Ice Cream On Board

Ice cream is often a special treat when you are on a boat.  No matter where you are, on a warm day it is nice to have a cool treat to enjoy.  But if your boat is like mine and your freezer doesn't really get cold enough to keep ice cream frozen, it is a rare treat that usually has to be purchased in a single-serving manner to be enjoyed at the time of purchase.  This isn't really a problem with my boat freezer, just a limitation of how a low power consumption 12 volt cold plate style boat refrigerator/freezer works.

Many people, in order to provide more freezer space for a long trip or just to keep things colder turn to portable refrigerator freezers.  These units often look like a cooler or ice chest, but inside they contain a small compressor driven refrigerator plate that usually runs on 12 to 24 volts DC.  The best units are well insulated, can maintain temperatures below 0 degrees Fahrenheit (-17.8C) and don't use a lot of power.  Of course the down side is the best of these also cost $800 or more for something the size of a medium size insulated cooler.

Of course I'm...um...lets say thrifty...and the price of these coolers was a non-starter for me.  Being stuck at the boat in the middle of this Covid19 pandemic, a better freezer option became a bit more important.  A better freezer would allow me to make fewer trips to the store as well as pre-chill items before adding them to my regular freezer (adding warm items to a cold plate fridge or freezer warms the items near them and is a potential food safety issue).  After doing a bit of looking, I found there were several other options for small compressor driven coolers at a much lower price point (from $200 to $300) and would run on 12 volts DC.  Of course, the question is how much "worse" are these than the much more expensive units?  Will they actually keep sub-freezing temperatures?  Will they use way too much power for use on a boat?  I looked through the reviews and finally chose one to give a try.

The unit I chose was the Joy Tutus 26 quart portable refrigerator.  I chose this unit because it claimed to be able to go to -7.6 degrees F, had a reasonable size with no handles that stick out so it would fit where I wanted to put it, claimed to hold reasonable temperatures for a while even with power disconnected, and had a company that at least had a web site and email addresses available (other than through Amazon) in case there were any warranty related issues. It was ordered through Amazon and arrived on time with no noticeable damage, although the driver apparently didn't see the right-side-up logo as it was sitting upside down (so, I had to turn it right side up and let it sit for 12 hours to make sure any compressor oil drained back to the compressor before startup). They claim the unit can run at up to a 30 or 35 degree angle, which should be more than sufficient for any boat or road trips taken with it.

The unit has a plastic exterior with non-skid feet and nothing but the 90 degree angle plug that sticks out to get hung up on anything (of course you need to make sure to not block the air louvers so it doesn't overheat).  The "buttons" are a touch-sensitive plastic panel that acts similarly to a smartphone touchscreen (doesn't appear to be mechanical).  Inside the cooler, the bottom pan is plastic and the side walls are painted metal and contain the cooling (evaporator) coils that seem to wrap all the way around the sides of the cooling chamber. A half-gallon milk jug does fit standing upright inside the chamber. The lid is also plastic with a foam rubber seal around the edge and uses magnets to hold the lid closed.  Unfortunately, the molding of the plastic lid may have resulted in a little bit of a bow and, with the seal in the lid having a tight tolerance, it leaves a very slight gap for about two inches in the front center of the lid (the seal failure is apparent as ice builds up at that location when in use as a freezer). Overall, for a relatively cheap cooler, the fit and finish aren't too bad other than the door seal. The unit comes with a 12/24 volt cigarette socket style power cord for direct DC operation and a "power brick" style transformer (like many laptops) so it can be used with 110/220 volt AC sources.

Operation is pretty straight forward.  Touching the on/off icon on the panel for 3 seconds turns the unit on.  The display shows the current temperature inside the unit.  Pressing the (+) or (-) buttons adjusts the temperature, pressing the setting (gear) button switches between Max and Eco modes.  If you press the setting and (+) at the same time for 3 seconds, the display switches the display between Fahrenheit and Celsius temperature display (but there is no indication on the display as to which way it is set).  After a minute or so with no buttons pressed, the touchscreen locks to prevent accidental adjustment or power off.  To unlock, you have to press the setting button for 3 seconds. The unit remembers the last setting and will resume where it left off after a power interruption (tested by unplugging for 2 hours).

After turning the unit on, the display read 70 degrees.  I set the unit for -8F in Eco mode and the display read 24 degrees in about 20 minutes, which is in-line with their claims for cooling (with the chamber empty).  After another 15 minutes it read 12 degrees.  At this point I placed a pre-frozen (~20F) half-gallon milk jug that was filled half-way with water into the unit.  I noted that the thermometer read 28 F at this time. After an hour from the initial turn on (with the pre-frozen jug now inside) the display read -3F and the inside thermometer was around 10F.  The unit didn't seem to get much colder according to the display over the next 40 minutes (the thermometer temperature did drop by a few degrees), so I switched it from Eco to Max mode.  It did eventually reach the displayed temperature of -8F, but it took a while and I honestly don't know the exact timing as I was only checking on it every 30 minutes to an hour at that point.

Freezer holding 1/2 gallon milk jug and making
ice.  You can see the lid seal issue as well.

For the power consumption tests, I used a KillAWatt meter and the AC adapter that came with the unit as I don't have any convenient way to measure power consumption over time using the direct DC chord.  As a result, the following numbers should be higher than actual performance if connected directly to a DC source due to the inherent losses in converting power from 120v AC to 12v DC. After the one test getting it to go to it's maximum cooling setting of -8F for a short period, most of the rest of the testing used settings between -1 and -3F.  The only things inside the cooler were a small, simple, refrigerator thermometer and a half gallon milk jug filled half-way with water (ice). I kept the ambient temperature in the boat between 76 and 79F for the tests.

It has two power consumption profiles, MAX and ECO.  From what I can tell, ECO just runs the compressor at a slower speed...and in the grand scheme of things doesn't appear to be much more economical (I suspect it is actually less but did not run many tests in both modes)...it just limits the max power it can consume at any one point in time (I assume it runs longer to reach/maintain a given temperature).

In MAX mode, I saw power usage when the compressor was running between 37 and 57 watts with the large majority of that between 38 and 42 watts.  If you assume no loss in the transformer, that max range would be 3 to 4.75 amps at 12 v DC nominal.  So, actual DC usage would again likely be less.

