Gearing Up

Now that we've had SweetHaven home for a few days the enormity of the amount of work that needs to be done on her and the frustrating lack of time we have. Marks work and the kids homeschool, we've barely had time to clean her out.
Marks next 'off' rotation in his shifts starts tomorrow so I am spending the day on the Anacortes ferry delivering the infinks up to Sydney BC where they will stay with my parents for the rest of the week so hopefully Mark and I can get a good jag on the boat work.

Today was spent doing ordinary things, making fossils out of cornstarch clay, cutting out Turbo colouring pages, gererally keeping up with school and packing up for the kids trip tomorrow. Suffice to say the kids are very excited for another solo trip to Nanny and Poppys house.

When we were at the boat yesterday with the kids we managed to rummage through some cubbies we hadn't discovered before and we keep finding little gifts. Like a brand new full immersion suit, a new Lowrance GPS and chart plotter, an anti exposure suit, AIS and wiring and controls all hooked up for an auto pilot. So assuming where there's smoke, there's fire, where there are auto pilot wires there must be an auto pilot.

Some emails and inquiries and we found out the autopilot had been sent back to Raymarine for repairs and was waiting to be shipped back to the boats owner. And hey, what do you know? That's us.

I'm not sure how this contraption is able to steer our boat, if it will work. It's been in for repairs so I'm not sure how reliable it'll be, but it's worth a try and hopefully thanks to all our finds we can check off these things from our "to buy list".

Winds-day

It is certainly a wind blustery day today, I can't help but think where was some of this wind on Thursday for our sail around Whidbey? But I think this much wind would have been too much. On the drive in to church this morning it was a struggle just to keep the truck on the road and driving past Penn Cove you could see all the boats moored out there being tossed and rocked by the white caps.
Summer is officially over now, it is so cold here, we're in our big, puffy, down filled winter coats and its been raining for days and it won't stop raining until probably May or June next year, blah.
After church we had a few hours to kill before I took the kids swimming and Mark had to head off to work so we decided to take the kids to see the boat. Aislinn saw it once before when it was anchored in Port Townsend and we couldn't move for the abundance of the previous owners crap everywhere and the boys have never seen it.
In hindsight it probably wasn't the best day to do this, cold, drizzly and 40 knot wind gusts. When we got to the marina we strapped the kids into their life jackets and held tight to their hands so they wouldn't blow away.
You don't realize how long a dock actually is until you've walked it with tiny legs of a child, they were complaining it was too far halfway down to the boat. But we made it, no one blew away and they were very impressed with their first viewing one SweetHaven.
We've been reassuring them that we would have a big boat to live on and it wouldn't tip like the other ones we had gone to see (mono hulls) but the boys just couldn't picture it and were not on board with the whole sailboat thing. But once we got them down inside and showed them their "rooms" they were so thrilled.
It certainly makes me feel better seeing the kids fall in love with the boat instantly even when it is dirty and smelly and unfinished. The boys favourite part was the cockpit head. Which is literally a hole cut in one of the benches in the cockpit with a lid over it. You lift up the lid and you are looking down into the ocean below. Apparently once you have sailed 3 miles off shore you can do your business right into the water. The boys a very excited about this prospect; Ash and I, not so much.

When we had to leave Mac asked when we could come back and Aislinn is counting down how many more sleeps it is until we can live on board. Since I don't actually know when that will be I keep telling her 365 more sleeps, it's going to be a long count down.

Marina Dwellers

Now that we've rested and recovered from our sailing trip to Oak Harbor we naturally are excited to get working on the boat but our schedules make it hard to get there together. Mark went over to the boat and paid our marina fees and got us gate key cards so we we can come and go as we please and then hooked us up to power before he headed off to work. After I finished the kids school I headed over to start cleaning it out. This process is going to take a lot of time and elbow grease.

