Sea Trial etc.

 

 Done!! Successes... and a few more things to complete.

As promised last week, here is the update.

On Tuesday, August 18, we performed a sea trial.

Mack Sails, Ekor Yachts Services (the company than fixed our boat after Dorian), and Dan our trusted project manager, as well as our daughter and two grand kids, came to the sea trial, to mainly test the sails and rigging, but also to assess the boat performances and sea worthiness.  

It was a success! The boat performed well (even as she is fully loaded ready for long term cruising), she sailed well, balances and fast once the code zero was opened.     

It was great to finally hear the wind on the sails after a year.

It was a fun afternoon and we all enjoyed it. Hani learned a lot on the code zero, and now she will need to teach me as I was most of the time at the helm as Mack sails, Dan and Hani worked the sails.

we managed with the code zero and the main to get to 5 kt in 10 kt wind against outgoing current of 2 - 3 kt.   

We celebrated after returning later that afternoon to the dock, and some drinks together to cement that great milestone.

Let me also give you a little update on where we actually are, what we see here, and a brief story of the last two weeks with our daughter Avi (Avivit) and her two kids Nathan and Leila that spent the last two weeks with us on the boat.

First the location. We are in Ft. Pierce, FL, at Harbortown Marina.

 It is a very nice marina that sit on Tailor creek. The location gives a great view to the variety of marine and birds life. We see manatees, crocodiles, dolphins, bull sharks and large variety of fish. It is always full of action.

Than Avi and the grand kids came, and life become even more full. Almost every day we went to the beach, pool or both. Collected sea shells, visited the botanical gardens, the SEAL museum and many other places as we could, including many dinghy rides to islands and beaches to swim and enjoy. All of that while our daughter stayed at the marina working and we had the kids. 

I am attaching photos to show a little of the fun we had. 

I am writing this on Thursday night while getting ready to go on Friday to the Magic Kingdom for a day so the kids will have some more fun before flying back to Minnesota and going back to school.

That's all for tonight

And before we part

First we took the kids to the Magic Kingdom at Disney World. It was a gear long and fun day. (over 20,000 steps...) many many rids, a lot of fun and a great finish for the two weeks visit of our daughter and grand kids.

And last but not least... The stress level and hurricane season. It is more than just a Disney roller coaster ride. We follow the weather 3 times a day, stress out and relax based on the prediction, tie our boat, planning routes if we need to leave etc. etc.

life on a boat...

scroll below for some more photos

Have a great week

In the water and on the boat

We are on the boat...
That's progress in today's uncertain world.
We moved to the boat last week, after spending 3 weeks in a hotel in Florida.
We came back to Florida with anticipation that the mast will be coming that week, however, the mast is still not on the boat. (spoiler - if all goes well, early next week the mast will be here).

,,,,,,

OK - I started writing the blog on June 15, and today is August 11.  I neglected my duties (....) and did not update the blog for toooo long.

We were / are extremely busy working on the boat.

In the last few months, we moved to the boat, moved all our belongings from the storage unit to the boat (yes the boat is fully (!!!) loaded), we installed the mast (twice), all the lifelines, safety nets, trampoline, electronics, weather enclosure, etc. etc. etc.

And now we even have guests already on board, our daughter and her tow kids are here for the next two weeks.

So, lets start from the beginning...

We moved to the boat on the first week in June. The boat was in the water in the boat yard, not completely done or ready, but staying on the boat was better than staying in a hotel especially in the Covid-19 world.

Worked continue on the boat, and in mid June the mast arrived and installed. Than we discovered that the mast was not installed with a water "preventer" - i.e. a pipe that prevent the rain water from the mast coming in to the boat. That required another removal of the mast and re-installing it again after a pipe was installed.

Through that, the lifelines were installed and the trampoline in the bow. 

We tested all the systems and a power failure in the marina, helped us find out that the batteries did not survived hurricane Dorian. We tested more and discovered that the generator is sized too as a result of Dorian, and a new one was ordered.

Once the batteries were replaced and a new generator was installed we moved the boat to her designated slip in the marina itself and life started to look almost, almost normal again.

And as life goes, we started tracking tropical wave, that turn to a depression, to a tropical storm and than hurricane Isaias. We moved the boat in the marina to a better location, removed some sails, ties the others, and went through all the preparations for a hurricane hit.

We were extremely stressed. 

Isaias passed 17 miles east of us exactly 11 months to the day from hurricane Dorian. not a happy thought...

The outcome was much much better.

We had some rain, some winds, (we measured 55 kts ) but over all we fared extremely well thanks G-D, and had the great fortune to untie all the sails and move the boat back to her slip.

BTW we had the opportunity to check the generator through the storm as we run it during the storm as we disconnected the power from shore. It worked as expected.

We are waiting our sea trial - hopefully later on this week or early next week, and some more work on the boat to be completed to bring her back to her full glory.

Updates (hopefully) later on this week or next week.