In ECO mode, I saw power usage between 35 and 42 watts with the majority between 30 and 35 watts.  Again converting to 12v DC and assuming no loss, that would be between 2.75 and 3.5 amps.

Over a 72 hour and 24 minute period, the KillAWatt reported 1.89 kw of power used from a point where I turned the cooler on after it was at room temperature of 77F, set it for -3F in Max mode and placed the frozen jug of water in it.  During this time I made ice using two regular refrigerator ice trays 3 times and checked the internal thermometer readings twice a day and noted any differences between what the display read and what the thermometer said. I figure this activity would roughly equate to normal usage of a freezer.  1890 watts over 72.4 hours is 26.1 watt/hours.  At 12.5vdc (~12v nominal in ~80% charged state) that would be 2.09 amp/hours or around 50.2 amps per day as a freezer.  I assume power consumption would be less if being used at refrigerator temperatures.

If I were to take a guess, I'd say that the power transformer brick is probably in the 80% efficient range...so the 12v DC numbers above would make for a very conservative over estimation of actual power used when directly connected to a DC source.  Unfortunately, I just don't have the means to run this test using the direct DC connection. 

The last test I ran was to see how long it would keep contents cool without power.  So, when the cooler was reading -1F and the internal temperature was reading 5F, I placed the frozen jug of water and thermometer in the cooler, let it sit for a few minutes to stabilize, and then turned it off.  I then turned it back on momentarily after an hour and the display claimed the temperature had jumped to 24F.  Another hour later, I checked again and it claimed the temperature was 29F.  Another 45 minutes later, I checked again and it was up to 34F.  At this point I opened up the cooler to check the thermometer and it read 42F. Not the 10 hours from 0 to 34 that the original listing stated, even when having the frozen block of ice in the milk jug helping out.  The initial jump may have been related to opening the cooler when putting the ice jug into the cooler and the fact the ice jug was stored in my boat freezer at 18F...but the rise still seems faster than it should, again indicating the insulation isn't optimal.

So, from an energy use standpoint, this portable refrigerator/freezer doesn't seem bad.  Yes, it may be a bit higher than the really expensive ones, but it meets my needs quite well.

Now, didn't I mention ice cream?  Well, I did perform an ice cream test.  After the initial testing, I plugged the unit directly into one of the boats new DC sockets and set the refrigerator to -2F.  I bought a half-gallon (OK, 3 pints...since you can't get an actual half gallon of cheap ice cream these days) of house brand rocky road for the final test.  Over the course of the next week or so, I had ice cream as desert after dinner. The ice I made for drinks was the other item normally in this unit.  In my regular boat refrigerator, if you put ice cream in the freezer it wold be OK the first evening, soft serve the second evening, and a milk shake by the 3rd.  With this unit, the ice cream remained frozen and at a serving temperature of about 4 degrees F over the course of a week.

Other observations about the unit.  So far it seems quiet.  I can just hear it if it is the only thing running on the boat.  But if there is any other ambient noise, it drowns out the quiet hum of the compressor.  It sits just outside the always open door to my berth and I cannot hear it at all inside the berth. That makes it quite a bit less noisy than the small bar refrigerators like you usually find in hotel rooms.  When acting as a freezer, some condensation does occur on the sides and bottom of the unit, so the insulation isn't perfect.  As previously mentioned, the lid seal seems to have a very small leak right at the opening handle notch as ice slowly develops there.  I notice that when I place items in the lower left corner of the chamber (as viewed looking down from the front of the unit) the displayed temperature tends to quickly jump, so I believe this is the general location of the internal thermometer.

And speaking of the thermometer...at the temperatures I was testing, I found the internal chamber temperature measured with a thermometer at roughly the center of the chamber to be about 5 to 7 degrees higher than what was displayed by the unit.  This is not unexpected and, as anyone that has ever used a refrigerator that doesn't have a fan to circulate the air will know, is quite normal.

Is the unit as good as the much more expensive Engel or Dometic units, probably not.  But it does meet my needs and at a much more wallet friendly price.  Longevity is still a question, but if it lasts a while, I think it will make a nice addition to the boat.  I do really like having the ability to pre-chill leftovers before putting them in the boat freezer, having plenty of ice for drinks, and of course ice cream on board.  Now that I can make ice and store ice cream, I might have to give one of those ice cream maker balls a try.

The Best Made Plans

If you follow my Facebook page, you know that I finally managed to take the boat out for a sail over the weekend.  But getting to that point was more time consuming and frustrating than I anticipated on this trip.  One of the issues I had that needed to be addressed before I could move the boat was a broken motor mount bracket I discovered while servicing one of the motors.  On the surface, it seemed to be a relatively simple repair.  Remove two bolts to take out the isolator, then remove two more bolts to remove the bracket, bolt the replacement bracket in place, reinstall the isolator, and align the engine.  Sounds easy enough.

A friend and fellow Leopard 38 owner and I took Rover
out for a day sail. 

I don my bilge rat clothes (sweat pants and a sweat shirt I use when crawling around in the engine room), grab some wire brushes and a socket set and make my way to the broken bracket.  Leaning over the motor, I do my best to clean up the the bolts with the brushes,  I remove the isolator with very little trouble.  I then begin working on the bracket bolts themselves.  After cleaning them up with the brush it looks like the bolt heads were welded to the bracket.  I thought this couldn't be, why would someone do that?  I get a cold chisel and attempt to knock this bit that looks like a weld bead off the bolt heads and it comes off.  I guess it was just a combination of corrosion and old paint.  I do my best to clean up the bolt heads and then attempt to remove them.  No luck, the bolts won't budge. Several attempts to clean and then remove the bolts with either sockets or bolt extractors over several days failed to budge the stubborn bolts.

I finally gave up and decided to call one of the marine mechanics in town, Snyder Marine, to come deal with the issue.  Hopefully they had more tools than I and a few tricks to extract the stubborn bolts. This would allow me to continue to work on other projects as I only have a limited amount of time on this trip. The mechanic came out and took a look at the project.  He said it would probably take about 10 hours of work if he could get the bolts out with an extractor and he wasn't sure how much longer if "other" methods would be required.