Thanks to being left at anchor and unattended for months on end our boat is very dirty, a lot of junk and broken things need to be removed, all the cushions and mattresses need to be condemned and thanks to a leaky hatch up front some sanding water in the V birth has facilitated mold growth. I spent a few hours hauling out as much as I could, I filled up three construction sized garbage bags full of junk but they were too heavy for me to get off the boat and up the dock so I hauled out the gross mattresses and cushions and left them in the cockpit for Mark to remove later.

After I'd filled up all available deck space with junk I called it quits, peeling off my respirator and goggles I sat on deck and actually got a look around at the marina. A grey day which is the norm here in whidbey, the air touched with the crispness of fall but not cold enough yet to be uncomfortable. At first I felt it was very quiet. There was no one else around, just boats sleeping in their slips and its odd but you have this impression that you need to be quiet as possible so you don't wake them. But as I sat longer I heard a lot of noises and realized the marina was actually very noisy in a subdued way. Water lapping against hulls, sea gulls sqwaking as they fly over head, ropes and rigging clinking against their masts, flags flapping in the breeze, the dock creaking under your feet, a slight electric hum from wires, fenders squeaking between boats and their births... But they were nice sounds, calming and special I suppose, they are the kind of sounds you need to be quiet to hear or else they get tuned out and fade off into the background.

But my favourite discovery was about fifty feet from our slip is a small log wall and I noticed about twelve seals sleeping on it. They were so still at first I didn't know what they were but I saw some heads lift up and look about before flopping lazily back on their bellies, I can't help but smile and feel blessed that we are finally here, the kids are going to love it.

I need a better camera.

"Call me Ishmael"

SweetHaven is home!
After a few very complicated and stressful weeks, SweetHaven is finally safely birthed in Oak Harbor marina. Okay so, everything isn't perfect, we still have the slight issue of the title to deal with and a owner who is now in Indonesia, potentially a lot of things could still go wrong but who cares right now? The boat is here, and we can start the mountain of work she needs done.

Yesterday we began our journey up and around whidbey island on our first sail on SweetHaven. We took the Port Townsend Ferry from Coupeville over to Port Townsend where SweetHaven was anchored in the harbor. We started the day early, just barely catching the first ferry over at 7:15 am and sat on the beach waiting for Josh, the guy who would be sailing up with us and showing us how to actually sail again since its been double digit years since either of us has sailed before.

It was cold that morning. When Josh and his dog Angel arrived we paddled out to the boat and began getting read to get underway. First job was to hoist the incredibly large anchor with a manual windlass. (Note to self, buy an electric windlass.) It took both Mark and Josh about 15 minutes and a lot of muscle and scraped knees to raise the 90 pound anchor up onto the deck. Because it took so long to raise anchor the boat started to drift and we nearly bumped into another boat anchored beside us, Josh quickly crawled out onto the starboard ama and pushed us off the other boat before we hit.

So we haven't even moved yet and avoided a near catastrophe. Once the anchor was up we started up our lovely new motor and headed toward the fuel dock at the marina near by.

Last week I completed a Washington State boat operators course. Took me six hours of online reading and testing, so now I am sufficiently equipped to drive a boat, at least according to Washington State. On the way to the fuel dock Mark, (whose job is all about the rules of the road and navigating) kept quizzing me as each boat we would approach and who had to give way and who had to stand on. And in that short drive to the marina we managed to come across almost every situation. Sailboat heading towards sailboat. Motorboat crossing sailboat, sailboat coming up to crab fishers and I quickly discovered that just because I know all the rules doesn't mean everyone else does or that they will follow them. So it's pretty much just do whatever you have to do not to crash into anyone.

Coming up to the entrance of the marina we were overtaken by a tug boat which if you follow the rules, the overtaking vessel always has to give way to the vessel being over taken, but it seemed to be turning into a race for who could get to the marina entrance first and we were both on a collision course when they finally slowed to let us go first. It was difficult maneuvering such a large boat around the small marina to get to the fuel dock, SweetHaven has such a large beam, at 24 feet wide that is a big boat that doesn't turn on a dime. But we finally docked up safe and filled up the fuel tank, I learned diesel was pink, who knew?

