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.