The mechanic arrived the following morning to start work.  After a short period of time he emerged from the engine room and told me that indeed the bolt heads were welded and that he would cut them off.  Unfortunately he forgot his grinder and had to go back to the shop and get it. He returned after lunch and spent another hour cutting one of the bolt heads off and was about half way through the other.  Before he left he told me he would go look into the replacement part.  Since I had already done the research on the part, I gave him the original part number from the parts manual as well as the number of the part that superseded it. The next day he returned and spent about 40 minutes in the engine room cutting the other bolt head off and freed the bracket. He then attempted to remove the remaining part of the bolts from the engine.  He again emerged and this time said he was having problems with his stud extractor and would have to go get a replacement. He returned a couple hours later and within 40 minutes had the now headless bolts removed.

The mechanic informed me that he called his supplier and was unable to source the replacement bracket, but had a guy in town that could make me a bracket that would likely be cheaper and better than the original part.  I told him to let me know how it would be made and what it would cost and I would decide from there. He responded the next day that it would be constructed from welded stock and painted and would be about half the price of the OEM part. He also said he went ahead and had them make the part, but if I wanted to source the replacement part myself that they could go that route. I went ahead and told him to use the custom part and he said he would be out tomorrow to finish up. I waited for most of that day for the mechanic to arrive, but he never showed.  I finally called and was told that he was waiting for the paint to dry.  It was a Friday, so he said he would come out the next week to complete the job.

It was about a week later when he finally showed up with the part.  I took a look at it and it seemed well made, but the mounting holes did not appear to be offset like the original.  Sure enough, after about 20 minutes the mechanic confirmed that the holes were in the wrong place and the bracket would have to be remade....but not to worry as I would not be responsible for the incorrectly made part.  He would have to go back to the welder and should have the correct part ready to go the following day but with paint it may be the following Monday before it was ready to install.

Nice bracket, too bad the holes were
in the wrong places.

I waited around a couple hours on that Monday and the mechanic didn't show up.  I called and was told that the mechanic had the day off but would be out the following day.  He did arrive on that Tuesday and this time the holes were in the correct locations.  After 20 minutes the mechanic again emerged and told me the bolts he brought were too long and would need to be cut down.  He left and came back about an hour later with shorter bolts and completed the job.

Given my past experience with "marine professionals" I am always a bit wary of new-to-me service providers.  Part of my process now is to track the time spent on a project.  In this case, I tracked all the time from when the mechanic arrived at the marina to when he left.  The total time spent at my boat came out to 7 hours and 20 minutes.  Now, I know that there was some time spent cleaning up the isolator that was removed, talking with the welder about making the bracket, and travel time to and from the marina.  I figured that we were still pretty close to the original estimate of 10 hours.  At this point I was reasonably happy with the work done, if not the timeliness and communication about when the mechanic would actually show up.

Naturally, I received a bit of a surprise when I received the invoice.  The parts and supplies charges were all reasonable, but it listed 19 hours of labor.  So, in addition to the 7 hours and 20 minutes spent actually working at the boat, they somehow came up with another 11 hours and 40 minutes on the bill.  That is a pretty large sum at $109 per hour ($1271 to be exact). Like I said, I expected there to be some time added for travel (shop is 12 minutes away) and work done away from the boat.  But the idea that they spent more time working on my project away from my boat than actually at the boat in the process of replacing an L shaped bracket was something I couldn't justify.

I immediately wrote back and asked if they perhaps billed some time from another project to me and if they would mind reviewing the bill and let me know. It took 6 days for them to respond, and when they did they said they actually had more time on my project than was billed (however, it didn't say what they spent all this time on) but would adjust the bill and send me the update.  The updated bill arrived the following morning and they knocked 5 hours off the bill.  Still a bit higher than I would like, but close enough so I paid the bill.

This was when I received an email from the owner of the company. The email again stated that they had more time on my project than they billed.  The only suggestion provided for the extra time was research into the project.  Since I did the research and provided them with the part numbers and I was told they called their supplier and was told the part wasn't available, I'm not sure how much more research could have been done. Certainly not 11 hours worth. The letter went on to tell me how busy and how sought after they are. That is all great, but they never did justify the extra time they claim they spent on the project. And given they reduced the number of hours charged, I can only assume that they did recognize that the time was excessive.

The email then says they normally don't take on work that someone else has started. Not sure what this has to do with the issue, other than my possibly knowing what the issue is and what it should take to fix.  Maybe it is easier to overcharge hours when the customer doesn't have a clue about a problem. Then the note goes on to tell me that the bill is final and overdue.  Now remember that I already paid the bill.  Looking through my emails, the total amount of time, excluding my time waiting for their response to my question, from the time I received the first bill until I paid the adjusted bill was under 12 hours (and a good portion of that was it sitting in my email while I was off doing other things). Hardly overdue.

My initial recommendation was going to be that they did reasonable work and as long as you get firm time commitments, get written quotes, and track the time they spend on your project they might be an OK solution.  But add in that final email and it proved to me that they are not very customer focused and were upset at getting caught over billing for hours they could not justify. I do not recommend Snyder Marine in Southport.

I'm glad the work is done, but why is it so painful to work with many of the so called professionals in the marine industry?

House Calls for the Pups

People from my generation have probably heard the term "house call" but have never actually seen or had one.  It is a throwback to a time when we all weren't in such a big hurry and and there was a nod to the fact that customer service could be good for the bottom line.  I don't think I ever actually had a doctor come visit me at home, and I doubt a generation or two younger than I (at least here in the U.S.) even believe that there was a time when a doctor ever would come to your home.

Well, that may not exist for our medical industry, but today my dogs got to experience a house call.  My friend and former boat broker Pete told us of a veterinarian in St. Augustine that does most (all?) of his work as house calls.  While we currently have a car and can easily take our furry kids anywhere, there will be a time when that is not the case.  Knowing that we can have a vet come to us is a great thing.

Reason for the vet visit was two fold.  First, we wanted to make sure we had the dogs on the right preventative medications.  In Colorado we have ticks and mosquitoes that can carry a few diseases, but things like fleas aren't a problem.  In more humid environments where it just doesn't go below freezing that often (that is one of the reasons we wanted to do this after all), we could imagine that there are all sorts of new maladies that could befall our unsuspecting furry crew members. The second reason is that our older dog seemed a bit stressed during the trip and we wanted to make sure everything was OK since she has had some ongoing medical issues.