We got to Port Townsend at 8:30am and didn't actually head out until 12:30pm, we had a deadline to get to Deception Pass by 3:30pm to time our passage through the narrow islands at slack tide to avoid dangerous currents. Once we made it trough the ferry lanes out of Port Townsend harbor we raised the sails.

The clouds blew off by noon and the sun came out unfortunately the wind did not come with it. We ended up having to motor-sail all the way.

We made it to Deception Pass, the bridges that connect Whidbey Island to Fidalgo Island, by 4:20pm, an hour later than we'd hoped but thankfully the water was calm and it was a safe and easy passage. Once we were through, the hard part was done and we had 20 miles left to go. We have no electronics, GPS or chart plotters, anything on board yet so we were navigating with an old chart of the islands we found below. A slight miscalculation on and we thought we were almost at Oak Harbor but we figured out eventually that we were off course. The sun started to set and it got colder and the tinted windows on the cockpit made it increasingly difficult to see land masses so we had to try to guess where we were.

By 7:30pm we were rounding the final edge of crescent harbor and started our passage into Oak Harbor and the marina, tucked neatly up inside. It was so dark by now that while Mark steered in the cockpit I stood up on the bow and shouted back directions for port or starboard to guide him through the markers which he couldn't see through the tinted windows and the darkness. Fortunately our slip was right inside the entrance to the marina and was relatively easy to dock in the dark. Once all lines were tied off and the boat closed up we headed back home where we all collapsed, exhausted but everyone relived to have the boat safely here.

Buying a boat shouldn't be this hard.

It's been a stressful weekend, originally today was supposed to be the day we sailed Aukai (soon to be SweetHaven) up to our waiting slip in Oak Harbor Marina but thanks to lack of knowledge on our part and the total incompetence of everyone else involved we have had to push our date to Thursday. You wouldn't think three more days would make too much of a difference but we had already set up time for my mom to come down and babysit the kids for us, Mark had taken time off work and we'd set up with Josh (the caretaker of Aukai) to sail up with us.

But last Friday I got calls from our brokers head office with some discouraging information.
Firstly she wanted copies of our bank draft because they didn't know where our money had gone (always a great sign).
Next she asked if we'd done the lein search on the boat yet. We said "we didn't, our broker said the vendor had one done." With some more research into this supposition we discovered that our broker hadn't actually had the owner do a legal search but just asked the owner if there was any liens on the boat, which of course he said no to. (Duh).
Next we are informed that it isn't the sellers responsibility to do that but ours and today is the last day for that condition to be met. (Awesome. Would have been nice to know that a week ago)
We are put in touch with a marine document service who very rudely says there is no way we can get that done before Monday. So that meant we couldn't take our boat home. (Bummer)
Soon forms were flying all over the world to us, to Thailand and back to British Columbia, signing extensions to the lein amendment and a letter asking the owner to let us take possession of the vessel before the title is cleared.
Later Friday night the caretaker of the boat called us saying that a big wind storm was blowing through Port Townsend harbor where the boat was precariously anchored, he said he moved it into the marina there for the weekend at $40 a night and needed us to pay for that.
Okay, first off, we do not own the boat yet! How has it become our responsibility to pay for the boat safe keeping when it isn't ours?
Safe to say we were not impressed with this turn of events. It's mind numbing the things we have had to do these past two weeks trying to get this deal done. Of course being the good natured snooks we are we paid the $80 to keep the boat safe. Stupid? Probably. But the owner being a flake in Thailand wasn't about to pay to keep it safe and Josh couldn't afford to keep it in the marina and was doing it as a favour to us, because let's face it, if we want to buy the boat, there needs to be a boat to buy. And if its anchor lets go and it drifts off and smashes into a pile a splinters who does that help? No one.
Of course this was the last straw, which generated heated emails and phone messages to the owner, to both brokers we are dealing with now and pretty much anyone who would listen. We gave the ultimatum that if all the papers/extensions/amendments and the letter releasing the vessel into our possession was not signed by Monday (today) then the deal was off, we expected every cent of our money back including this $80 we spent on a marina.
Sadly but true, the squeaky wheel gets the grease and signed papers started rolling on on Sunday. The boat is safely back at her anchor, the broker got the original documents (title/registration) delivered to our lawyer so she can get the lein search done, by Wednesday (I coerced her into promising) and everything is set to go for Thursday, to sail her up. (Lord willing).
It's been one heck of a hassle and alot of wind has been let out of our sails (metaphorically). Something we were so excited about is now a drag, made us wonder if this is actually the right thing to be doing, how many road blocks are too many? But we carry on, pray everything will work out and hope to get back some of our excitement and anticipation we originally had about finally buying our sailboat.

