The Journey From There To Here

September 2, 2007

The Master's Personal Log:

Buying a boat is an exercise in frustration, heartache, angst, highs & lows, joy, ecstasy and numbing shock. It is also, as anyone who has ever done it, a total irrational act. However, it is a story that will have to wait for the present. Suffice it to say that monies change hands and I became the owner of a 1977, Camper Nicholson 39 foot, center-cockpit ketch,Hull #31. And once it owned me, my primary desire was to get the boat from Annapolis, Maryland, to Mystic, Connecticut, as quickly as I could.

Initially, I toyed with the idea of having it transport by truck but good friends pointed out that doing so would cost me a very valuable shake-down cruise on which I could learn a lot about the boat. They also pointed out that it would be frightfully expensive to have it trucked and not having a lot of money this had an impact. So I got new friend, Capt. Chris Nebel- a delivery captain among other pursuits, and old friend, Ken Soudan, to join me in bringing "Blithe Spirit" up to New England.

We rented a car and drove to Annapolis, intending to get to the boat and shove off for Mystic. Chris had already plotted out a route and with the three of us rotating tricks, 2 hours on - 4 hours off, keeping to 6 knots, we should make the 325 mile trip in a little over two days. We would leave Annapolis mid-afternoon Monday, August 13th, and arrive Wednesday, August 15th, around noon. That was the plan I had ......but I had forgotten the fact that Custer had a plan, too!

We left Chris' house in Guilford,CT, at 11am but we didn't get to New Jersey 2pm. Getting across the Hudson is never easy. As a result, we finally pulled into Port Annapolis Marina about 6pm. The boat had been splashed at 5pm and was at the dock "ready to go." I figured we take an hour or so and then head out. That was the new plan...as as the old proverb goes, "If you want to make God laugh, tell Him your plans!", and I thought I heard some giggling.

We unloaded the car of the provisions and personal gear we had brought for the trip. While Christ familiarized himself with the boat and the engine, Ken and I took the stored gear from the marina locker and tried to find places to store it on the boat. It is truly amazing just how fast 39feet of boat can get filled up! All this activity to another 2 hours and it was then that Chris said he felt that it would be best to leave the next day. We had no idea how much fuel we had in the tank and, as the boat had been on the hard for over a year, what we had was old, probably more varnish that diesel. There we no filters, the batteries we flat, and we couldn't be sure what worked and what didn't. It would be wise, Chris suggested, to go before we got some of this sorted out, something always better done in the light of day. By unanimous vote, we decided to spend the night in Annapolis.

A quick trip to the local West Marine procured that necessary items, mechanical and electrical, that were needed, along with a coffee pot for Christ, a true coffee addict. Ken and Christ went to work on the boat while I went and dropped off the car. I got a nice tour of "Annapolis after Dark" as the car rental agency was not where its website said it was and locating its new location was a bit of chore. A 20 minute project turned into a 90 minute chore. I didn't get back to the marina and the boat until 9pm to find Chris and Ken head down in the engine compartment. They had gotten the boat plugged into the shore power and were charging the batteries. They also had just about every light in the boat on and the engine running. Things were looking good (giggle).

Running the engine for 30 minutes produced a filter brown with diesel that was almost varnish. Filter change, run again, filter change, run, filter change,... the fuel was not good. But the engine would run to get us to the nearby fuel dock where we would add new fuel and all sorts of chemicals.

The electrics were something else. Things went on and off of their own accord and tracing wires was an exercise is frustration. Like many older boats, each new owner added and subtracted different pieces of electrical hardware over the years and since removed the old completely before installing the new was time consuming, the previous owners had taken the common course of cutting off old wires in place and then running the new....and not labeling either. Ken and Chris had been able to track down and get functioning the VHF radio, Nav lights, and jury rigged a functioning bilge pump, such that we could count on them working when needed. This did not preclude other and varied pieces of electrical equipment going on and off at will, or not working whatsoever. Hardware on a boat seems to detest inactivity and having sat for over a year, there was a lot of hardware detesting going on. We crashed about midnight with a plan to leave the next morning bright and early.(Giggle)

Early the next morning at the crack of 8:30am, we got up and preformed our individual morning ablutions. We hit the ship's store for a few last minute items, like fire extinguishers and bilge cleaner, and had breakfast( burritos ) and then it was time to go. Last thing was to walk the "FOR SALE" sign up to the brokers office. At 10:30am, we pulled away from the dock and I can't begin to say how excited I was. True this first trip was only a couple of hundred yards to the fuel dock, but we were on our way. It was fuel up and then off to Mystic. (Giggle)

We made the fuel dock just fine but getting the fuel into the boat proved a bit of a problem. It took us a couple of hours to find the fuel fill. Rather than a simple deck plate fill like that for water, diesel fill was "hidden" inside the locker for the propane cylinders. To make things just a little more interesting and exciting, the fuel fill cap opened to reveal another fuel fill cap and both had been sitting for over a year...read "detest." Ken bent the key getting the plates off. We added the proper chemicals to "shock" the old fuel as the new mixed in and topped off the tank. Actually a little more than topped off as I discovered the fuel vent as fuel spurted out of it. It was (giggle) on the port side of the boat, opposite of the fuel fill.

But we were filled and ready to go and so we "hit the road" as it were. The tach didn't work, sometimes registering nothing and other times absurdly irregular amounts of revs. The temperature gauge was not suppose to work but it seem to and so in a rather "iffy" working state we were on our way at last. (Giggle)

At noon, I decided to start the watch schedule and headed below for a nap. It seemed almost immediately I could hear Christ saying "We have an issued." The temp gauge, which evidently was working, was reading hot and the coolant was spilling on the engine from the overflow bottle. The engine was overheating and had to be shut down. We had sails up but there was no way would could continue without a working engine. We had to call for a tow back to the Marina we just left and were back at the dock a 1pm. The first cruise lasted 7 miles! I was not happy.

While the mechanic worked, I spent the time arranging stuff on the boat, trying to find a place for everything and getting a clearer picture of what we had and what we didn't, all the time hoping that the problem was something simple. The mechanic's best guess was that it was a vapor lock in the cooling system, so it was cleared and topped off. We ran the engine for an hour and it didn't heat up and so we took the leap of faith that the problem was solved. We left for the second time at 4:30pm and celebrated when we got to the point of the previous problem with the engine running just fine.

The route Chris had laid out for us was north up the Chesapeake to the Chesapeake & Delaware Canal, through the C & D Canal, down Delaware Bay to Cape May. We would re-fuel at Cape May and then a 189 mile run from Cape May to Montauk. Fuel up at Montauk and from there to Mystic and the haul out. It was 325 miles, at an average of 6 knots, for a trip of 54+ hours. What could be simpler.