The vet arrived on time for our 1 pm appointment (Ok, he was a few minutes late, but I attribute that to the over zealous new security guards they've hired here at the resort).  He came right out to the boat and we talked for a bit about the dogs history while sitting in the cockpit.  Then he gave each dog a physical and we talked more about nutrition, preventative medications for the areas where we wanted to travel, dealing with high heat, protecting doggy eyes from the sun, and other issues.  All in all I think the vet spent over two hours with us...I think the longest vet consultation we've ever had and we've gone to some very good vets in the past.

The vet seemed very knowledgeable about a variety of general veterinary topics and gave us a lot of good information to keep our kids healthy.  He was also able to prescribe the needed medications and supply them right from his mobile "office".  As he even noted, we "are pretty savvy pet owners" so I think we are pretty good at telling when we've found a top notch vet...and I think we have.

Cost wise, especially for a house call and the amount of time he spent with us, we thought it was very reasonable.  There was a $55 (U.S.) "office visit" charge, the physicals were about $50 each, and the medications were inline with prices we found on the internet for the same medications. This is only a few dollars more than the vets back home would charge when we took them into the office for what was often a very brief encounter with the actual vet.

So, if you have pets in need of a veterinarian and happen to be somewhere in the St. Augustine FL. area, you might want to give Vilano Mobile Vet a try.  Oh, and our dogs...they are doing just fine.  I think they are enjoying the fact we are around more and will take them to fun places like the beach...which the doctor recommended we do often (so I think Madison and Tucker recommend the vet too).

Recycling Worn Out Sails

One of our goals moving aboard a boat is to live a little more in harmony with our environment and I have been making progress in that regard.  Everyday things like taking reusable bags when I shop for groceries, paying more attention to the packaging used (something very difficult in our "seal everything in plastic" society), and being mindful of the amount of water and power I use have been in my repertoire for a while and are certainly more of a necessity on a boat.  Other things like my recent project converting existing fluorescent fixtures to LED both reduce power consumption and reuse the fixture thus rescuing it from becoming another bit of detritus in a landfill.

One item I have been wrestling with, both mentally and physically, since I bought the boat was what to do with the original sails that came with the boat.  When I bought the boat, there were two sail bags containing the boats original sails stuffed way up in the starboard forward storage space.  Back when I was in Hammock Beach, I dragged both sails out of the storage locker, wrestled them through the boat, and up to a grassy area at the marina to inspect them.  What I found were sails that were in pretty bad shape.  There were numerous patches and even the patches had ripped out again. Some of the material was sun damaged too.  I decided they were not worth keeping.  Not knowing what to do wth them, I put the smaller genoa back into the storage area, but the 95+ lb. mainsail never made it any further than the cockpit.

Part of the old mainsail with a ripped patch

And there it sat, leaning up against the cockpit door, for over 6 months.  I tried asking around to see if there was something I could do with these old sails.  Since all the damage was around the edges, I thought maybe someone could trim them down and make smaller sails.  When I asked a few different sail shops, they were not at all interested in having them...even as a donation.  One said they occasionally take old sails and ship them to places like Haiti where the locals will rework and use them.  I heard from other boaters that they have traded old sails to fishermen in 3rd world locations for a regular supply of fresh local seafood from their daily catches.  But here in the good ol U.S. of
A., there didn't seem to be many options other than relegating all that fabric to the dumpster. That didn't sit well with me.

After tripping over the mainsail in the cockpit one too many times in recent days, I tried once again to search for a more responsible way to get rid of the sails.  This time I apparently typed in the right search terms into Google. In the list of results, I found a company called Sea Bags.

They take old sails and recycle them by converting the material into several varieties of bags, totes, and other products. I contacted them by email and sent them a couple pictures of my old sails (since I wasn't sure if they were too ratty to be used). I received a reply that they would indeed be interested in them. In talking with them I found out that they can use most of any sail.  In fact, to quote one of their staff:

In most cases, almost 100% of the sail will be used to make Sea Bags products. Realizing early on that there was quite a bit of sail material left over after making tote bags, Sea Bags began using the excess material to make hang-tags and smaller items, such as credit card holders, wristlets, small pouches etc.

Finally, I was nearing the end of my near constant tripping over these old sails.

I took the old sails, bundled them up, wrapped them in a couple layers of heavy (4 mil I think) plastic for shipping.  The folks at Sea Bags cover the shipping cost to retrieve your sail from within the U.S., all you need to do is log into their system, print out the shipping label, and get them to a location where UPS can pick them up.  The folks at the marina office helped me print out the labels (I don't have a printer on board...yet) and I left the sails there for the UPS pick up.  I've been told that if you are located near the Sea Bags facility, they may just come pick them up themselves.

In exchange for donating sails, they typically provide for a tax deductible donation through their sailing charity or they will trade you a bag per sail (depending on size and condition). Since I don't need the tax write off and could always use another reusable bag for packing and provisioning the boat, I went with the trade program. In exchange for the two sails, we requested one of their duffle bags and a zippered tote.

A week or two after sending off the sails, my sail bags arrived. I have to say I'm impressed. These are most definitely not the cheap bags you find at the discount stores. Each of their bags are hand crafted in their facility in Portland Maine and the craftsmanship shows.

I'd love to give you all sorts of sewing definitions...but I'm not a seamstress so forgive the lack of appropriate terms.  The tote is made from two layers of sail material with a spliced three braid line for a handle.  The duffel has the same two layer construction for the main part of the bag with single layers at the ends. The handles aren't just attached, but wrap around the entire bag in between the material layers to provide support and prevent detachment.  The stitching uses similar thread to what is used in sail construction so I have no doubt it will last a long time. The zipper flaps on both are a single layer of sail material and the zipper is a better quality than what is on may new sail cover. The internal seams are covered in a fabric band to help prevent snagging and unraveling and protect the stitching. In this day and age, it is nice to see what appears to me to be a very quality product.  Add in the fact that they are doing this from recycled material, and this company is a winner in my book.

If you are looking for a unique gift for a sailing enthusiast, or a quality bag for yourself, you should check them out.  And if you happen to be tripping over some old sails, consider donating them to Sea Bags.

Sponsor Disclosure: In the interest of full disclosure, the company mentioned in this article has graciously provided free or discounted products or services to help support our effort to sail away from the rat race. The opinions expressed in this blog are still our own and not indicative of the opinions or positions of the company. We do encourage you to check out the products or services provided by this, or any, company that supports the cruising community.
In the case of Sea Bags, the products provided were in trade for my used sails and anyone wishing to trade can get a similar deal.