Decor, Decals and Deck Shoes

After a trip to Home Depot and picking up every colour catalogue and paint chip they had we spent a few nights trying to agree on what colour scheme to use for the inside of SweetHaven. We've managed to find one we both like.

The colours look more purpley in this picture but they are actually blue. Hopefully these colours will be light enough with a mix of cool and warm colours to make is cozy in a small space. The inside walls of the boat will be the soft white colour to keep it bight, the cushions and mattresses in the bunks will be the light blue colour and accessories, like pillows and curtains will be a mix of the darker blue and yellow. 

Now that we have a general colour scheme it's on to try and find materials in those colours. Easier said than done on Whidbey Island where the extent of my material selection is a few super expensive quilting shops and whatever the Walmart fabric department had to offer.

Now that we've dealt with the inside decisions we need to decide on what kind of decals to get for christening and officially making Aukai into SweetHaven. Below are the fonts we like but if anyone has any suggestions on which one they prefer feel free to leave a comment and help us narrow it down.

Font #1

Fon

Font #2

Font #3

Font #4

Font #5

Font #6

Mark likes #2 and #5 I like #1 and #6

And lastly, what self-respecting boat owner doesn't have a pair of deck shoes? Here is my first pair I've ever owned, bought with some birthday money. Thank you Nanny and Baba!

Hiccups.

I guess no business can be done without running into some snags. So annoying though. Dealing with three different people, the most important person to this deal being in Phuket, Thailand, another living off his own sailboat with limited availability and a broker who is pretty much impossible to reach. It seems like I've been playing phone message tag for weeks and have yet to actually talk one on one with the boat broker.

I am not the type of person who can be patient and just let things go, roll with the punches, let the chips fall where they may, blah, blah, blah. I have done everything I can possibly do. Papers are signed, finances are in escrow with the broker, arrangements have been made for the transit up to our marina in Oak Harbor on Monday, September 23. Insurance setup for coverage to start on that day, marina slip booked, Grandma coming down from Victoria, BC to sit with the "infinks", Mark took time off of work, we are good to go, except for the issue of the title.

So to legally own the boat the owner needs to sign over the title of the boat to us, the same as buying a car, but the title is here currently on the boat and oh wait... Ha ha, the owner is 7500 miles away. It's kind of difficult for him to sign a paper then isn't it? Why yes it is. 

So here we are, a boat anchored in a precarious place, interest being ecrued daily on money stuck in escrow, we're all dressed up and actually have a place to go, just don't know if we can go, all because of one piece of paper, all be it a very important piece of paper.

So stand by until tomorrow, when we hopefully can actually get the broker on the phone and see what his magic solution is to getting this title problem solved and if Monday is going to work still, if not then the boat will need to be moved to a safer anchorage now that the winds are shifting as the season changes and we will be back to waiting... How fast can a FedEx plane get to Thailand and back?

Bean to Beanstalk.

Once the decision was made to make an offer on SweetHaven, Mark and I sat down with a pen and a paper and started making a boat list. A list of everything we could imagine that the boat would need and repairs that needed to be made. At first it didn't seem too bad at first, a smallish list of mainly cosmetic things, and we thought, "this is doable." But that original smallish list seems to keep growing, I'm just afraid that its going to grow from a little bean into a giant beanstalk.

