going to be too pleased about this.

For those of you who don't know what this is - this is our "bilge" and it goes down another 3 feet or so.  Its primary function is to contain water coming into the boat so that it's not all over the place and it is now a solid 3 x 2 block of ice.  It also contains our bilge pump which, we can only assume, is now toast. 
 
Considering that our boat has been shrink-wrapped and is "out of the elements" this begs the question:  Where in the hell did all this water come from?

Oh - and yes, our boat was "winterized" so this, in *theory* should NOT be from our water tanks...if it is, we have a very big problem.

Sigh.

Brittany & Scott

* Post script 3/21:  Turns out, the water in the bilge was just melted snow that came in through scuppers.  Hooray!