Rover's Time at the Boatyard

If you remember all the way back in June, I took our boat to a boat yard near Deltaville, VA, to get some work done while I went back to Colorado to help my wife wrap up some of the details of our estate.  Despite my past experiences with "having work done" on the boat, it made sense to try to have the boatyard do some work while I was gone.  When will I learn.

I met with Lee, the guy that runs Stingray Point Boat Works, walked through the boat and went over a reasonably long list of items that needed to be done and asked for an estimate before I flew back to Colorado.  It took a few days and I didn't receive the estimate until after I had left.  I reviewed the estimate and gave the yard the OK to start on a subset of items including replacement of a couple through hull valves, replacement of the black water hoses and a failing diverter valve, inspection of the standing rigging, investigation of the cause of a bit of stiffness in the steering system linkage, and remounting/rebedding a few bits of deck hardware (and gave the sail loft the go-ahead on the new stack pack and sail work).

A few weeks after I leave, I get a bill from the boatyard.  This bill doesn't include any work, only storage for the boat.  Of course, the storage rate was higher than I was quoted.  I also appeared to be charged for a half hour of labor for the generation of the estimate. When I contacted them, they adjusted the bill for the storage price and told me they had a rate increase but I would get this quarter's storage at the quoted rate.  Fair enough.  I decided I would just let the labor charge for an estimate slide even though I've never heard of such a practice.

I inquire about the rigging inspection and received an estimate for the replacement of the standing rigging.  When I ask if the inspection indicated that replacement was needed, the staff at the yard gave me the direct number for the rigger.  I give him a call and he explains the cost of replacement and how some of the parts are expensive.  When I ask if the inspection indicated it was needed, he told me he assumed the rigging was over 10 years old and he didn't actually inspect the rigging as doing that would cost extra.  Funny, the inspection was what I had asked for...not just a quote for replacing the rigging (which, by the way, I could have done elsewhere for about $2000 less). Fine, I'll check what I can when I get back and take it somewhere else to have them check and possibly replace the rigging.

Several more weeks go by and I don't hear anything else from the boatyard but I'm busy with things at the house and don't have much time to check on anything so I assume things are moving along. About 6 weeks after I left, I receive another bill from the boatyard.  It has a list of parts and some labor that hinted that they may have done the waste line replacement, but the bill for the labor was twice the amount of the estimate for the waste lines alone.  I check back with them to inquire what work was done assuming that more had been accomplished. I don't hear back from them for several days. I finally get another bill and they reduced the total by about 25% and confirmed that they replaced the black water lines.  So, now it is only 50% over the estimate and still with no explanation of the overage. I tell them to stop work as I cannot afford to have all the other work go over the estimate by 50 to 100%.

Since it will still be a little while before I can get back to the boat, I write up a letter explaining that I would like to have them do more work, but it can't continue the way it was.  I chose one item on my list, the replacement of the two through hull valves and told them I would authorize that work as long as it didn't go over the original quoted price.  If it looked like it might go over, they were to contact me so we could discuss options before any additional cost was incurred.  I specifically chose this task because I had a feeling that they would run into issues and I wanted to make sure they could communicate those to me before continuing.  In the note I asked them to let me know either way if this was acceptable.

After not hearing back from them for over a couple weeks, my wife and I made plans to return to the boat and complete the work ourselves.  It was shortly after I wrote them to tell them of our intentions to come complete the work, and reiterated that all work on their part was to stop, that I received another bill from the yard.  This time, the bill showed parts for the replacement of one through hull and valve but all the labor was zeroed out.  The parts alone were in excess of the original quoted price because the original quote didn't include the through hull itself.

I just had to laugh. Had they told me they agreed to do the work and had they told me that they would have to replace the through hull as well as the valve (which I expected would be the case), I would have OK'd the task.  But, since they did not, they ended up replacing the one through hull at a loss. They also proved that communication with their customer seems to be their biggest problem.

When we returned to the boat, we found that the waste lines had been replaced, as were some of the raw water lines for the heads (which was not part of the scope of work).  We also found that they had somehow ripped the toilet seat off of one of the heads and broke one of the lines attached to the manual bilge pump, presumably while replacing the waste lines.  And, as we discovered during the trip south, the holding system was leaking (found to be a fitting on the holding tank that was loosened during the install of the hose and not re-tightened).  So, the work they did was rather sloppy and incomplete.

While I can say that Stingray Point Boat Works is an OK place to haul your boat and do your own work, and that their fiberglass guy seems to do a good job, I cannot recommend them if you are looking for people to perform general work on your boat.  To be fair, I didn't need the services of their mechanic so I don't know about his abilities.

In general, my opinion is that the lax attitude of leadership at the yard leads to a less than professional work atmosphere and may be the underlying cause of the poor communications and workmanship.  If you need to haul your boat, intend to do the work yourself, and will be staying at the yard or visiting daily (and don't mind the very limited access to internet and lack of potable water), then it may work for you.  But I cannot recommend them based on my experiences there.

Bridges and Locks - Coinjock to Portsmouth

Since I'm fairly new to this whole cruising gig, I wasn't sure quite what to expect for this leg of our journey.  It was all ICW and it had a few new potential challenges.  I've only had limited experience with bridges, most of which have been on-demand and not scheduled openings and I've never dealt with a lock before.  But all of that was ahead of us on this leg of the journey, so I had planned on a fairly short 45nm hop from Coinjock to just south of Norfolk.

We left Coinjock around 8am and were once again motoring up "The Ditch" (ICW).  I think the local osprey have decided that the ICW channel markers are their own version of government subsidized housing.  It seemed that just about every mark had an osprey nest on it with an osprey protecting her eggs.

Osprey with chicks living on a marker.  They seem to prefer the red ones.

As we continued motoring, the chart showed a bend in the river, outside the ICW channel, with a bunch of marked shipwrecks.

8 shipwrecks on the chart.

And, indeed you could see some of them from the boat.  One does wonder how so many boats met their end in this little elbow of water.

Broken boats all in a row.