The Boat List. Fibreglass (port ama repair). $50- Epoxy resin (port ama repair). $100- Fabric (cushions, curtains...). $400- Foam (cushions, mattresses). $300- Curtain hardware. $100- Grey water tank/pipes/fittings. $350- Black water tank/pipes/fittings. $400- Fresh water tank/pipes/fittings. $400- Manual marine head. $250- Plumbing for head. $80- Head sink/cabinetry $200- Sink plumbing. $80- Hand held shower/hookups. $50- Wrap around curtain rod. $30- Bilge pump (x2). $150- Shower drain/installation. $100- Wind sensor Depth/speed transducer Display $1300- Barometer Weather station Chart plotter. $1000- Radar. $1300- Batteries (x3). $300- Power inverter. $350- Storm anchor. $600- Trampolines/hardware $500- Decals. $150- Emergency bag. $1000- Flash lights Solar radio Hand held VHF Batteries Rations PFD Survival water maker Etc... Fresh water maker. $3000- Battery bank. Dehumidifier/dry/fan.(x3). $150- Floater jackets (3 children's, 1 adult). $1300- Bosun chair. $300- Inflatable life raft. $3500- Fuel tank. $300- Galley fridge. $300- Propane enclosure. $100- Propane stove/chimney $500- Solar panels/hookups. $500- Miscellaneous $1500-

And if anybody wanted to take the time and a calculator to figure out what all that adds up to, you'll find out its a lot. Okay I'll save you the time, grand total: $21,000. (Picture my grandfather holding his chest and staggering about, a la Redd Foxx, "I think I'm having the big one!) And having just typed all this out I am sure here are things that I have not thought of yet because the list KEEPS GROWING. These estimates are being generous though and includes all the top of the line gear we could possibly need for a trip to circumnavigate the world which is way more than we need for our current purposes so our most immediate needs come in somewhere around $13,000. And even the completely outfitted estimates is still $10,000 under our max fixing-up budget so I think are still doing pretty good, still a bit of wiggle room in case of unforeseen problems. The only thing that would throw a big monkey wrench in the plans would be major structural repairs. But that's just the risk you gotta take I guess.

Names

Ever since we went to see the trimaran which is currently named "Aukai" which I believe is Hawaiian and means "sea farer", we have been discussing what we would call her. Discussing sounds like a nice way to say it when it was more like controlled disagreement. It was like trying to name a child and having experienced this process three times before, I can tell you it wasn't an easy task. Of course over the years one of our favourite passtimes was to wander around the different marinas where ever we happened to be and checkout the boats, window shopping if you will. And every time we'd read all the names and would come away disgusted. People are so unimaginative in their boat names. "Summer Breeze", "wind dancer", "Nauti Cat", "Serenity", "off the hook", "the easy life", "petty cash", "aquaholic" and the word play goes on and on. We cant help but roll our eyes and groan. But now as we are soon to be boat owners we are faced with the task of naming our own boat. Can we avoid the typical desire to be clever that most boats owners seem to be plagued with? Can we find something somewhat unique, but something that also fits us as a family and gives our boat the proper personality? It's much harder than you think. Especially in the cruising world, you and your boat name are one and the same. Of course as is my nature when I have to do something I have never done before, such as naming a boat, I get on google and see whatever info and guidelines I can find in helping with this. And in my searching I stumbled across an article written by Patrick Schulte. Any readers who do not own a sailboat probably will be like, "Patrick Who?" But if you are part of the sailing world, I'm sure you know who I mean. Pat and Ali Shulte write the website . Ten years ago, never having set foot on a sailboat before, they bought a catamaran and circumnavigated the world. Then drove across the country in a classic Porsche, then travelled from Alaska to Argentina in a VW bus. And are now currently living on a fixer-upper sailboat in Mexico with their two young children. The bumfuzzle clan is the go-to resource for all us would-be adventurers.

So back to naming, Pat had detailed in his article his frustrations with typical boat names and in his frank and sarcastic style laid out some good points when it comes to naming your boat. And the one that stuck with me most was try to think about having to spell your boat name over the VHF radio every time you get hailed at sea, every time you come across another boat, or going into ports and you will be asked to spell your boat name, military style. Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, Delta... So Pats suggestion was to have a one word boat name and the smaller the better. With this rule in mind we ended up settling on "Bat" if we should get this trimaran. It made sense. It looks like a bat with its triple hulls attached by webbed wings, it echolocates with radar and sonar like a bat and flies across the water instead of through it and is easy to spell, Bravo-Alpha-Tango. But as much as the name suited the boat, it didn't have any personal connection to us, it's sailors. So we kept looking and after weeks of many suggestions and dictionary and thesaurus searches, covering every topic from Star Trek to the Bible we came up with SweetHaven. For those of you who didn't grow up watching the Popeye cartoons, SweetHaven is the village he lives in.

This picture is of the actuall Popeye village SweetHaven that was made for the 1980 Popeye movie starring Robin Williams, it's located in Malta, hopefully someday we'll sail there. Popeye has a connection to Mark and I, Mark being a sailor man I would send him popeye graphic T-shirts when he was away on deployment, it became our thing. And of course many childhood Saturday mornings spent watching the exploits of Popeye, Olive Oyl, Bluto, Whimpy and Swee'Pea, settled the name SweetHaven for our boat comfortably in our minds. Having channeled the popeye spirit we've given our boat a neat personality which suits our family, now comes the task of deciding what colour scheme to decorate the inside, the name we chose of course helps to decide this too.

"I'm strong to the finich, cuz I eats me spinach, I'm Popeye the sailor man."

Blood work, Boarders and Banking.

One of those days. It worked out that my husband was off today so we try to get as much done in one day as we can since we live so far away from most things. We were all up and at it by 7:00am and had to be out the door by 8:00am to get to Aislinns doctors appointment by 8:30. Our daughter was diagnosed with celiac disease 3 years ago and as a result she hasn't grown very tall of very heavy. Almost 7 years old and only weighs 36lbs and 44 inches tall. So we had a checkup today. Of course we ended up running late, got stuck on the phone with the boat broker. So we rushed out the door at 8:10 and thus were fifteen minutes late for our appointment. The kids and I hurried into the navy hospital doors while Mark had to head to his work building a few streets over to print off some paystatements and T4s for our bank appointment lasted that afternoon. Unfortunately this check up required blood work for little Aislinn. It took 2 tries and 4 different nurses to get enough blood. Her arms and veins being so small it was a struggle, poor little girl was so scared but toughed it out and we got it done. So proud of her.

After spending more time than expected at the doctors we had to then drive up to the British Columbia boarder to get to a Royal Bank in White Rock BC where we were to sign papers for the boat loan. Thankfully we made it in time and we were all in pretty good spirits, thinking we would just sign the papers and be done in about half an hour and spend the rest of the day trooping around Vancouver. But... The kids and I waited for Mark out in the waiting room and we waited...

And waited...

And waited. After 2 hours of bored kids in a bank lobby I'd about had it. And what's worse is that the banker forgot to tell us that we needed one other document to get it all wrapped up today so we couldn't get what we needed done today. Still waiting...

Frustrated and hungry by now we left and went to find a toy store to buy "being-such-a-brave-girl" reward toy for Aislinn and the boys too for being so patient and after dropping $70 on foam flyers and a Care Bear doll we went in search of a gluten free restaurant. The day just seemed to get worse as it went along, everyone's patience getting shorter, got stuck in a 2 hour wait at the boarder and once we got through still had an hour and half drive home. Just glad to be home and have the kids in bed. Praying tomorrow is a better day.

We've struck a bargain.

Finally we have come to an agreement between days of emailing back and forth between Washington and Thailand and we have an accord. $20,000 (USD) buys us our trimaran. We are very pleased about it and excited to get things moving. Currently I'm sitting in my living room listening to the thunder roll outside and watching the lights flicker and thinking about our poor boat precariously anchored outside Port Townsend harbor. I can't help but worry, taking in to account our past experience it would not be unlikely for the night we make a deal on the boat that disaster falls. Especially considering the accident that happened to her in a very similar storm only a few months ago (discussed in an earlier post). Praying she's alright until we can get her safely up in the Oak Harbor marina where her comfy cozy slip is waiting for her. Taking care of money issues tomorrow and hope to start sailing her around Whidbey island next Monday, hang on one more week girl, we,re coming!