Around noon, we made it to the first of the bridges that we needed to have opened that open on a fixed schedule.  The North Landing swing bridge opens on every half hour, and so naturally we arrived just a few minutes too late to make the opening.  This ended up giving me plenty of practice at station-keeping while we waited for the bridge.  Fortunately the ICW doesn't have a strong current and so this is pretty easy in a catamaran.  In fact, we ended up having lunch while waiting for the bridge.  Once the bridge opened and we were on our way, we figured out that we wouldn't be able to make the next opening of the next bridge on our route, so we throttled back to a speed that got us to the next bridge about 5 minutes before the following opening.

After the first two bridges, next was the Great Bridge and Great Bridge Lock.  The bridge opens in sequence with the lock since they are only a few hundred feet apart.  We had to wait for a few minutes, but pretty soon the bridge opened.

The Great Bridge opening up to let us through.

We then made our way to the lock.  We deployed fenders, found our boat poles, and setup a bow and stern dock line so we could take a ride in the lock. When we motored into the lock, one of the lock operators looped our lines around a couple of the big bollards on the shore and threw them back to us.  The idea is to keep your boat parallel to the lock wall without quite touching while the water raises or lowers.  There was only one other boat in the lock with us, Goose, as you can see below.

The Great Bridge Lock.

I admit I was a little nervous about the lock since I had never done it before and had heard of people having issues when locking, but it really was no big deal.  I imagine I might think differently if this were the Panama Canal and I was surrounded by big ships.

We were making good enough time that we decided to see how far we could get and ended up making it to Norfolk and had to go through the Gilmerton bridge.  I guess we got lucky that a barge was coming through the other way as I've heard this bridge doesn't open, except by reservation, during rush hours.

Gilmerton Bridge.  120ft clearance...I think we'll fit.

Passing through Norfolk and Portsmouth, you can really see these are big ship towns including a naval yard.

Norfolk waterside industry.

Naval Ship Yard.

An aircraft carrier can sure make you feel small.

We ended up at one of the free town docks in Portsmouth.  They are right downtown and convenient walking distance to a number of restaurants and stores.  The only downsides are the lack of marina amenities (water, power, bathhouse) and the fact that the dock is awash at high tide, but it is definitely nice for the price.  I'd recommend it for a short stay if you are in the area.

Rover tied up at the north Portsmouth free dock.

After the day's excitement, we decided to have dinner at one of the local sports bars as a celebration of making it through all the bridges and locks and ending up at a nice place to spend the night (and not having to pay for marina dockage).  I hear the weather is supposed to turn bad tomorrow, so we might be here an extra day if it sounds rough to travel.  Guess we will see if the weather guessers are right.

Keeping Your Cool

The cooler temperatures that I've experienced in northern Florida and Southern Georgia since I moved aboard in December seems to have given way to more regular warmer temperatures. Day time temperatures are now regularly in the 80's and some 90's F.  And since boat hulls are not terribly well insulated (that 1/8 inch of fiberglass core just doesn't seem to help much), a closed up boat can get pretty warm.

Opening hatches can provide a breeze through the boat if the breeze is coming from the front of the boat, but when you are in a marina this doesn't tend to be the case very often. And to make things worse, big neighbor boats can block much of the breeze you could get if it were blowing from either side of the boat. So, when you are at a marina and plugged into shore power, air conditioning tends to be the go-to solution for cooling down a boat.  Of course, this tends to be expensive if the marina meters and charges for electrical use.

Of course, as the heat arrived the air conditioner in one of my neighbor's boats went out.  Being a monohull, all the opening hatches on his boat point upward and he was having a hard time getting airflow into the boat.  I found all of this out when he was trying to rig up a small nylon scoop (it looked like a very small spinnaker) to try and catch the breeze.  The scoop he had is designed to rig on a halyard and pretty much only directs air in that is coming from the front of the boat.

When I purchased my boat, it came with two Breeze Boosters for the hatches that I had yet to try.  These devices stand up on their own so they can be turned into the breeze.  I let my neighbor borrow one, and after a quick Google search, we figured out how to set them up.  He was able to turn it into the breeze that was blowing across the beam of the boat (from side to side) and get air flowing into the boat.  He said it made quite a difference and he is now thinking of getting some for himself.

A couple days after getting his AC fixed, it was a sunny day with a decent breeze blowing across the beam of the boat and the interior temperature on my boat was in the mid 80'sF and rising, so I decided to deploy the boosters myself.  Placing one on each of the forward berth hatches and opening the salon door into the cockpit gave a nice breeze through the boat.  It dropped the temperature in the boat down around or just below 80F and with air moving it felt much more comfortable.

So far, I have to say I'm impressed with these things.  Since they don't need support at the top, they seem to work well for catamarans as well as monohulls and even powerboats.  I even managed to get them working around the "safety bars" that surround my hatches...although it does somewhat limit the rotation options.  The day I used them the temps were in the upper 80's outside, and my air conditioner stayed off all day.  I consider that a win.  I'm glad I have them.

Coffee

It has been cold and windy the last few days, so not getting a lot done outside the boat (where much of the remaining bigger work items are).  Instead I've been inside huddled around my warm Thermos cup of coffee while working my day job.

When I moved onto the boat I didn't really want to bring a regular coffee maker on board.  The lightweight glass carafes on a boat just don't seem like a good idea.  I considered a coffee maker with a thermal carafe, but this seemed like a bulky solution for a limited space and also requires 110v power supply...not handy at anchor.  When we were taking the live-aboard ASA 114 course, the captain had a metal, thermal, French press that seemed like a reasonable option.  The down side of the French press is the cleanup since the grounds are only contained in the bottom of the carafe by the metal mesh plunger.

Then I happened upon a post by Windtraveler on a new coffee making device they found and were happy with.  The AeroPress Coffee and Espresso maker.  It is a delightfully simple manual design and seems to make cleanup easy.  So, when someone was bugging me for a Christmas gift last year, I suggested it and I received one.

The system is really quite simple.  You place a small filter in the bottom of the plunger apparatus, add coffee, add hot water, stir a little bit if desired, and then slowly push the plunger down to dispense the coffee into a cup or mug.  Once you are done, you unscrew the cap at the bottom and push the plunger to pop out the slug of coffee grounds into the trash or compost.

The only thing I didn't like about this coffee maker is that it does still use a paper filter.  While the filters are much smaller than typical coffee maker filters, I still prefer not throwing more paper away. I looked around and found screen type filters similar to the metal ones for a regular coffeemaker, but they didn't seem to have good reviews. I found someone on Amazon that was selling a metal reusable filter that wasn't a screen but was a disk with very fine holes punched in it (from Able Brewing) that had good reviews so I got one of those to try as well.