Countering.

After a long day yesterday of awaiting a response to our $16,500, it took a whole day to hear back from the owner because he is in Thailand. We woke up to a counter off email this morning. He said the wiring was redone on the boat while he has owned it plus a new genoa sail and there are lifelines and stanchions but they just aren't installed. So he countered at $22,500. After some debating this morning of what we would counter his counter with, we decided to go back with $20,000 final offer. Unfortunately because our money is in Canadian dollars and the exchange rate being what it is we have to pay another $700 to get our $20,000 (CAD) up to $20,000 (USD). Which is a pain considering we only have $20,000 (CAD) in our savings and we had hoped not to have to go into debt to purchase the boat and only use our PLC for the renovations on the boat. But I guess there is no point being petty, $500 here one way or another isn't going to break the bank I guess. So we,ll be waiting another day to hear if he accepts our counter, counter offer so by tomorrow morning we should know if we are boat owners. Next question is when we can get funds cleared, and get titles transferred, boat registered and brought up to Oak Harbor from Port Townsend. My biggest concern right now is having paid for the boat and leaving it at anchor in the harbor, where just six months ago it got lose and smashed into a crane causing $10,000 worth of damage. We figure it'll take 2 days to sail around Whidbey Island, and we have to arrange it with the tides and weather, with Marks off shift, with my mom being able to come down from Victoria to sit with the kids and with Josh (the sailor friend of the current owner who showed us the boat) who is going to help us sail it up. A lot of things need to line up, here's hoping for smooth transitions, Lord willing.

Waiting.

Well we just placed an offer of Aukai, the 39 foot, 1979 Norman Cross trimaran. We,ve gone it at $16,500 (USD). The asking price is $29,000 (USD) but that is way over priced. As you can see from our last post there is considerable work to be done on her and a lot of damage and repairs that are iffy. So we'll see what happens. We heard that he had refused an offer of $15,000 last week from someone else so I don't know if he's going to realize this is probably the best he's going to get with the market and the boats condition the way it is. I think sailors just love their boats and think that their sentimentality translates to more than they are physically worth.

Deciding

We've managed to track down the owner of the trimaran, he's in Thailand currently but he was able to email us a copy of the survey he had done when he bought the boat last year, September 2012. The estimated resale value then was $25,000(USD) and that was before the accident which punched a hole in the port ama, but through this survey we discovered that the previous owner had done damage to this poor boat in which they had to rebuild the whole starboard side ama.

The only good thing about this boat it seems is that the engine is brand new and a decent model.

Wiring, haphazard and not up to standards.

Fuel line not properly fastened. (Obviously its just being held by a rope.)

Soft wood. Cracked wood, needs replacing.

The above pictures are of the two amas. The first one, the nice one, looks all clean and proper is the port ama (before the current owner had done his damage to it) and the other picture is the starboard ama after it had taken some severe damage and obviously needed to practically be rebuilt. The surveyor said that the repairs had been done unprofessionally but it was stable but not to builders specifications. His final verdict was that the boat was in an acceptable condition for its intended use, for sailing around coastal Pacific Northwest and should not be trusted for bad weather or offshore cruising. Now that is our intention for the next few years too but after that we want to head out into open waters. So the question now is can this boat meet all of course foreseeable needs? If not, with the amount of money we plan to invest into the boat can't be brought up to meet those needs? Or... And more probable, is this boat just a money pit? A few hours after we received the first survey we were sent a survey that the previous owner had done in December 2011. At that point the boat was in perfect condition and the market value of it just two years ago was $78,000. What a shame! I find it ha to believe that in just two years and two owners this boat has sustained enough damage to have dropped $60,000 in value. It is almost inconceivable. And very sad, I almost want to rescue her poor thing,

Ferry boats, row boats, trimarans, oh my.

Today was our trip to see a 1979, 39 foot, Norman Cross trimaran. This process meant getting up early, doing the kids school and being done by 11:00am so we could have lunch and drive to the Port Townsend ferry for noon. Thankfully for once living where we do was a benefit because the ferry is five minutes down the road. We arrived in good timing, caught the boat as it came in. Half hour later we were rolling off in port Townsend.

Now I have discovered that boat brokers and notoriously bad at giving directions. We spent yesterday roaming all over Everett to try and find a place called Anthony's which the broker assumed we,d know where that was, not so. Today we should have learned our lesson but still we headed out with an email of directions which stated get off ferry, go to Safeway, turn left, go to the end and you,ll find the beach.

Now of course in a town as small as port Townsend we assumed the Safeway would be easy to find. But we ended up already late from the ferry getting in late and that age old question when we reach the intersection and there is only two ways to go. Left or right. And we have no clue which way Safeway might be. It's a 50/50 chance and invariably we choose wrong. And we did. Anyway we eventually found the Safeway and found the beach and saw the boat anchored out in the bay. It's a beautiful day, one of the hottest we,ve seen here, the beach was sandy and the water actually tolerable for the Pacific Northwest.

Meeting up with the broker we awaited a guy named josh who was the friend of the guy selling the boat, (There's a lot of 'guys who know guys' in the sailboat game). So this guy showed up, big read beard, hyper white dog and a teenie, wooden row boat. One look at how far out the trimaran was anchored, the size of the row boat and all five of our gang I know we wouldn't be making this trip as a group. After a quick survey we discovered the boys had no interest in getting in that rickety row boat so I opted to stay on shore with the chickens, I mean boys, and Ash and mark headed out with Josh. While I anxiously awaited them to get back with the first impressions I sat on the drift wood, showed off my muscular prowess by snapping sticks the boys brought to me, tried to teach Finnegan how to chew gum which ended up with him having a stomach full of tutti frutti, until finally they came back.

Aislinns report of the boat was that it was too messy and we should keep looking. Mark was hard to read, he seemed disappointed. We learned that the boat wasn't a complete fibreglass hull but epoxy glass over plywood. Okay so it's a wood boat. Harder to maintain, harder to insure. Here's the historyas much as we can gather: Apparently the owner had some idea of chartering the boat in the Samoan islands. So in preparation for this he talked to a Samoan who said his current engine could not handle the currents down there so he installed some homemade engine mounts off the stern, put on two out board motors but he installed the mounts too low so that when he put it in the water the engines submerged and flooded, opps. So next he anchored the host out in the harbor. About six months ago some northerly winds came up and dislodged it from its anchor hold and the boat floated all the way across the harbor and crashed into a navy crane. It got stuck and the owners solution to unstick it was to ram it with a metal hulled boat, which in turn ripped a hole through the port ama and filled it with water. But I think he was drunk at the time. So being broke and uninsured he hired a boatbuilder 'guy' he knew and they repaired it. So I have to say from the outside you can barely see there was any damage but of course when you open the hatch you see the new materials verses the old ones. After he blew what was left of his money cache on the repairs he picked up and went to Hawaii and left the boat with his friend to sell for him. So this leaves us with my opinion, as it was my turn to head out to the boat, I climbed in row boat with Josh and his dog angel and off we went. First step on the deck and I loved it. So huge, so stable so much room, great sails, nice cockpit. Love, love, love.

Inside was a trash heap. thankfully I was able to look past the mess and see the reality. The boat is a project, three double berths, decent galley but no water hooked up to it. No head, no tanks, no plumbing. It has electrical and VHF but no navigation electronics. I'm sure most people would turn tail and run but for the right price I am on board.

So now our major concern was the integrity of his repair from the accident, do we spend the $2000 on a survey but by then we,ll be invested so what's the point? Next question is can we find a company to insure us? So we are on our way to finding all this out, research has switched to wooden hulled boats since we had dismissed that as an option right from the get go. Assuming all things align right for us, we anticipate making an offer soon.