What I use to make my coffee in the morning.

Having had a chance to use it for a little while now, I have to say I like it.  I can heat water in my electric kettle (pictured above) or on the stove.  Pressing the coffee is easy and cleanup is pretty easy too.  I have altered the process some from what they recommend for my own taste and to conserve coffee.  Instead of using 1 of their scoops of coffee per cup (I think the scoop is about 2 tablespoons, I use one for my whole Thermos cup (2 mugs worth) of coffee and instead of just adding hot water to fill up the cup, I run all the water through the AeroPress (filling it up twice to fill the Thermos).

With the metal filter, there is an orientation as the holes on one side of the metal disk are smaller than the other.  You place the disk in with the label on the disk facing up.  I then put the contraption on the Thermos, add the dry coffee and add water to the (4) mark on the AeroPress.  Depending on how I feel I will either stir the coffee a bit or just let it steep for a few seconds, then use the plunger to push it slowly through until all the coffee is in the cup and I can hear air passing through the filter.  I then slowly remove the plunger, add more hot water to the (4) mark, wait a few seconds, and then slowly press the plunger down until the plunger contacts the coffee grounds and squeezes the last bit of the coffee from the grounds.  I don't press too hard though, as I don't want to try and force grounds through the filter.  I then set the press aside to let it cool.

Once the press is cooled a bit, I remove the cap to expose the metal filter.  I slide the filter off sideways to make sure the "puck" of coffee in the bottom of the press remains intact and doesn't stick to the filter.  I then use the plunger to pop the "puck" of coffee into the trash and clean up the rest of the AeroPress when I wash my other dishes...which usually only needs a light rinse.  About once a week, I will gently scrub the metal filter with a dish scrub brush while doing dishes to make sure the tiny holes remain clear.

I think the press makes a good cup of coffee and it is easy to use and clean.  I haven't found the metal filter to make the coffee gritty, even with fine ground coffee. The AeroPress' small size makes it easy to store in the limited spaces on a boat.  Even if you count the size of the electric kettle in the overall size, I think it is smaller than the average coffee maker and you have the added benefit of a kettle for heating water for other things.  Both the press and the filter are simple construction and I don't expect to have any issues with them going forward so I give the AeroPress a thumbs up.

If you are like me and don't down your coffee right away, I would also recommend an insulated coffee mug/cup.  The Thermos one I have claims to keep things hot or cold for many hours and I can tell you that my 1/4 to 1/2 full Thermos coffee is still hot 4 or more hours later.

Leopard 38 Survey and Sea Trial

So, here we are, our second attempt at a survey and sea trial on a boat that we think could be ours. We arrived in Ft. Lauderdale on what is starting to feel like a regular commute except it was at midnight due to flight delays. Drove to a hotel in Florida City (so we would miss the morning traffic through Miami) and spent a few hours trying to get some sleep. We then continued on to Marathon for the 9am appointment at the boat. Of course, in true Florida driving fashion, our plan to miss traffic problems failed as someone managed to close the Overseas Highway by wrecking their car somewhere between Florida City and Key Largo. In the time we have spent in Florida we have seen quite a number of single car accidents on straight, flat roads in good weather and knowing the stretch of Highway 1, assume a similar situation has occurred. I do hope the people are okay.  Hmm...new business idea...maybe I should open a driving school...

We arrive at the boat a little late due to the extended commute time and find our surveyor was already there (he apparently made it through just before the accident that detoured us). He briefs me on the issues found thus far; some through hulls don't work, some electrical issues including the generator, and a laundry list of other items in addition to the stuff we already knew about. Apparently the owner's broker had one engine running when he arrived so he couldn't do the usual cold start checks on it, and the other engine wouldn't start so they had to call for a mechanic. The mechanic came, found the somewhat hidden breaker in the engine compartment and made a temporary fix to the alternator, and we were good to go haul out the boat.

Marathon Boat Yard Lift

We head over to the marina in Marathon where we were scheduled to do the haulout. When we get there, we look at the lift and wonder if the boat will fit. We had called to verify it would, the selling agent claimed Leopard 38s (maybe even this particular boat) have been hauled out here before and we did see a Manta on the hard in the yard, so we slowly ease the boat toward the haul out slip thinking it will be close but will hopefully fit. Well, guess what...it doesn't fit. The selling agent "tries a little harder" and wedges the boat between the bumpers...hope she didn't just damage the hull.  Have we just wasted a trip down to see a haul out that isn't going to happen?

After some phone calls, the selling agent finds the closest marina that claims they can haul out this beamy cat...but it is in Key West (the next best option is in Key Largo). The seller's agent then tried to tell my broker that we would need to help cover the cost to reposition the boat...which Pete quickly dismissed. It is the current owner's responsibility to provide the captain for the vessel as well as the costs for the sea trial and movement to an appropriate haul-out location and the buyer's (my) responsibility to pay for the costs of the haulout and surveyor (as stated in the contract). After getting everything squared away, the agent and captain might just have time to sail the boat down for a haulout the next afternoon.

Since the only reason we were in Florida was for the survey and sea trial and we had nothing better to do, we asked if we could tag along for the sail down to Key West. Just trying to make a little lemonade from the lemons we've been handed. They agreed, so the captain grabbed some provisions (sandwiches and water) and did some checks and made the boat ready for a short coastal trip. The current owner also decided to come along. So, the 5 of us head off to Key West.

Have I mentioned that this boat had been sitting in the water but had not been sailed in quite a while?

If this is a dockline, wonder what the bottom looks like

My broker and surveyor as well as I wondered how successful this attempt to reposition a boat that had not been used in a while would be, but did agree that it would also be a great opportunity (and pretty rare chance in boat buying) to really get comfortable with the boat. When we started moving the boat, it left a trail of the aquatic life attached to its hull in its wake. Someone joked that we might need to get a permit for messing with a marine habitat in order to clean the bottom. It was one dirty bottom boat, a fact that was confirmed by the 8 hours it took to make the trip from Marathon to Key West with an average speed of just about 5 knots using both the engines and sails on a very broad reach.

Toward the end of the trip, when the captain was looking for a whisker pole that the owner once thought was on board, he discovered an asymetrical spinnaker sitting under some chain in the anchor locker. Other than a rust stain (no idea why it was stored there... but if you have a boat, remember that the appropriate place to store a sail is not under a rusty chain in an anchor locker...the chain does not need a multi-thousand dollar pillow) it was in good shape, so we decided to give it a whirl to expedite our progress. Between the bits of reef that we were slowly knocking off the hull and the light air sail (the captain and selling agent had a disagreement over the precise type, so we nicknamed it bigsail [pronounced bigs'l] because it sounded less pretentious that way), we did manage a little over 6 knots toward the end of the sail with winds estimated around 15 knots. We arrived in Key West just a bit before 10pm. I'm not exacly sure when we left, but estimate it was a 7 to 8 hour sail.

So around 10 pm, we start the drive back to Marathon to check into the hotel for the night. Looks like it will be after midnight before we have a room for the second day in a row on this trip. Tomorrow, the haulout and official sea trial will hopefully occur.

While the inability to complete the survey today is a disappointment, I do have to say that I really, REALLY appreciate that those working on my behalf have been so great in the face of these frustrations.  Both Pete my broker and Jonathan my surveyor have had to deal with this extra day for the survey.  The surveyor has an appointment so he has to drive back to Ft. Lauderdale and then return to Key West tomorrow afternoon.  My broker had to change his plans so he could spend the night in Key West.  And both have been there to cover my back when needed. Still can't say enough nice things about these guys.

Update: Unfortunately I can no longer recommend either the broker or the surveyor mentioned in the above post.

What We've Learned Thus Far - Boat Brokers

I wish I had more interesting things to write about right now...like all the tasks of refitting a boat...but alas we are still searching for the right boat.  We have a lead on one, but nothing will happen with it until October at the earliest and, until we have one purchased, we will continue to search.  In the meantime, I've been slowly working my way through the generous gift of books from my friends at The Retirement Project (btw: really excited for them right now, they are moving their boat to the coast to start their new life).

Some of the books I probably should have read before we started shopping for a boat.  The "Cruising Catamaran Communique" was a bit dry but provided some good information on what to look for in a catamaran and how to interpret some of those confusing specification numbers.  The book I'm reading now, "The Essentials Of Living Aboard a Boat", chronicles what one guy learned in his first live-aboard boat purchase.  His early experiences and thoughts got me thinking about what we've learned thus far in the boat buying process.  Then I wondered if it might be fun  to periodically touch upon the highlights of what we've learned thus far. So here goes...the first installment...

Boat Brokers

When we first started looking at boats and were searching all the usual places (like Yachworld and Sailboatlistings), I wrote a post about the pain of trying to shop for a boat from Colorado.  Just a few people had found our blog at that point, and one suggested we try to find a buyers broker. Seems like a pretty obvious recommendation, doesn't it...so why hadn't I thought of it? We used a realtor when we bought our first house, so it would seem to make sense to do the same for our first on-the-water home. While we may pay a bit more for a boat to help cover the commission the broker(s) receive compared to a "for sale by owner" sale, what we would hopefully get in return is someone to help us newbies with finding the right boat as well as guiding us through the process.  Since we are so far from the ocean, having "boots on the ground" in a market where boats were actually available hopefully would help us pre-qualify options and reduce the number of wasted trips to see boats that wouldn't suit us.

One thing I didn't think would be a problem would be finding a broker.  The economy isn't that great, so finding someone who wanted to pocket 5~10% of a $100 to 200 thousand dollar purchase shouldn't be that hard, right? Well, apparently most catamaran brokers must be immune to the effects of the economy as we had a hard time initially finding one.  We searched online for broker recommendations and sent out a number of introductory emails, but got few responses. We did receive a response from a broker at the St. Petersburg location of The Catamaran Company when we asked about a specific boat he had for sale.  When we asked if he would like to act as our buyers agent, he became unresponsive for a time, blew off a scheduled call with us, and then finally passed us on to another Catamaran Company broker out of St. Augustine.  We are glad he did!

Within a day of receiving the email that we were being passed on to a different broker (apparently we weren't worthy of the St. Petersburg broker's time...at least that is the feeling we got), we were contacted by Pete Gulick from the St. Augustine office.  We quickly set up a time for a call to "get the ball rolling".  He called right on time (a refreshing change) and we discussed what we thought we were looking for.  We later set up a trip to see a variety of boats he thought might fit our desires and to help us narrow down our options.  Since that time, he has worked tirelessly to find us a boat and filter out the "lemons" so we weren't wasting a lot of time looking at boats that just wouldn't work for us.

While we don't have a boat yet, it has definitely not been for a lack of Pete's trying to find the right boat for us.  It is just plain difficult when there were only 50 or so boats of your top model choice that were ever made.  In fact, when a "for sale by owner" boat popped up that looked like it might be a really good fit for us, he was the first to suggest that we should pursue it and said he would be happy to help answer questions and provide suggestions. I think he has a good balance of providing help and suggestions to novice buyers without being overbearing or pushy.  He seems genuinely interested in getting his customers the right boat for them and not just what gets him the biggest paycheck.  A very welcome change from the stereotypical used car salesman type you might expect.

So, What have we learned so far when it comes to boat brokers?

• While brokers are paid by the seller out of the proceeds of the sale, a buyers broker should have your best interest at heart.  Be wary if the broker is only interested in selling you his listings (they get both the buyer's and seller's portion of the commission that way).
• A buyers broker seems to be a very good idea for a novice boat buyer as they should help guide you through the process, paperwork, etc.
• A buyers broker is even more important if you don't live, or plan on spending every weekend, in a location where the types of boats you are looking for are available.
• A broker has access to some resources not available to the public and can provide things like the selling prices of similar boats (what the real estate profession often refers to as "comps"). [updated]
• Finding a good buyers broker can take time and persistence.  Don't settle for one that isn't 100% in your corner.  For all the bad ones, there are good ones out there.
• Not all brokers for a given company are the same, judge each one on their individual merits.
• So far, Pete Gulick at The Catamaran Company in St. Augustine rocks!

UPDATE: Sadly, I can no longer recommend Pete Gulick (and can't say I could ever actually recommend the Catamaran Company).  A number of issues have arisen post sale that cause me to rescind the recommendation.  I apologize to anyone that may have taken my recommendation and used their services with less than satisfactory results.